An invitation from the Emperor to remain and view the procession marching up the heights of Blacherne had been of itself a compliment; but the erection of a stand for the Prince turned the compliment into a personal honor. To say truth, however, he really desired to see the Pannychides, or in plain parlance, the Vigils. He had often heard of them as of prodigious effect upon the participants. Latterly they had fallen into neglect; and knowing how difficult it is to revive a dying custom, he imagined the spectacle would be poor and soon over. While reflecting on it, he looked out of the window and was surprised to see the night falling. He yielded then to restlessness, until suddenly an idea arose and absorbed him.

Suppose the Emperor won to his scheme; was its success assured? So used was he to thinking of the power of kings and emperors as the sole essential to the things he proposed that in this instance he had failed to concede importance to the Church; and probably he would have gone on in the delusion but for the Mysteries which were now to pass before him. They forced him to think of the power religious organizations exercise over men.

And this Church--this old Byzantine Church! Ay, truly! The Byzantine conscience was under its direction; it was the Father Confessor of the Empire; its voice in the common ear was the voice of God. To cast Christ out of its system would be like wrenching a man's heart out of his body. It was here and there--everywhere in fact--in signs, trophies, monuments --in crosses and images--in monasteries, convents, houses to the Saints, houses to the Mother. What could the Emperor do, if it were obstinate and defiant? The night beheld through the window crept into the Wanderer's heart, and threatened to put out the light kindled there by the new-born hope with which he had come from the audience.

"The Church, the Church! It is the enemy I have to fear," he kept muttering in dismal repetition, realizing, for the first time, the magnitude of the campaign before him. With a wisdom in wickedness which none of his successors in design have shown, he saw the Christian idea in the bosom of the Church unassailable except a substitute satisfactory to its professors could be found. Was God a sufficient substitute? Perhaps--and he turned cold with the reflection--the Pannychides were bringing him an answer. It was an ecclesiastical affair, literally a meeting of Churchmen en masse. Where--when--how could the Church present itself to any man more an actuality in the flesh? Perhaps--and a chill set his very crown to crawling--perhaps the opportunity to study the spectacle was more a mercy of God than a favor of Constantine.

To his great relief, at length the officer who had escorted him from the Grand Gate came into the room.

"I am to have the honor," he said, cheerfully, "of conducting you to the stand His Majesty has prepared that you may at ease behold the Mysteries appointed for the night. The head of the procession is reported appearing. If it please you, Prince of India, we will set out."

"I am ready."

The position chosen for the Prince was on the right bank of a cut through which the road passed on its ascent from the arched gateway by the Chapel to the third terrace, and he was borne thither in his sedan.

Upon alighting, he found himself on a platform covered by a canopy, carpeted and furnished with one chair comfortably cushioned. At the right of the chair there was a pyramid of coals glowing in a brazier, and lest that might not be a sufficient provision against the damps of the hours, a great cloak was near at hand. In front of the platform he observed a pole securely planted and bearing a basket of inflammables ready for conversion into a torch. In short, everything needful to his well-being, including wine and water on a small tripod, was within reach.

Before finally seating himself the Prince stepped out to the brow of the terrace, whence he noticed the Chapel below him in the denser darkness of the trees about it like a pool. The gleam of armor on the area by the Grand Gate struck him with sinister effect. Flowers saluted him with perfume, albeit he could not see them. Not less welcome was the low music with which the brook cheered itself while dancing down to the harbor. Besides a cresset burning on the landing outside the Port entrance, two other lights were visible; one on the Pharos, the other on the great Galata tower, looking in the distance like large stars. With these exceptions, the valley and the hill opposite Blacherne, and the wide-reaching Metropolis beyond them, were to appearances a blacker cloud dropped from the clouded sky. A curious sound now came to him from the direction of the city. Was it a rising wind? Or a muffled roll from the sea? While wondering, some one behind him said:

"They are coming."

The voice was sepulchral and harsh, and the Prince turned quickly to the speaker.

