"I will tell it to you in a few words. It happened one night while Gregory the Great occupied the throne of St. Peter, that a terrible pestilence had broken out in Rome. None knew whence the scourge came, nor what caused it, but he who was smitten fell dead at once; the very air was infected, and it is since then that it is customary to say when a man sneezes: God bless you!--that means: may God preserve you from the pestilence! Now, when the disease had reached its height, Pope Gregory ordered a general fast and a procession through the city, to implore God's pity. Nothing was of any avail, although the physicians opposed the procession, on the ground that the concourse of so many persons would necessarily tend to spread the contagion. Gregory, absorbed in pious meditations, mounted to the summit of that tower, precisely as Alexander has since done. The people marched slowly onward, chanting the _miserere_; at every moment their ranks grew thinner, as a corpse fell to the ground. Suddenly the sky became illumined, and an angel was seen upon the tower. He held in his hand a fiery sword, which he brandished over the city, and then he seemed to return it to the scabbard. At the same instant the plague disappeared. It is for this that you see there the image of the blessed Archangel St. Michael, who protects us still, for since then the pestilence has never appeared among us." "This is indeed a marvellous legend!" said Goswin. "The flaming sword in the hand of St. Michael clearly shows the punishment which God intended for the Romans." "There is no doubt about it," sneered Guerrazzi. "You laugh?" "Certainly; for I look upon the legend as an idle tale: old women often see miracles where our cool, good sense perceives nothing which is not entirely natural." "But did not the plague cease?" "Yes; but it would have disappeared all the same without St. Michael's interference." The tailor's irony shocked the honest German, whose pious faith saw nothing astonishing in the visitation of the glorious archangel. "If all the Romans thought as you do, they did not deserve St. Michael's assistance." "Bah! the St. Michael of the mausoleum is not an article of the Creed! Although I may think the story of the apparition false, I am not a pagan." Goswin stared angrily at the tailor, and turned away. Whilst this scene was passing upon the bridge, Alexander was hurriedly preparing for his flight. The garrison was ignorant of the intentions of his Holiness, but in the antechamber of the apartment, the bishops and cardinals were kneeling, and reciting fervently the prayer for the safety of travellers. The door of the Pope's chamber was open, and through it might be seen the Head of the Church and two ecclesiastics, all clothed as pilgrims, kneeling before the little altar, on which burned two candles before a large crucifix. The cardinals and bishops prayed with voices tremulous with emotion.