ough, revealed no trace of having been
visited for many years. The Pope's book of exorcisms was in its proper
place, his vial of holy water stood unbroken upon his table; and his
chamberlains deposed that they had consigned him to Morpheus at the usual
hour. His illusion was at first explained as the effect of a peculiarly
vivid dream; but when he declared his intention of actually holding a
service and conducting a procession for the weal of his namesake and
predecessor, the conviction became universal that the rats had effected a
lodgement in his Holiness's upper storeys.

Alexander, notwithstanding, was resolute, and so it came to pass that on
the same day two mighty processions encountered within the walls of Rome.
As the assembled clergy, drawn from all the churches and monasteries in
the city, the Pope in his litter in their midst, marched, carrying candles,
intoning chants, and, with many a secret shrug and sneer, imploring Heaven
for the repose of Alexander the Sixth, they were suddenly brought to bay by
another procession precipitated athwart their track, disorderly, repulsive,
but more grateful to the sight of the citizens than all the pomps and
pageants of the palmiest days of the Papacy. Black, brown, white, grey; fat
and lean; old and young; strident or silent; the whiskered legions tore and
galloped along; thronging from every part of the city, they united in
single column into an endless host that appeared to stretch from the rising
to the setting of the sun. They seemed making for the Tiber, which they
would have speedily choked; but ere they could arrive there a huge rift
opened in the earth, down which they madly precipitated themselves. Their
descent, it is affirmed, lasted as many hours as Vulcan occupied in falling
from Heaven to Lemnos; but when the last tail was over the brink, the gulf
closed as effectually as the gulf in the Forum closed over Marcus Curtius,
not leaving the slightest inequality by which any could detect it.

Long ere this consummation had been attained, the Pope, looking forth from
his litter, observed a venerable personage clad in ratskins, who appeared
desirous of attracting his notice. Glances of recognition were exchanged,
and instantly in place of the ratcatcher stood a tall, swarthy, corpulent,
elderly man, with the majestic yet sensual features of Alexander the Sixth,
accoutred with the official habiliments and insignia of a Pope, who rose
slowly into the air as though h