s attended criminals to the scaffold, and heard the secrets
of repentant murderers; but why should it be shown me as a thing of
rarity? These thoughts passed through my mind, while Signor Folcioni
quietly remarked: 'I bought this Cross from the Frati when their
convent was dissolved in Crema.' Then he bade me turn it round, and
showed a little steel knob fixed into the back between the arms. This
was a spring. He pressed it, and the upper and lower parts of the
cross came asunder; and holding the top like a handle, I drew out as
from a scabbard a sharp steel blade, concealed in the thickness of the
wood, behind the very body of the agonising Christ. What had been a
crucifix became a deadly poniard in my grasp, and the rust upon it in
the twilight looked like blood. 'I have often wondered,' said Signor
Folcioni, 'that the Frati cared to sell me this.'

There is no need to raise the question of the genuineness of this
strange relic, though I confess to having had my doubts about it,
or to wonder for what nefarious purposes the impious weapon was
designed--whether the blade was inserted by some rascal monk who never
told the tale, or whether it was used on secret service by the
friars. On its surface the infernal engine carries a dark certainty of
treason, sacrilege, and violence. Yet it would be wrong to incriminate
the Order of S. Francis by any suspicion, and idle to seek the actual
history of this mysterious weapon. A writer of fiction could indeed
produce some dark tale in the style of De Stendhal's 'Nouvelles,' and
christen it 'The Crucifix of Crema.' And how delighted would Webster
have been if he had chanced to hear of such a sword-sheath! He might
have placed it in the hands of Bosola for the keener torment of his
Duchess. Flamineo might have used it; or the disguised friars, who
made the deathbed of Bracciano hideous, might have plunged it in the
Duke's heart after mocking his eyes with the figure of the suffering
Christ. To imagine such an instrument of moral terror mingled with
material violence, lay within the scope of Webster's sinister and
powerful genius. But unless he had seen it with his eyes, what poet
would have ventured to devise the thing and display it even in the
dumb show of a tragedy? Fact is more wonderful than romance. No
apocalypse of Antichrist matches what is told of Roderigo Borgia; and
the crucifix of Crema exceeds the sombre fantasy of Webster.

Whatever may be the truth about this cross,