"Ah, Father Theophilus!"

"They are coming," the Father repeated.

The Prince shivered slightly. The noise beyond the valley arose more distinctly.

"Are they singing?" he asked.

"Chanting," the other answered.

"Why do they chant?"

"Knowest thou our Scriptures?"

The Wanderer quieted a disdainful impulse, and answered:

"I have read them."

The Father continued:

"Presently thou wilt hear the words of Job: 'Oh, that thou wouldst hide me in the grave, that thou wouldst keep me in secret, until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldst appoint me a set time and remember me.'"

The Prince was startled. Why was one in speech so like a ghost selected his companion? And that verse, of all to him most afflicting, and which in hours of despair he had repeated until his very spirit had become colored with its reproachful plaint--who put it in the man's mouth?

The chant came nearer. Of melody it had nothing; nor did those engaged in it appear in the slightest attentive to time. Yet it brought relief to the Prince, willing as he was to admit he had never heard anything similar--anything so sorrowful, so like the wail of the damned in multitude. And rueful as the strain was, it helped him assign the pageant a near distance, a middle distance, and then interminability.

"There appear to be a great many of them," he remarked to the Father.

"More than ever before in the observance," was the reply.

"Is there a reason for it?"

"Our dissensions."

The Father did not see the pleased expression of his auditor's face, but proceeded: "Yes, our dissensions. They multiply. At first the jar was between the Church and the throne; now it is the Church against the Church--a Roman party and a Greek party. One man among us has concentrated in himself the learning and devotion of the Christian East. You will see him directly, George Scholarius. By visions, like those in which the old prophets received the counsel of God, he was instructed to revive the Pannychides. His messengers have gone hither and thither, to the monasteries, the convents, and the eremitic colonies wherever accessible. The greater the presence, he says, the greater the influence."

"Scholarius is a wise man," the Prince said, diplomatically.

"His is the wisdom of the Prophets," the Father answered.

"Is he the Patriarch?"

"No, the Patriarch is of the Roman party--Scholarius of the Greek."

"And Constantine?"

"A good king, truly, but, alas; he is cumbered with care of the State."

"Yes, yes," said the Prince. "And the care leads to neglect of his soul. Kings are sometimes to be pitied. But there is then a special object in the Vigils?"

"The Vigils to-night are for the restoration of the unities once more, that the Church may find peace and the State its power and glory again. God is in the habit of taking care of His own."

"Thank you, Father, I see the difference. Scholarius would intrust the State to the Holy Virgin; but Constantine, with a worldlier inspiration, adheres to the craft held by Kings immemorially. The object of the Vigils is to bring the Emperor to abandon his policy and defer to Scholarius?"

"The Emperor assists in the Mystery," the Father answered, vaguely.

The procession meantime came on, and when its head appeared in front of the Grand Gate three trumpeters blew a flourish which called the guards into line. A monk advanced and held parley with an officer; after which he was given a lighted torch, and passed under the portal in lead of the multitude. The trumpeters continued plying their horns, marking the slow ascent.

"Were this an army," said Father Theophilus, "it would not be so laborious; but, alas! the going of youth is nowhere so rapid as in a cloister; nor is age anywhere so feeble. Ten years kneeling on a stony floor in a damp cell brings the anchorite to forget he ever walked with ease."

The Prince scarcely heard him; he was interested in the little to be seen crossing the area below--a column four abreast, broken into unequal divisions, each division with a leader, who, at the gate, received a torch. Occasionally a square banner on a cross-stick appeared-- occasionally a section in light-colored garments; more frequently a succession of heads without covering of any kind; otherwise the train was monotonously rueful, and in its slow movement out of the darkness reminded the spectator on the height of a serpent crawling endlessly from an underground den. Afterwhile the dim white of the pavement was obscured by masses stationary on the right and left of the column; these were the people stopping there because for them there was no further pursuit of the spectral parade.

