The Emperor's hands closed, and there was an impatient twitching of his lips.
"Though why should I be astonished? Hark, my friend! I will tell thee what I have as yet spoken to no man else. Thou knowest Kalil the Vizier has been these many years my tributary, and that he hath done me many kindly acts, not always in his master's interest. The night of the day our Christian ships beat the Turks the Grand Vizier sent me an account of a stormy scene in Mahommed's tent, and advised me to beware of Gennadius. Ah, I had fancied myself prepared to drink the cup Heaven hath in store for me, lees and all, without a murmur, but men will be men until their second birth. It is nature! ... Oh, my Phranza, what thinkest thou the false monk is carrying under his hood?"
"Some egg of treason, I doubt not."
"Having driven His Serenity, the pious and venerable Gregory, into exile, he aspires to succeed him."
"The hypocrite!—the impostor!—the perjured!—He, Patriarch!" cried Phranza, with upraised eyes.
"And from whose hands thinkest thou he dreams of deriving the honor?"
"Not Your Majesty's."
The Emperor smiled faintly. "No—he regards Mahommed the Sultan a better patron, if not a better Christian."
"Forbid it Heaven!" and Phranza crossed himself repeatedly.
"Nay, good friend, hear his scheme, then thou mayst call the forbidding powers with undeniable reason....He undertook—so Kalil privily declared—if Mahommed would invest him with the Patriarchate, to deliver Constantinople to him."