The vast assembly was for a moment motionless with terror and surprise, expecting little less than universal destruction in the downfall of the whole edifice on their heads, with all its ponderous mass of iron and stone. A cry arose that the Pontiff had been killed, which was echoed in a thousand varying voices, according as men's fears or hopes prevailed. But in the first moment of panic, when it was doubtful whether or not the entire center of the Basilica would crumble upon the assembly, Eckhardt had rushed from the comparative safety of his own station to the side of the Pontiff as if to shield him, when with the majesty of a prophet interposing between offended heaven and the object of its wrath, Gerbert of Aurillac uttered with deep fervour and amid profound silence a De Profundis. The multitudes were stilled from their panic, which might have been attended with far more serious consequences than the accident itself. There was a solemn pause, broken only by a sea-like response of "Amen"—and a universal sigh of relief, which sounded like the soughing of the wind in a great forest.
All distinctions of rank seemed blotted out in that supreme moment. Then the voice of Nilus was heard thundering above the breathless calm, while he held aloft an ebony crucifix, in which he always carried the host:
"The summits of St. Peter still stand! When they too fall, pilgrims of the world—even so shall Christendom fall with them."
At a sign from the Pontiff his attendants raised aloft the canopy, under which he had entered. But he refused to mount the chair and heading the bishops and cardinals, he left the church on foot. The Datary gave one look of hopeless despair, as the masses crowded out of the Basilica, and abandoned all hope of restoring order. In an incredibly short time the vast area was emptied, Crescentius being one of the last to remain in its deepening shadows. With a degree of vacancy he gazed after the vanishing crowds, more gorgeous in their broken and mingled pomp, as they passed out of the high portals, than when marshalled in due rank and order.
He too was about to leave, when he discerned a monk who stood gazing, as it were, incredulously at the shattered altar-pavement and the mass of iron deeply embedded in it. Hastily he advanced towards him, but as he approached he was struck by observing the monk raise his eyes, sparkling with mad fury, to the lighted dome above and clench his hands as if in defiance of its glory.
"Thou seemest to hold thy life rather as a burden than a blessing, monk, since thus thou repayest thy salvation," Crescentius addressed the friar, somewhat staggered by his attitude.
"Ay! If I have done Heaven a temporal injury,—be comforted, ye saints—for ye have wrought me an eternal one!" growled the monk between clenched teeth.
"Heaven?" questioned Crescentius, almost tempted to the conclusion that the monk, whoever he was, was out of his senses.
"Even Heaven," replied the monk. "One cubit nearer the altar,—I thought the struggle over in my soul between the dark angel and the bright—I had strung my soul to its mighty task,—yet I shrank from it, a second, and more cowardly Judas."
Crescentius gazed at the friar without grasping his meaning.