Calabressa burst out laughing.

“Surely evil days have fallen on the Pope, Brother Granaglia, when one of his own Cardinals proposes that he should at last countenance a secret society.  But his Eminence was mad with fear—­was it not so?  He wanted to win you over with promises, eh?  Idle words, and no more.  He feeds you on wind, and sends you away, and returns to his mistresses and his wines and his fountains of perfume?”

“Not quite so,” said the other, with the same dry smile, “His Eminence, as I say to you, knows as well as any one in Europe who and what we are, and what is our power.  The day after I called on him with my little message, what does he do—­of his own free-will, mind you—­but send back the daughter of old De Bedros to her home, with a pledge to her father that she shall have a dowry of ten thousand lire when she marries.  The father is pleased, the daughter is not.  She sits and cries.  She talks of herself getting at him with a stiletto.”

He took a cigarette, and accepted a light from Calabressa.

“Further,” he continued, “his Eminence is so kind as to propose to give the Council an annual subsidy from his own purse of thirty thousand lire.”

“Thirty thousand lire!” Calabressa exclaimed.

But at this point even Granaglia began to laugh.

“Yes, yes, my friend,” he said, apparently apostrophizing the absent Cardinal.  “You know, then, who we are, and you do not wish to give up all pleasures.  No; we are to become the good boy among secret societies; we are to have the blessing of the Pope; we are to fight Prince Bismarck for you.  Prince Bismarck has all his knights and his castles on the board; but what are they against an angelic host of bishops and some millions of common pawns?  Prince Bismarck wishes to plunge Europe again into war.  The church with this tremendous engine within reach, says, No.  Do you wish to find eight men—­eight men, at the least—­out of every company of every regiment in all your corps d’armee throw down their rifles at the first onset of battle?  You will shoot them for mutiny?  My dear fellow, you cannot, the enemy is upon you.  With eight men out of each company throwing down their weapons, and determined either to desert or die, how on earth can you fight at all?  Well, then, good Bismarck, you had better make your peace with the Church, and rescind those Falk laws.  What do you think of that scheme, Calabressa?  It was ingenious, was it not, to have come into the head of a man under sentence of death?”

“But the thirty thousand lire, Brother Granaglia.  It is a tremendous bribe.”

“The Council does not accept bribes, Brother Calabressa,” said the other, coldly,

“It is decided, then, that the decree remains to be executed?”

“I know nothing to the contrary.  But if you wish to know for certain, you must seek the Council.  They are at Naples.”

He pulled an ink-bottle before him, and made a motion with his forefinger.