The horns gave sonorous notice of the progress during the ascent. Now they were passing along the first terrace; still the divisions were incessant down by the gate--still the chanting continued, a dismal dissonance in the distance, a horrible discord near by. If it be true that the human voice is music's aptest instrument, it is also true that nothing vocalized in nature can excel it in the expression of diabolism.

Suddenly the first torch gleamed on the second terrace scarce an hundred yards from the Chapel.

"See him now there, behind the trumpeters--Scholarius!" said Father Theophilus, with a semblance of animation.

"He with the torch?"

"Ay!--And he might throw the torch away, and still be the light of the Church."

The remark did not escape the Prince. The man who could so impress himself upon a member of the court must be a power with his brethren of the gown generally. Reflecting thus, the discerning visitor watched the figure stalking on under the torch. There are men who are causes in great events, sometimes by superiority of nature, sometimes by circumstances. What if this were one of them? And forthwith the observer ceased fancying the mystical looking monk drawing the interminable train after him by the invisible bonds of a will mightier than theirs in combination--the fancy became a fact. "The procession will not stop at the Chapel," the Father said; "but keep on to the palace, where the Emperor will join it. If my Lord cares to see the passage distinctly, I will fire the basket here."

"Do so," the Prince replied.

The flambeau was fired.

It shed light over the lower terraces right and left, and brought the palace in the upper space into view from the base of the forward building to the Tower of Isaac; and here, close by, the Chapel with all its appurtenances, paved enclosure, speeding brook, solemn cypresses, and the wall and arched gateway at the hither side stood out in almost daytime clearness. The road in the cut underfoot must bring the frocked host near enough to expose its spirit.

The bellowing of the horns frightened the birds at roost in the melancholy grove, and taking wing, they flew blindly about.

Then ensued the invasion of the enclosure in front of the Chapel-- Scholarius next the musicians. The Prince saw him plainly; a tall man, stoop-shouldered, angular as a skeleton; his hood thrown back; head tonsured; the whiteness of the scalp conspicuous on account of the band of black hair at the base; the features high and thin, cheeks hollow, temples pinched. The dark brown cassock, leaving an attenuated neck completely exposed, hung from his frame apparently much too large for it. His feet disdained sandals. At the brook he halted, and letting the crucifix fall from his right hand, he stooped and dipped the member thus freed into the water, and rising flung the drops in air. Resuming the crucifix, he marched on.

It cannot be said there was admiration in the steady gaze with which the Prince kept the monk in eye; the attraction was stronger--he was looking for a sign from him. He saw the tall, nervous figure cross the brook with a faltering, uncertain step, pass the remainder of the pavement, the torch in one hand, the holy symbol in the other; then it disappeared under the arch of the gate; and when it had come through, the sharp espial was beforehand with it, and waiting. It commenced ascending the acute grade--now it was in the cut--and now, just below the Prince, it had but to look up, and its face would be on a level with his feet. At exactly the right moment, Scholarius did look up, and--stop.

The interchange of glances between the men was brief, and can be likened to nothing so aptly as sword blades crossing in a red light.

Possibly the monk, trudging on, his mind intent upon something which was part of a scene elsewhere, or on the objects and results of the solemnities in celebration, as yet purely speculative, might have been disagreeably surprised at discovering himself the subject of study by a stranger whose dress proclaimed him a foreigner; possibly the Prince's stare, which we have already seen was at times powerfully magnetic, filled him with aversion and resentment; certain it is he raised his head, showing a face full of abhorrence, and at the same time waved the crucifix as if in exorcism.

The Prince had time to see the image thus presented was of silver on a cross of ivory wrought to wonderful realism. The face was dying, not dead; there were the spikes in the hands and feet, the rent in the side, the crown of thorns, and overhead the initials of the inscription: This is the King of the Jews. There was the worn, buffeted, bloodspent body, and the lips were parted so it was easy to think the sufferer in mid-utterance of one of the exclamations which have placed his Divinity forever beyond successful denial. The swift reversion of memory excited in the beholder might have been succeeded by remorse, but for the cry:

"Thou enemy of Jesus Christ--avaunt!"

