His Worship retired to luncheon, reasonably satisfied with the morning’s work.  And yet not altogether delighted.  Both the Messiah and Peter the Great had eluded his wrath.  Peter was able to prove, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that he had spent the last twenty-four hours on Madame Steynlin’s premises and knew nothing whatever of occurrences in the outside world.  In the face of such a fact—­so comfortable to common knowledge, so inherently probable—­Malipizzo gave way.  He was too good a lawyer to spoil his case.  Sooner or later, he foresaw, that bird would be caged with the rest of them.  Regarding the Messiah, an unexpected and breathless appeal for mercy was lodged by the Communal doctor, atheist and freemason like the judge, who implored, with tears in his eyes, that the warrant for his arrest should be rescinded.  By means of a sequence of rapid and intricate Masonic signs, he explained that Bazhakuloff was a patient of his; that he was undergoing a daily treatment with the stomach-pump; that the prison diet being notoriously slender, he feared that if he, the Messiah, were confined in captivity, than it, the stomach-pump, would be no longer required and therefore he, the physician, a family man, deprived of a small but regular source of income.  Again the astute judge relented.  This is how the Messiah and his disciple escaped.

They escaped, but not for long.

And all this happened while Mr. Keith and his companion, drowsily ensconced among the morocco cushions of their boat, were being wafted over the blue sea, far away, under the cliffs.

CHAPTER XXII

“The Devil’s Rock, gentlemens!  The rock of the Devil.  Where the young English lord jump over.  Everyone know that story.”

The word “devil” caused the bishop to wake up from his pleasant dreams with something of a start.

“You had better take a good look at that cliff,” suggested Mr. Keith.  “It is not only the finest on the island but, I fancy, the finest on the whole Mediterranean.  Those on the Spanish coast and on Mount Athos lack the wonderful colour and the clean surface of this one.  Looks as if it had been done with a knife, doesn’t it?  Alpine crags seem vertical but are nearly always inclined; their primary rock, you know, cannot flake off abruptly like this tufa.  This is a genuine precipice.  Plumb!”

“Terrific,” said Mr. Heard.  “What was that about the English lord?”

“Two young fellows who rented the villa at the back of it for a summer.  They used to bathe and booze all day long.  I was not on the island at the time, but of course I heard about it.  One day the younger one jumped over the edge of the cliff for a bet; said he was going to dive.  They never recovered his body.  There is a strong current at this point.  That’s so, isn’t it, Antonio?”