The Pope listened and said nothing.
The Cardinal Secretary told another story. The Deputy Rossi, who had
been brought to Rome by the train from Genoa, which arrived punctually
at 11.45, had been rescued by a gang of ruffians at the station. The
rescue had been prearranged, and the man had jumped into a coupé and
driven off at a gallop. The coupé had gone down the Via Nazionale, and a
few minutes before twelve o'clock it had been seen to turn into the
Piazza Navona. It was by the accident that the Carabineers had followed
in pursuit of the escaped prisoner that the murder had been discovered.
Still the Pope said nothing. But his head was held down, and his soul
was full of trouble.
The group of prelates looked into each other's faces with suspicion and
terror. A storm was gathering round the Vatican, and who could say what
would happen if the Pope persisted in the course he had just taken? At
length the Cardinal Secretary approached his Holiness, and said, with a
deep genuflexion: "Holy Father, I fear the tenderness of your fatherly heart has betrayed
you into sheltering a criminal. It is not merely that the man Rossi is a
revolutionary accused of an attempt to overthrow the Government of his
country. There cannot be a question that he is a murderer also, and if
you keep him here you will violate the law of every civilised State and
expose yourself to the condemnation of the world."
The Pope did not reply. Other words in another voice were drumming in
his ears with a new and terrible meaning: "I have broken the law of God
and of my country, and if you have any fear of the consequences you must
turn me out while there is still time."
"Your Holiness will also remember," said the Cardinal Secretary, "that
by the regulation of the civil authorities which guarantees to the Holy
Father the rights of sovereignty, it is expressly stated that he holds
no powers which are contrary to the laws of the State and of public
order. Therefore to conceal and protect a criminal would be of itself to
commit a crime, and God alone can say what the consequence might be to
the Vatican and to the Church."
"Oh, silence! silence!" cried the Pope, lifting a face full of
suffering. "Leave me! leave me!"
The Cardinal Secretary and his colleagues bowed to the Pope and backed
out of the room. A moment afterwards the young Monsignor entered. He was
bringing a newspaper in his hand, for as Cameriere Participante he was
one of the Pope's readers.