drew rein a little, discovering what was
before him. In the narrow gut of the way a great black banner, borne on
two poles, was lurching towards him. It was moving in the van of a dark
procession of priests, who, with their attendants and a crowd of devout,
filled the street from wall to wall. They were chanting one of the
penitential psalms, but not so loudly as to drown the uproar in the Place
beyond them.

They made no way, and Count Hannibal swore furiously, suspecting
treachery. But he was no madman, and at the moment the least reflection
would have sent him about to seek another road. Unfortunately, as he
hesitated a man sprang with a gesture of warning to his horse's head and
seized it; and Tavannes, mistaking the motive of the act, lost his self-
control. He struck the fellow down, and, with a reckless word, rode
headlong into the procession, shouting to the black robes to make way,
make way! A cry, nay, a shriek of horror, answered him and rent the air.
And in a minute the thing was done. Too late, as the Bishop's Vicar,
struck by his horse, fell screaming under its hoofs--too late, as the
consecrated vessels which he had been bearing rolled in the mud, Tavannes
saw that they bore the canopy and the Host!

He knew what he had done, then. Before his horse's iron shoes struck the
ground again, his face--even his face--had lost its colour. But he knew
also that to hesitate now, to pause now, was to be torn in pieces; for
his riders, seeing that which the banner had veiled from him, had not
followed him, and he was alone, in the middle of brandished fists and
weapons. He hesitated not a moment. Drawing a pistol, he spurred
onwards, his horse plunging wildly among the shrieking priests; and
though a hundred hands, hands of acolytes, hands of shaven monks,
clutched at his bridle or gripped his boot, he got clear of them. Clear,
carrying with him the memory of one face seen an instant amid the crowd,
one face seen, to be ever remembered--the face of Father Pezelay, white,
evil, scarred, distorted by wicked triumph.

Behind him, the thunder of "Sacrilege! Sacrilege!" rose to Heaven, and
men were gathering. In front the crowd which skirmished about the inn
was less dense, and, ignorant of the thing that had happened in the
narrow street, made ready way for him, the boldest recoiling before the
look on his face. Some who stood nearest to the inn, and had begun to
hurl stones at the window and to beat o