Serlio._ The Chian! Hee!
None's like the Chian! and to-morrow, meat!
Last week old Ugo died and we had pheasant.

_Hilarion._ When we are priests we'll give no comforting
To wife or maid--till we have sipped!

_Serlio._ And supped!
Though 'tis a Friday and the Pope is dead!

[_Silence. They work faster._

_Hilarion._ There, it is done. Now to the image.

[_Mounts pillar._

_Serlio._ Well,
Olympio, the cock who fetched us, said
That image fell first on the day----

_Hilarion._ Tchuck! tchuck!
Better no breath about that lord of Paphos,
Or any here. For till the dead are three
Days gone, you know--! But there's the woman. Feign.

[_As_ ALESSA _re-enters; hypocritically._

The blessed dead! in Purgatory may
They briefly bide.

_Serlio._ Aye! aye!

_Alessa_ (_still troubled_). What say you?

_Hilarion._ Ah!
I lay that it is wiser never to foul
The dead, even in thinking,
For they may hear us, none can say, and once
My mother saw a dead man who had gone
Unshriven start up white and cry out loud
When he was curst.

_Serlio._ O Lord!

_Alessa_ (_staring_). No!... Well, such things
There are perchance. And now they say that Venus,
The Anadyomene, who once ruled this isle,
Is come again.... But you have finished? Soon
They bring her body here.

_Hilarion._ Now have I, now!
It will not totter again.

[_Descends._

_Alessa._ Would that it might
Upon the head of----(_catches herself; calmly_) You are awaited
There in the sacristy.... The chant begins!

[_The acolytes go. She grows more disquieted._

Begins! and lady Yolanda still awaits
Heedless, though Lord Amaury's desperate,
As is the Paphian!... They near!... The curtains!

[_Goes to door and draws them back. As she does so
the chant swells louder. Then the cortege
enters_--MORO, _the acolytes with tapers;_
BERENGERE _on a litter_, AMAURY, RENIER,
VITTIA, _the women_, HASSAN, _and last_
YOLANDA. _The litter_, AMAURY _by it, comes to