"

"Then look yonder," enjoined the ratcatcher, as he pointed to the frescoed
wall, at the same time vehemently snapping his fingers. Phosphoric sparks
hissed and crackled forth, and coalesced into a blue lambent flame, which
concentrated itself upon a depicted figure, whose precise attitude the
ratcatcher assumed as he dropped upon his knees. The Pope shrieked with
amazement, for, although the splendid Pontifical vestments had become
ragged fur, in every other respect the kneeling figure was the counterpart
of the painted one, and the painted one was Pinturicchio's portrait of Pope
Alexander the Sixth kneeling as a witness of the Resurrection.

Alexander the Eighth would fain have imitated his predecessor's attitude,
but terror bound him to his chair, and the adjuration of his patron St.
Mark which struggled towards his lips never arrived there. The book of
exorcisms fell from his paralysed hand, and the vial of holy water lay in
shivers upon the floor. Ere he could collect himself, the dead Pope had
seated himself beside the Pope with one foot in the grave, and, fondling a
ferret-skin, proceeded to enter into conversation.

"What fear you?" he asked. "Why should I harm you? None can say that I ever
injured any one for any cause but my own advantage, and to injure your
Holiness now would be to obstruct a design which I have particularly at
heart."

"I crave your Holiness's forgiveness," rejoined the Eighth Alexander, "but
you must be aware that you left the world with a reputation which
disqualifies you for the society of any Pope in the least careful of his
character. It positively compromises me to have so much as the ghost of a
person so universally decried as your Holiness under my roof, and you would
infinitely oblige me by forthwith repairing to your own place, which I take
to be about four thousand miles below where you are sitting. I could
materially facilitate and accelerate your Holiness's transit thither if you
would be so kind as to hand me that little book of exorcisms."

"How is the fine gold become dim!" exclaimed Alexander the Sixth. "Popes in
bondage to moralists! Popes nervous about public opinion! Is there another
judge of morals than the Pope speaking _ex cathedra_, as I always did? Is
the Church to frame herself after the prescriptions of heathen
philosophers and profane jurists? How, then, shall she be terrible as an
army with banners? Did I concern myself with such pedantry when the Kings
o