"Your time is valuable, Brother Granaglia. Let me present to you my
comrade Signor Edouarts, of whom I wrote to you."

The sallow-faced little man with the tired look bowed courteously,
begged his guests to be seated, and pushed toward them a box of
cigarettes.

"Now, my Calabressa," said he, "to the point. As you guess, I am pressed
for time. Seven days hence will find me in Moscow."

"In Moscow!" exclaimed Calabressa. "You dare not!"

Granaglia waved his hand a couple of inches.

"Do not protest. It may be your turn to-morrow. And my good friend
Calabressa would find Moscow just about as dangerous for him as for me."

"Monsieur le Secretaire, I have no wish to try. But to the point, as you
say. May one ask how it stands with Zaccatelli?"

Granaglia glanced at the Englishman.

"Of course he knows everything," Calabressa explained instantly. "How
otherwise should I have brought him with me?"

"Well, Zaccatelli has received his warning."

"Who carried it?"

"I."

"You! You are the devil! You thrust your head into the lion's den!"

The black-eyed, worn-faced little man seemed pleased. An odd, dry smile
appeared about the thin lips.

"It needed no courage at all, friend Calabressa. His Eminence knows who
we are, no one better. The courage was his. It is not a pleasant thing
when you are told that within a certain given time you will be a dead
man; but Zaccatelli did not blanch; no, he was very polite to me. He
paid us compliments. We were not like the others, Calabressa. We were
good citizens and Christians; even his Holiness might be induced to lend
an ear; why should not the Church and we be friends?"

Calabressa burst out laughing.

"Surely evil days have fallen on the Pope, Brother Granaglia, when one
of his own Cardinals proposes that he should at last countenance a
secret society. But his Eminence was mad with fear--was it not so? He
wanted to win you over with promises, eh? Idle words, and no more. He
feeds you on wind, and sends you away, and returns to his mistresses and
his wines and his fountains of perfume?"

"Not quite so," said the other, with the same dry smile, "His Eminence,
as I say to you, knows as well as any one in Europe who and what we are,
and what is our power. The day after I called on him with my little
message, what does he do--of his own free-will, mind you--but send back
the daughter of old De Bedros to her home, with a pledge to her father
that she shall have a dowry o