It was the voice of Scholarius, shrill and high; and before the Prince could recover from the shock, before he could make answer, or think of answering, the visionary was moving on; nor did he again look back.

"What ails thee, Prince?"

The sepulchral tone of Father Theophilus was powerful over the benumbed faculties of His Majesty's guest; and he answered with a question:

"Is not thy friend Scholarius a great preacher?"

"On his lips the truth is most unctuous."

"It must be so--it must be so! For"--the Prince's manner was as if he were settling a grave altercation in his own mind--"for never did a man offer me the Presence so vitalized in an image. I am not yet sure but he gave me to see the Holy Son of the Immaculate Mother in flesh and blood exactly as when they put Him so cruelly to death. Or can it be, Father, that the effect upon me was in greater measure due to the night, the celebration, the cloud of ministrants, the serious objects of the Vigils?"

The answer made Father Theophilus happy as a man of his turn could be--he was furnished additional evidence of the spiritual force of Scholarius, his ideal.

"No," he answered, "it was God in the man."

All this time the chanting had been coming nearer, and now the grove rang with it. A moment, and the head of the first division must present itself in front of the Chapel. Could the Wanderer have elected then whether to depart or stay, the Pannychides would have had no further assistance from him--so badly had the rencounter with Scholarius shaken him. Not that he was afraid in the vulgar sense of the term. Before a man can habitually pray for death, he must be long lost to fear. If we can imagine conscience gone, pride of achievement, without which there can be no mortification or shame in defeat, may yet remain with him, a source of dread and weakness. The chill which shook Brutus in his tent the evening before Philippi was not in the least akin to terror. So with the Prince at this juncture. There to measure the hold of the Christian idea upon the Church, it seemed Scholarius had brought him an answer which finished his interest in the passing Vigils. In brief, the Reformer's interest in the Mystery was past, and he wished with his whole soul to retreat to the sedan, but a fascination held him fast.

"I think it would be pleasanter sitting," he said, and returned to the platform.

"If I presume to take the chair, Father," he added, "it is because I am older than thou."

Hardly was he thus at ease when a precentor, fat, and clad in a long gown, stepped out of the grove to the clear lighted pavement in front of the Chapel. His shaven head was thrown back, his mouth open to its fullest stretch, and tossing a white stick energetically up and down in the air, he intoned with awful distinctness: "The waters wear the stones. Thou washest away the things which grow out of the dust of the earth, and Thou destroyest the hopes of man."

The Prince covered his ears with his hands.

"Thou likest not the singing?" Father Theophilus asked, and continued: "I admit the graces have little to do with musical practice in the holy houses of the Fathers." But he for whom the comfort was meant made no reply. He was repeating to himself: "Thou prevailest forever against him, and he passeth."

And to these words the head of the first division strode forward into the light. The Prince dropped his hands in time to hear the last verse: "But his flesh upon him shall have pain, and his soul within him shall mourn."

For whom was this? Did the singers know the significancy of the text to him? The answer was from God, and they were merely messengers bringing it. He rose to his feet; in his rebellious passion the world seemed to melt and swim about him. He felt a longing to burn, break, destroy--to strike out and kill. When he came to himself, Father Theophilus, who thought him merely wonder struck by the mass of monks in march, was saying in his most rueful tone: "Good order required a careful arrangement of the procession; for though the participants are pledged to godly life, yet they sometimes put their vows aside temporarily. The holiest of them have pride in their establishments, and are often too ready to resort to arms of the flesh to assert their privileges. The Fathers of the Islands have long been jealous of the Fathers of the city, and to put them together would be a signal for riot. Accordingly there are three grand divisions here--the monks of Constantinople, those of the Islands, the shores of the Bosphorus and the three seas, and finally the recluses and hermits from whatever quarter. Lo! first the Fathers of the Studium--saintly men as thou wilt see anywhere."

The speech was unusually long for the Father; a fortunate circumstance o............