The Pope was a huge figure of straw with a wax face, carried in a chair on the shoulders of four men. He was clothed in an expensive scarlet silk robe, and wore on his head a tiara of painted pasteboard, decorated with sparkling glass; his scornful and saturnine face, which, if meant for the reigning pontiff, was a cruel libel on the most honourable and simple of men, was turned a little to one side in the action of listening to a huge black-horned Devil who was busily whispering in his ear, one stiff hand was raised with two fingers lifted in blessing, and the other (both formed of white gloves stuffed, with glass beads on the backs) hung limply by his side.
The young man who had befriended Mr. Sidney and his friend gave some kind of a whistling signal, upon which the greater number of the crowd broke into verses of a doggerel song against popery and the bishops. As each sang different words and tune the result was a mere lusty din, in which not a syllable was distinguishable; nevertheless the hundred voices of hate, derision, scorn, and triumph addressing the dumb grotesque image of a loathed religion had an impressive significance and contained a deep warning.
For these were not isolated nor feeble voices—the will and purpose of a great nation echoed in them—nor were they the voices of mere fanaticism, but the cries of protest raised by a jealous people whose liberties had been struck at and broken.
In the faces the leaping flames brought into relief against the surrounding darkness might be traced that fearless English spirit that would not for long own a master; in the coarse jeers, hoots, and hisses might be discerned that devotion to the reformed faith that had united Anglican and Dissenter (despite the high bid the King had made for the favour of the latter), in stern and unyielding opposition to the Romanist worship that was in vain being forced on them.
Mr. Sidney wondered if James could see these faces and hear these voices it would give him pause; if even his hard bigotry would not learn something of the temper of a strong people roused. It seemed incredible that if the King could see these people now that he could forget Cromwell and his own exiled youth.
The dummy Pope was lowered from his seat of mock triumph and pitched forward into the centre of the flames, the Devil clinging to him, at which a savage roar rose as if real flesh and blood had been sacrificed to appease fierce passions.
Mr. Sidney a little drew back against the flame-flushed pillars behind him. As the spreading fire scorched his face so the temper of the crowd put a kind of awe into his heart.
"Who is to manage these?" he murmured. He was no statesman. Then he pulled his companion by the sleeve. "There was a man killed to-day—let us get on——"
But the sailor, with his arms folded across his breast, was watching the bonfire, in the heart of which the Pope appeared to be writhing as he shrivelled, while his wax face ran into one great tear, his tiara shrunk and disappeared, and the Devil, a black patch in the redness, emitted horrid fumes of sulphur as he was consumed.
"'Tis a pretty show," he said briefly.