o the door, but found it
bolted on the outside. There was no other exit, and no means of giving an
alarm. In this emergency the demeanour of the Italian Cardinals set a
bright example to their ultramontane colleagues. "_Bisogna pazienzia_,"
they said, as they shrugged their shoulders. Nothing could exceed the
mutual politeness of Cardinals Anno and Benno, unless that of the two who
had sought to poison each other. The Frenchman was held to have gravely
derogated from good manners by alluding to this circumstance, which had
reached his ears while he was under the table: and the Englishman swore so
outrageously at the plight in which he found himself that the Italians then
and there silently registered a vow that none of his nation should ever be
Pope, a maxim which, with one exception, has been observed to this day.

Lucifer, meanwhile, had repaired to Silvester, whom he found arrayed in all
the insignia of his dignity; of which, as he remarked, he thought his
visitor had probably had enough.

"I should think so indeed," replied Lucifer. "But at the same time I feel
myself fully repaid for all I have undergone by the assurance of the
loyalty of my friends and admirers, and the conviction that it is needless
for me to devote any considerable amount of personal attention to
ecclesiastical affairs. I now claim the promised boon, which it will be in
no way inconsistent with thy functions to grant, seeing that it is a work
of mercy. I demand that the Cardinals be released, and that their
conspiracy against thee, by which I alone suffered, be buried in oblivion."

"I hoped you would carry them all off," said Gerbert, with an expression of
disappointment.

"Thank you," said the Devil. "It is more to my interest to leave them where
they are."

So the dungeon-door was unbolted, and the Cardinals came forth, sheepish
and crestfallen. If, after all, they did less mischief than Lucifer had
expected from them, the cause was their entire bewilderment by what had
passed, and their utter inability to penetrate the policy of Gerbert, who
henceforth devoted himself even with ostentation to good works. They could
never quite satisfy themselves whether they were speaking to the Pope or to
the Devil, and when under the latter impression habitually emitted
propositions which Gerbert justly stigmatised as rash, temerarious, and
scandalous. They plagued him with allusions to certain matters mentioned in
their interviews with Lucifer, with