Prefect--friend--can you prove that?"

"I should otherwise have taken care not to assert it. The parchment
upon which the act of donation is written shows all the signs of great
age: worm-eaten, cracked, spots of every kind--everything that one can
expect from such an ancient document, so that, sometimes, it is
difficult to decipher the letters. Notwithstanding, the document only
_appears_ to be old; with as much art as many women employ to give
themselves the appearance of youth does it ape the sanctity of great
age. It is real parchment from the old and still existing parchment
manufactory at Byzantium, founded by Constantinus."

"Keep to the matter!" cried Belisarius.

"But it is not known to every one--and it appears, unfortunately for
him, to have escaped the notice of the Bishop--that these parchments,
on the lower edge to the left, are always marked with the stamp of the
year of their manufacture, by the names of the then consuls, in,
certainly, almost invisible characters. Now pay attention, general. The
document pretends, as it says in the text, to have been prepared in the
sixteenth year of the reign of Constantinus, the same year that he
closed the heathen temples, as the pious document observes, and a year
after the naming of Constantinopolis as the capital city; and it
rightly names the right consuls of that year, Dalmatius and Xenophilos.
Now it can only be explained by a miracle--but in this case it would be
a miracle _against_ the Church--that, in that year, therefore in the
year three hundred and thirty-five after the birth of Christ, it was
already known who would be consul in the year after the death of
Emperor Justinus and King Theodoric; for look, here on the lower edge
the stamp says--the writer had not noticed it--it is really very
difficult to make out, unless one holds the parchment against the
lights so--do you see, Belisarius?--and had blindly painted the cross
upon it; but I, with my--what did he call it?--sacrilegious, but
clever, hand have wiped it off; do you see? there stand stamped the
words, 'VI. Indiction: Justinianus Augustus, sole consul in the first
year of his reign.'"

Silverius staggered, and was obliged to support himself by the chair
which had been placed for him.

"The parchment of the document," continued Cethegus, "upon which the
protonotary of Emperor Constantinus had written down the act of
donation two hundred years ago, has therefore been taken from the ribs
of an