[CHAPTER V.]
THE LEGATE OF THE POPE.
As Gaspar Manuel left the house of Ezekiel Bogart, he wrapped his cloak closely about his form, and drew his sombrero low upon his face. His head drooped upon his breast as he hurried along, with a quick and impetuous step. Soon he was in Broadway again, amid its glare and uproar, but he did not raise his head, nor turn his gaze to the right or left. Head drooped upon his breast and arms gathered tightly over his chest, he threaded his way through the mazes of the crowd, as absent from the scene around him, as a man walking in his sleep.
Arrived at the Astor House, he hurried to his room and changed his dress. Divesting himself of his fashionable attire—black dress-coat, scarf, white-vest—he clad himself in a single-breasted frock-coat, buttoned to the throat and reaching below the knees. Above its straight collar, a glimpse of his white cravat was perceptible. And over the dark surface of his coat, was wound a massy gold chain, to which was appended, a Golden Seal and a Golden Cross. Over this costume, which in its severe simplicity, displayed his slender frame to great advantage, he threw his cloak, and once more hurried from the Hotel.
Pausing on the sidewalk in front of the Astor, he engaged a hackney-coach—
"Do you know where, —— ——, resides?" he asked of the driver; a huge individual, in a white overcoat, and oil-skin hat.
"Sure and I does jist that," was the answer. "It's meself that knows the residence of his Riv'rence as well as the nose on my face."
"Drive me there, at once," said Gaspar Manuel.
And presently the carriage was rolling up Broadway, bearing Gaspar Manuel to the residence of a prominent dignitary of the Roman Catholic Church.
As the little clock on the mantle struck the hour of eleven, the Prelate was sitting in an easy chair, in front of a bright wood fire. It was in a spacious apartment, connected with his library by a narrow door. Two tall wax candles, placed upon the table by his side, shed their light over the softly carpeted floor, the neatly papered walls, and over the person of the Prelate, who was seated at his ease, in the center of the scene.