of Pavia, "to
request aid from the English king. His Camp is only ten miles from
here, and a simple request from your Holiness will be sufficient to
have his troops put at your orders."

This proposal awakened the Pope's astonishment; his irritated glance
was fixed upon the Cardinal.

"We take refuge at the English Court!--we trust to a man who has
violated the bonds of matrimony, and whose cruelty never hesitates in
shedding innocent blood!--We put ourself in the power of one who
acknowledges no laws, who has nothing of human in his constitution, who
tramples underfoot divine and ecclesiastical laws and precepts!--But we
should be in a position still more degraded than that which poor Victor
occupies with the Emperor."

The Cardinal had nothing to reply to this and bent his head in silence.

"Perhaps Spain is the only country in which your Holiness can find an
asylum?" said Maurice of Pavia.

But Alexander interrupted him at once.

"Spain!---oh! poor Spain," said the Pope sadly. "You have not yet
learned, my dear brothers, the news which reached me yesterday. The
Moors have mustered all their forces; they have summoned from the
deserts of Africa their countless hordes of savage bandits, who will
throw themselves upon Spain like the sands of the desert. And to
think," continued the Pope, "that the Emperor, instead of fighting
against the Crescent, encourages the enemies of our holy religion by
his own impious struggles against the Apostolic See. My brethren, these
are bitter trials!--May God preserve the faithful from persecution,
prison, and death!--May Christendom be not divided by schism!--May we
remain at the helm to guide our bark through the troubled sea."

He was silent and with bent head forgot his own situation in reflecting
on that of the Church. On their part, the prelates remained speechless
with emotion.

At last Alexander raised his head, and his look was calm though
dejected, as he declared his unalterable determination not to seek to
escape by flight from the danger which now threatened him.

"You will be good enough, Cardinal," he said to William of Pavia, "to
take care that all the archbishops, bishops, and prelates whom we have
admitted to the reception of the royal envoy be invited to the reunion.
Our intention is, perhaps for the last time, to speak openly in order
to defend the rights and the liberties of the Church."

He rose as a signal that the audience was at an end. All who were
p