“It wouldn’t be bad.”
“Well, I will tell you. That daughter of yours will tell her story through town and she will be believed by hundreds there. The way to silence these rumors, and to turn the tide toward us is to perform a miracle.”
“A miracle?”
“Yes, think of the honor of being Saint Lonzello, the miracle worker, and having hundreds come to your shrine seeking the efficacy of your sanctimonious bones! You may go from the archipelago honored and rich and feared, or you may go from the end of a rope. Which shall it be?”
The two men drew chairs close together and talked earnestly in low tones.
XX.
THE JUDGMENT.
A throng of the devout were gathered in Manila cathedral. To a pillar near the pulpit Ambrosia Lonzello was chained. Neither she or the audience knew, but wires connecting with the chains ran under the floor to the pulpit, connecting them with a key on the floor. Underneath it all was a powerful battery. It had all been arranged secretly, at night, by the Jesuit, who was himself an expert electrician. Bishop Lonzello occupied the pulpit.
“We have come to the test by ordeal,” he told the people. “It grieves me that any one of the flock should have gone astray, but when the one who leaves the true fold is my own daughter I am doubly grieved. And, as though it were not enough that she should desert the true church and become a friend and companion of the enemy of the church and state, she brings accusation against the priests of the Lord, against her own father, and the apostolic nuncio. You have heard these charges, for the unbelievers in the city take pleasure in rolling the scandal under their tongues. It is beneath my dignity to deny, it is beneath the dignity of the Pope’s messenger to deny, such preposterous things. We will call on the Almighty to decide between us. But first, my daughter, let me beg of you, before we reach this supreme test, recant and save yourself.”