peeped out anywhere, it was in
the careful arrangement of the bushy beard, and of the few curling locks
which the tonsure had spared. But the height and majesty of his figure,
the stern and massive beauty of his features, the flashing eye, curling
lip, and projecting brow--all marked him as one born to command. As the
youth entered, Cyril stopped short in his walk, and looking him through
and through, with a glance which burnt upon his cheeks like fire, and
made him all but wish the kindly earth would open and hide him, took the
letters, read them, and then began--

'Philammon. A Greek. You are said to have learned to obey. If so you
have also learned to rule. Your father-abbot has transferred you to my
tutelage. You are now to obey me.'

'And I will.'

'Well said. Go to that window, then, and leap into the court.'

Philammon walked to it, and opened it. The pavement was fully twenty
feet below; but his business was to obey, and not take measurements.
There was a flower in the vase upon the sill. He quietly removed it,
and in an instant more would have leapt for life or death, when Cyril's
voice thundered 'Stop!'

'The lad will pass, my Peter. I shall not be afraid now for the secrets
which he may have overheard.'

Peter smiled assent, looking all the while as if he thought it a great
pity that the young man had not been allowed to put talebearing out of
his own power by breaking his neck.

'You wish to see the world. Perhaps you have seen something of it
to-day.'

'I saw the murder--'

'Then you saw what you came hither to see; what the world is, and what
justice and mercy it can deal out. You would not dislike to see God's
reprisals to man's tyranny?.... Or to be a fellow-worker with God
therein, if I judge rightly by your looks?'

'I would avenge that man.'

'Ah! my poor simple schoolmaster! And his fate is the portent of
portents to you now! Stay awhile, till you have gone with Ezekiel into
the inner chambers of the devil's temple, and you will see worse
things than these--women weeping for Thammuz; bemoaning the decay of an
idolatry which they themselves disbelieve--That, too, is on the list of
Hercules' labour, Peter mine.'

At this moment a deacon entered.... 'Your holiness, the rabbis of the
accursed nation are below, at your summons. We brought them in through
the back gate, for fear of--'

'Right, right. An accident to them might have ruined us. I shall not
forget you. Bring them up. Peter,