"Ha parlato da Italiano!" ("I have spoken as an Italian"), replied the delegate; and when the newspaper reached the island, this cryptic saying was interpreted in various ways, his critics pointing out that, as he had diverged from truthfulness, this was another little Song of Hate. The Bishop, Dr. Mahnić,[12] did not go to Italy for several months. He was a learned Slovene, an ex-Professor of Gorica University, known also as a stern critic of any poetry which was not dogmatically religious. He gave vent to his dislike of the poetry of Gregorčić and Aškerc, both of them priests. The former, being of a mild disposition, bowed before the storm; but Aškerc wrote a cutting satire on his critic. The Austrians, disapproving of his religious and patriotic activities, thought they would smother him by this appointment to a rather out-of-the-way diocese. But his influence spread far beyond it, and in the islands he was so solicitous for the people's material welfare that, for example, he founded savings-banks, which were a great success. It was unavoidable, as he was a man of character, that he should come into conflict with the Italians, for their commanding officer, a naval captain of Hungarian origin, was not a suave administrator. He charged a priest with making Yugoslav propaganda because he catechized the little children in their own language; another priest on the island of Unie, which forms a part of the diocese, was accused of making propaganda, because he has had in his church two statues--which had been there for years--of SS. Cyril and Methodus. They were removed from the church, he put them back; finally he was himself expelled and Unie remained without a priest. The naval captain was irritated by the old Slavonic liturgy, which is used in all except four churches of the diocese, but if he could not alter this--Dr. Mahnić referring him to the Pope--he and the Admiral at Pola, Admiral Cagni, could manage with some trouble to rid themselves of the bishop. This gentleman, who was in his seventieth year and an invalid, said that he would perhaps go to Rome after Easter. On March 24 the captain told him that the admiral had settled he should sail in three days, but the bishop was ill. On the 26th the captain returned with a lieutenant of carabinieri to ask if the bishop was still ailing; the admiral, it seemed, had ordered that two other doctors--the officer of health for the district and an Italian army doctor--should verify the report of the bishop's own medical attendant. The three of them quarrelled for two hours, but finally they all signed a memorandum that the bishop was ill. On the 31st the captain came to say that a destroyer would arrive and that it would take the bishop wherever he wanted to go, for the Italians had made up their minds that go he must. He had objected far too vigorously to their methods--not approving, for example, of the written permit which was given in the autumn to the