rs had believed that the young Emperor was in earnest; but when
it was clear that he meant to do justice, Antipope John was afraid, and
fled secretly by night, in disguise. Crescenzio, of sterner stuff,
heaped up a vast provision of food in Sant' Angelo, and resolved to
abide a siege. The stronghold was impregnable, so far as any one could
know, for it had never been stormed in war or riot, and on its
possession had depended the long impunity of Theodora's race. The
Emperor might lay siege to it, encamp before it, and hem it in for
months; in the end he must be called away by the more urgent wars of the
Empire in the north, and Crescenzio, secure in his stronghold, would
hold the power still. But when the Roman people knew that Otto was at
hand and that the antipope had fled, their courage rose against the
nobles, and they went out after John, and scoured the country till they
caught him in his disguise, for his face was known to many. Because the
Emperor was known to be kind of heart, and because it was remembered
also that this John of Calabria, who went by many names, had by strange
chance baptized both Otto and Pope Gregory, the Duke of Franconia's son,
therefore the Romans feared lest justice should be too gentle; and
having got the antipope into their hands, they dealt with him savagely,
put out his eyes, cut out his tongue and sliced off his nose, and drove
him to prison through the city, seated face backwards on an ass. And
when the Emperor and the Pope came, they left him in his dungeon.

Now at Gaeta there lived a very holy man, who was Saint Nilus, and who
afterwards founded the monastery of Grottaferrata, where there are
beautiful wall paintings to this day. He was a Greek, like John of
Calabria, and though he detested the antipope he had pity on the man
and felt compassion for his countryman. So he journeyed to Rome and came
before Otto and Gregory, who received him with perfect devotion, as a
saint, and he asked of them that they should give him the wretched John,
'who,' he said, 'held both of you in his arms at the Font of Baptism,'
though he was grievously fallen since that day by his great hypocrisy.
Then the Emperor was filled with pity, and answered that the saint might
have the antipope alive, if he himself would then remain in Rome and
direct the monastery of Saint Anastasia of the Greeks. The holy man was
willing to sacrifice his life of solitary meditation for the sake of his
wretched countryman, a