organs like the crying of gnats, the
thin celestial music--the faint suggestive smell of incense and men and
bruised bay and myrtle--and, supreme above all, the vibrant atmosphere
of human emotion, shot with supernatural aspiration, as the Hope of the
World, the holder of Divine Vice-Royalty, passed on his way to stand
between God and man--this affected the priest as the action of a drug
that at once lulls and stimulates, that blinds while it gives new
vision, that deafens while it opens stopped ears, that exalts while it
plunges into new gulfs of consciousness. Here, then, was the other
formulated answer to the problem of life. The two Cities of Augustine
lay for him to choose. The one was that of a world self-originated,
self-organised and self-sufficient, interpreted by such men as Marx and
Herve, socialists, materialists, and, in the end, hedonists, summed up
at last in Felsenburgh. The other lay displayed in the sight he saw
before him, telling of a Creator and of a creation, of a Divine purpose,
a redemption, and a world transcendent and eternal from which all sprang
and to which all moved. One of the two, John and Julian, was the Vicar,
and the other the Ape, of God.... And Percy's heart in one more spasm of
conviction made its choice....

But the summit was not yet reached.

As Percy came at last out from the nave beneath the dome, on his way to
the tribune beyond the papal throne, he became aware of a new element.

A great space was cleared about the altar and confession, extending, as
he could see at least on his side, to the point that marked the entrance
to the transepts; at this point ran rails straight across from side to
side, continuing the lines of the nave. Beyond this red-hung barrier lay
a gradual slope of faces, white and motionless; a glimmer of steel
bounded it, and above, a third of the distance down the transept, rose
in solemn serried array a line of canopies. These were of scarlet, like
cardinalitial baldachini, but upon the upright surface of each burned
gigantic coats supported by beasts and topped by crowns. Under each was
a figure or two--no more--in splendid isolation, and through the
interspaces between the thrones showed again a misty slope of faces.

His heart quickened as he saw it--as he swept his eyes round and across
to the right and saw as in a mirror the replica of the left in the right
transept. It was there then that they sat--those lonely survivors of
that strange company