, as the bellow ceased, from a thousand steeples
broke out the clamour of brazen tongues. . . .

He sat still; he knew at least that this he must do. . . . Surely
this obscurity of brain would pass again in a moment. He was
going to meet the Holy Father, was he not? . . . down there, down
that road of light and air, along which now his great barge
floated side by side with the King's. That was it. He remembered
again now as his memory flickered in glimpses. This was the great
Progress round the world of the new Arbiter of the World, the
Vicar of the Prince of Peace, come into his Kingdom at last.

He kept his eyes steadily before him, scarcely seeing the flash
of the river as it swept beneath him and away, or on all sides
the dipping flags, the monstrous gilded prows, the bravery of
colour, down this broad road on which he went, scarcely conscious
that, as he passed, the great barges wheeled behind him to follow
to the meeting; scarcely hearing the tremendous music that,
sweeping up from the crowded streets below, wafted up to him the
adoration of a free people who had learned at last that the Law
of Liberty was the Law of Love. . . .

Ah! there at last they came. . . .

Far down, rising every instant higher above the summer haze,
outlined against a heaven of intensest blue, approached a cloud
that sparkled as it came, that broke into a thousand points of
colour--a long, flat cloud, seen at first as a steamer stretched
across the sky, curving down behind, as it seemed, into the haze
from which it came. On and up it came, growing every instant,
widening and deepening, ever more and more clear in colour and
form and depth.

It could be seen now of what elements it was made--a throng of
tiny specks, moving like stately birds, which, even as the eye
watched, seemed to spread their wings upon the breeze that
followed; to expand their bulk, and to glow, as the distance
lessened, into the separate colours of each. . . .

Then once again bellowed the guns, heard now like the voice of
articulate thunder five miles behind, rolling up the river as if
to welcome this fleet upon its way; and still he kept his eyes
upon those who came so swiftly.

There in front moved the great guard-ships, monsters of
polished steel, decked at prow and stern with the huge banners
that stood out straight behind in the swiftness of their
coming, but which, even as he looked, flapped and bellied to
this side and that as the speed decreased.