in it where quiet still reigned. With
the disappearance of Greek Christianity there had also vanished the last
remnants of internecine war in Christendom; and by a kind of tacit
consent of the world, Christians were allowed a moderate liberty in
Palestine. Russia, which now held the country as a dependency, had
sufficient sentiment left to leave it alone; it was true that the holy
places had been desecrated, and remained now only as spots of
antiquarian interest; the altars were gone but the sites were yet
marked, and, although mass could no longer be said there, it was
understood that private oratories were not forbidden.

It was in this state that the two European Cardinals had found the Holy
City; it was not thought wise to wear insignia of any description in
public; and it was practically certain even now that the civilised world
was unaware of their existence; for within three days of their arrival
the old Patriarch had died, yet not before Percy Franklin, surely under
the strangest circumstances since those of the first century, had been
elected to the Supreme Pontificate. It had all been done in a few
minutes by the dying man's bedside. The two old men had insisted. The
German bad even recurred once more to the strange resemblance between
Percy and Julian Felsenburgh, and had murmured his old half-heard
remarks about the antithesis, and the Finger of God; and Percy,
marvelling at his superstition, had accepted, and the election was
recorded. He had taken the name of Silvester, the last saint in the
year, and was the third of that title. He had then retired to Nazareth
with his chaplain; Steinmann had gone back to Germany, and been hanged
in a riot within a fortnight of his arrival.

The next matter was the creation of new cardinals, and to twenty
persons, with infinite precautions, briefs had been conveyed. Of these,
nine had declined; three more had been approached, of whom only one had
accepted. There were therefore at this moment twelve persons in the
world who constituted the Sacred College--two Englishmen, of whom
Corkran was one; two Americans, a Frenchman, a German, an Italian, a
Spaniard, a Pole, a Chinaman, a Greek, and a Russian. To these were
entrusted vast districts over which their control was supreme, subject
only to the Holy Father Himself.

As regarded the Pope's own life very little need be said. It resembled,
He thought, in its outward circumstances that of such a man as Leo the
Great, withou