and the
colours, the swaying heads, the tossing hands. It was a sea that heaved
before her, lights went up and down, the rose window whirled overhead,
presences filled the air, heaven flashed away, and the earth shook it
ecstasy. Then in the heavenly light, to the crash of drums, above the
screaming of the women and the battering of feet, in one thunder-peal of
worship ten thousand voices hailed Him Lord and God.

BOOK III-THE VICTORY

CHAPTER I

I

The little room where the new Pope sat reading was a model of
simplicity. Its walls were whitewashed, its roof unpolished rafters, and
its floor beaten mud. A square table stood in the centre, with a chair
beside it; a cold brazier laid for lighting, stood in the wide hearth; a
bookshelf against the wall held a dozen volumes. There were three doors,
one leading to the private oratory, one to the ante-room, and the third
to the little paved court. The south windows were shuttered, but through
the ill-fitting hinges streamed knife-blades of fiery light from the hot
Eastern day outside.

It was the time of the mid-day siesta, and except for the brisk scything
of the _cicade_ from the hill-slope behind the house, all was in deep
silence.

* * * * *

The Pope, who had dined an hour before, had hardly shifted His attitude
in all that time, so intent was He upon His reading. For the while, all
was put away, His own memory of those last three months, the bitter
anxiety, the intolerable load of responsibility. The book He held was a
cheap reprint of the famous biography of Julian Felsenburgh, issued a
month before, and He was now drawing to an end.

It was a terse, well-written book, composed by an unknown hand, and some
even suspected it to be the disguised work of Felsenburgh himself. More,
however, considered that it was written at least with Felsenburgh's
consent by one of that small body of intimates whom he had admitted to
his society--that body which under him now conducted the affairs of West
and East. From certain indications in the book it had been argued that
its actual writer was a Westerner.

The main body of the work dealt with his life, or rather with those two
or three years known to the world, from his rapid rise in American
politics and his mediation in the East down to the event of five months
ago, when in swift succession he had been hailed Messiah in Damascus,
had been formally adored in London, and finally elected by an
extraordinary major