"My Lord Bishop, I have but one answer to make to the prohibition of His Holiness, but I trust that answer will be deemed sufficient by all the members of my council, though all are devout men, and some of them peculiarly reverend by profession and by sanctity of life. I should wish an answer written to our Apostolic Father, assuring him of our deep respect and our willingness to obey his injunctions in all matters of religion, where superior duties from which he himself cannot set us free do not interpose; but informing him of a fact which he does not know, that we are bound by a sacred vow sworn upon the Holy Evangelists, and upon a crucifix which contains a portion of the true cross, to visit the shrine of St. Peter before we turn our steps homewards. Is that not sufficient cause, my Lord Cardinal," he continued, looking towards Julian de Rovers, "to pass by all impediments and prohibitions and go forward on our pilgrimage?" "Sufficient cause," exclaimed the eager and impetuous prelate, "what need of any cause? what need of any vow?" He paused, almost choked by the impetuosity of his feelings; and a smile which had passed round the council at hearing a vow just taken, alleged as an excuse for disregarding a prohibition issued long before, faded away in eagerness to hear the further reply of a man whose powerful mind and iron will were known to all. "My lord, the king," he answered, in a calmer tone, after he had recovered breath. "Your vow is all-sufficient, but there are weightier causes even than that solemn vow which call you to Rome. The greatest, the most important task which ever monarch undertook lies before you. A Heresiarch sits in the throne of St. Peter, a man whose private life, base and criminal as it is, is pure compared with his public life--whose guilt, black as it is, as a priest and a pontiff, is white as snow compared with his guilt as the pretended head of the Christian church, in negotiating with, and allying himself to infidels--to the slaves of Mahomed, against Christian men and monarchs, the most devout servants of the holy see. Well may I see consternation, surprise, and even incredulity, on the countenances of all present! But I speak not on rumour, or the vague report of the enemies of Alexander Borgia, calling himself Pope. Happily into my hands have fallen these letters which have passed between him and Bajazet, the Infidel Sultan. They are too long to read now; but I deliver them into the hands of the kings council, and will only state a few of the facts which they make manifest. Thus it appears, from these letters, of which the authenticity is beyond doubt, that this heretical interloper in the chair of St. Peter, has agreed to receive, and does receive an annual pension from Antichrist, and that he has engaged for three hundred thousand ducats to assassinate an unhappy prince of the infidels, named Zizim, who is in his power, to gratify the impious Sultan of the Turks.