"Hearken, bishops and prelates! I, Gregory, standing at the judgment seat of God, am yet the Vicar of Christ. Of me it is said, 'Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven;' and let my last act on this sinful earth be this—to devote to the devil and his angels the souls of Henry, king of the Germans, who vaunts the name of emperor, and Guibert, whose sin shall be forgiven never, for he is Antichrist."
The pontiff gasped for breath; his voice sounded again.
"Take vellum, and write the formula of the greater excommunication against the two accursed. Make haste: for all the rest of the world I will forgive, but they shall be parched forever. Then let me, like Pope Zacharias, sign the anathema with the very blood of Our Lord. Haste; for the time grows short."
They obeyed like mute slaves. Richard saw a priest's pen racing over the parchment, and shivered to his young self; for two of the world's highest were being handed over to eternal torment. The Pope still sat. In his eye flashed a fire born of passion passing reason.
"Yes," he ran on. "I am the son of the carpenter of Saona, the poor monk at St. Mary of the Aventine. Yet I have been set above kings. At Canossa the prince of this world has knelt at my feet, confessing his imperial majesty lesser than mine. I have made and unmade kings; I have raised up and pulled down; and the holy bride of Christ shall come unblemished to her marriage. The Church—the Church—shall wax forever; and this has been the work of my hands!" The Pope raved,—all knew it,—but who should say him nay? Still he stormed on in his passion: "They have driven me to exile, but mine is the victory. I die, but the Church advances to triumph! Kingdoms fall,—the Church is established. The earth passes away,—the Church sits down to the marriage supper with the Lamb: for the gates of hell shall not prevail against her!"
Gregory saw the priest lift his eyes from the writing-desk.
"Is it written?"
"It is written, Holy Father."
"Bring it to me, and bring the chalice and the pen; for I will sign."
The archbishop brought the vellum and the holy cup, and knelt at the bedside; and others had brought lighted candles, twelve in number, each held by a prelate or priest who stood in semicircle about the bed. Then while they chanted the great psalm of wrath, they heard the bell of the castle tolling,—tolling,—not for the death of the body, but for the more grievous death of the soul. "In consummatione, in ira consummationis"—"Consume them, in wrath consume them," swelled the terrible chant.
"Give me the crucifix," commanded Gregory. Desidarius placed one of silver in his hand. A priest at either side bore him up from the bed. Softly, but solemnly as the Judge of the last Great Day, Gregory read the major anathema:—
"I, Gregory, Servant of the Servants of God, to whom is given all power in heaven, on earth, and in hell, do pronounce you, Henry, false Emperor, and you, Guibert, false Pope, anathematized, excommunicate, damned! Accursed in heaven and on earth,—may the pains of hell follow you forever! Cursed be you in your food and your possessions, from the dog that barks for you to the cock that crows for you! May you wax blind; may your hands wither; like Dathan and Abiram, may hell swallow you up quick; like Ananias and Sapphira, may you receive an ass's burial! May your lot be that of Judas in the land of shades! May these maledictions echo about you through the ages of ages!"
And at these words the priests cast down their candles, treading them out, all crying: "Amen and amen! So let God quench all who contemn the Vicar of Christ."
Then in a silence so tense that Richard felt his very eyeballs beating, Gregory dipped in the chalice, and bent over the roll. The lad heard the tip of the pen touch the vellum,—but the words were never written....
Darkening the doorway was a figure, leaning upon a crooked staff; in the right hand a withered palm branch,—the gaze fixed straight upon the Vicegerent of God. And Gregory, as he glanced upward, saw,—gave a cry and sigh in one breath; then every eye fastened upon the newcomer, who without a word advanced with soft gliding step to the foot of the bed, and looked upon the Pope.
None addressed him, for he was as it were a prophet, a Samuel called up from his long rest to disclose the mysteries hid to human ken. The strange visitor was of no great height; fasting and hardship had worn him almost to a skeleton. From under his dust-soiled pilgrim's coat could be seen the long arms, with the skin sun-dried, shrivelled. Over his breast and broad shoulders streamed the snow-white hair and beard. Beneath the shaggy brows, within deep sockets, were eyes, large, dark, fiery, that held the onlooker captive against his will. The pilgrim's nose seemed like the beak of a hawk, his fingers like dry talons. And all looked and grew afraid, for he was as one who had wrestled with the glamour and sin of the world for long, and had been more than victor.
Pope and pilgrim gazed upon each other: first spoke Hildebrand:—
"Sebastian, my brother-monk!"
"Hildebrand, my fellow at St. Mary's!"
Then the apparition fell on his knees, saying humbly:—
"And will not the Pope bless Sebastian the palmer from Jerusalem?"
What the pontiff replied was lost to all about; then louder he spoke:—
"And has Sebastian the palmer forgotten his love for Hildebrand the monk, when he reverences the Vicar of Christ?"
But the stranger arose.
"I kneel, adoring Gregory, Vicegerent of God: I stand to lay bare to Hildebrand, the man, his mortal sin."
A thrill of horror ran through all the churchmen, and the archbishop whispered darkly to Desidarius, but the Pope reproved:—
"And I implore the prayers of Sebastian, a more righteous man than I; let him speak, and all Christians honor him."
So they stood. The palmer drew close to the bedside, pointing into the pontiff's face a finger bare as that of one long in the grave.
"Listen, Hildebrand of Saona! I am come from my pilgrimage to the tomb of our dear Lord. I have come hither to fall at your feet, to bid you remember the captivity of the city of Christ, and His sorrow at the wrong done Him through His little ones. I come to find the Vicar of Christ like the meanest of humankind, nigh to death, and preparing to stand naked at God's tribunal. I find him not forgiving his enemies, but devoting to hell. I find him going before God, his last breath a curse—"
But the Pope was writhing in agony.
"Not this, my brother, my brother," rang his plea. "O Sebastian, holier man than I," and he strove to turn from the palmer's terrible gaze, but could not. "Not in my own wrath and hatred do I this. Henry and Guibert blaspheme Christ and His church, not me. Did I not freely forgive Censius the brigand, who sought my life? Have I ever been a worldly prelate, whose cellars are full of wines, whose castles abound with plate and falcons and chargers? Has simony or uncleanness ever justly been laid at my door? Not so, not so,—I am innocent."
But Sebastian never wavered. "You and I were fellow-monks at St. Mary's, friends, as one soul dwelling in two bodies. But the pleasure of God led us wide apart; you became maker of popes, very Pope—I remained a simple monk; for our Lord spared me the burdens of greatness. Now for the third time I have been to the tomb of Christ, to plead pardon for my many sins and I bring from Palestine treasures more precious than gold."
The whole company was about the palmer when he drew forth a little packet. "See—the finger-bone of the blessed St. Jerome; this flask is filled with water of Jordan; this dust my poor hands gathered at the Holy Sepulchre." And now all bowed very low. "This splinter is of that wood whereon the price of all our sins was paid."
Hildebrand took the last relic, kissed it, placed it in his bosom lovingly. Then came the slow question. "And are the Eastern Christians still persecuted, the pilgrims outraged, the sacred places polluted?"
"Look, Sanctissime" was the answer, tinged half with bitterness and scorn; and Sebastian bared his arm, showing upon it a ring of scarce healed scars. "These are tokens of the tortures I endured by command of the Emir of Jerusalem, when I rejoiced to be counted worthy to suffer for Christ's dear sake."
"Wounds of Our Lord!" cried the archbishop on his knees, "we are unworthy