ld by the Cardinal on the previous evening that William of
England, with his Consort, had landed at Ostia in the morning and that
the tale of the Powers was complete. But he had never before realised
the stupendous, overwhelming fact of the assembly of the world's royalty
under the shadow of Peter's Throne, nor the appalling danger that its
presence constituted in the midst of a democratic world. That world, he
knew, affected to laugh at the folly and the childishness of it all--at
the desperate play-acting of Divine Right on the part of fallen and
despised families; but the same world, he knew very well, had not yet
lost quite all its sentiment; and if that sentiment should happen to
become resentful---

The pressure relaxed; Percy slipped out of the recess, and followed in
the slow-moving stream.

Half-an-hour later he was in his place among the ecclesiastics, as the
papal procession came out through the glimmering dusk of the chapel of
the Blessed Sacrament into the nave of the enormous church; but even
before he had entered the chapel he heard the quiet roar of recognition
and the cry of the trumpets that greeted the Supreme Pontiff as he came
out, a hundred yards ahead, borne on the _sedia gestatoria_, with the
fans going behind him. When Percy himself came out, five minutes later,
walking in his quaternion, and saw the sight that was waiting, he
remembered with a sudden throb at his heart that other sight he had seen
in London in a summer dawn three months before....

Far ahead, seeming to cleave its way through the surging heads, like the
poop of an ancient ship, moved the canopy beneath which sat the Lord of
the world, and between him and the priest, as if it were the wake of
that same ship, swayed the gorgeous procession--Protonotaries Apostolic,
Generals of Religious Orders and the rest--making its way along with
white, gold, scarlet and silver foam between the living banks on either
side. Overhead hung the splendid barrel of the roof, and far in front
the haven of God's altar reared its monstrous pillars, beneath which
burned the seven yellow stars that were the harbour lights of sanctity.
It was an astonishing sight, but too vast and bewildering to do anything
but oppress the observers with a consciousness of their own futility.
The enormous enclosed air, the giant statues, the dim and distant roofs,
the indescribable concert of sound--of the movement of feet, the murmur
of ten thousand voices, the peal of