"Fhat are we waiting here for, wumman?" Sant snarled at Mrs. Crowe. "Here let's get out of this. He makes me fair sick with His holy preaching!" At the door, he turned round, bragging boldly like a cock beside his partlet; and waved his bowler hat, "E-e-e-h but A'll mak' Ye squirm, Ye ... inseck!" he foamed.
Ragna was furious. "Holiness, why don't You shoot them at once? You are Sovereign within these walls. Give order for their arrest before they leave the palace, Holiness; and have them shot!"
"It is Our will that they be left to the common executioner," the Pope disdainfully ordained, sitting very hieratically in his chair, young, rigid, and terrific as the Flamen Virbialis. The audience had been a fresh phase of agony to Him: He had tried to merge His humanity in His apostolature, and had failed; and the failure was torment, physical, poignant. He was indignant; and He was dangerous. Their Eminencies inquiringly looked at Him. Leighton blinked; and thought it a dreadful pity. Talacryn was for running out and trying to persuade the blackmailers even at some cost,—anything was better than scandal, he said. The Pope told him not to be a stupid fool with his infernal hankerings after compromise. "Fancy paying for silence!" His Holiness scornfully adjoined.
"No but Holy Father, I think if You were to leave them to me, I could find some way of silencing them. Silence is what we want indeed, whatever."
"Your Eminency is well skilled in the art of silencing people, bad and good. It is by no means an honourable art; and you are prohibited from practising it. We believed that you had ceased to practise it in 1899. Were We in error?"
"No indeed no, indeed, Holiness. It was merely a suggestion of mine, indeed," the cardinal burbled.
"Drop it then!" the Pontiff slammed at him.
"Indeed I do, Holiness, indeed I do, whatever."
"One would hardly have believed that such blatant wickedness could have existed in the world," Sterling gravely meditated.