BY WILLA CATHER DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP "_Auspice Maria!_" Father Vaillant's signet-ring NEW YORK ALFRED A KNOPF--MCMXXVII COPYRIGHT 1926, 1927, BY WILLA CATHER _The Works of_ WILLA CATHER ALEXANDER'S BRIDGE O PIONEERS! THE SONG OF THE LARK MY ANTONIA ONE OF OURS A LOST LADY THE PROFESSOR'S HOUSE MY MORTAL ENEMY YOUTH AND THE BRIGHT MEDUSA CONTENTS Prologue. At Rome 1. The Vicar Apostolic 2. Missionary Journeys 3. The Mass at Ácoma 4. Snake Root 5. Padre Martinez 6. Doña Isabella 7. The Great Diocese 8. Gold under Pike's Peak 9. Death Comes for the Archbishop DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP _PROLOGUE_ AT ROME ONE summer evening in the year 1848, three Cardinals and a missionary Bishop from America were dining together in the gardens of a villa in the Sabine hills, overlooking Rome. The villa was famous for the fine view from its terrace. The hidden garden in which the four men sat at table lay some twenty feet below the south end of this terrace, and was a mere shelf of rock, overhanging a steep declivity planted with vineyards. A flight of stone steps connected it with the promenade above. The table stood in a sanded square, among potted orange and oleander trees, shaded by spreading ilex oaks that grew out of the rocks overhead. Beyond the balustrade was the drop into the air, and far below the landscape stretched soft and undulating; there was nothing to arrest the eye until it reached Rome itself. It was early when the Spanish Cardinal and his guests sat down to dinner. The sun was still good for an hour of supreme splendour, and across the shining folds of country the low profile of the city barely fretted the sky-line--indistinct except for the dome of St. Peter's, bluish grey like the flattened top of a great balloon, just a flash of copper light on its soft metallic surface. The Cardinal had an eccentric preference for beginning his dinner at this time in the late afternoon, when the vehemence of the sun suggested motion. The light was full of action and had a peculiar quality of climax--of splendid finish. It was both intense and soft, with a ruddiness as of much-multiplied candlelight, an aura of red in its flames. It bored into the ilex trees, illuminating their mahogany trunks and blurring their dark foliage; it warmed the bright green of the orange trees and the rose of the oleander blooms to gold; sent congested spiral patterns quivering over the damask and plate and crystal. The churchmen kept their rectangular clerical caps on their heads to protect them from the sun. The three Cardinals wore black cassocks with crimson pipings and crimson buttons, the Bishop a long black coat over his violet vest.