The companies of the parishes passed, with their white shrouds and veiled faces; then the brothers of the Misericordia, black from head to foot, their eyes faintly gleaming through the holes in their masks. Next came the monks in solemn row: the mendicant friars, with their dusky cowls and bare, brown feet; the white-robed, grave Dominicans. Then followed the lay officials of the district; dragoons and carabineers and the local police-officials; the Governor in gala uniform, with his brother officers beside him. A deacon followed, holding up a great cross between two acolytes with gleaming candles; and as the curtains were lifted high to let them pass out at the doorway, Montanelli caught a momentary glimpse, from where he stood under the canopy, of the sunlit blaze of carpeted street and flag-hung walls and white-robed children scattering roses. Ah, the roses; how red they were! On and on the procession paced in order; form succeeding to form and colour to colour. Long white surplices, grave and seemly, gave place to gorgeous vestments and embroidered pluvials. Now passed a tall and slender golden cross, borne high above the lighted candles; now the cathedral canons, stately in their dead white mantles. A chaplain paced down the chancel, with the crozier between two flaring torches; then the acolytes moved forward in step, their censers swinging to the rhythm of the music; the bearers raised the canopy higher, counting their steps: “One, two; one, two!” and Montanelli started upon the Way of the Cross. Down the chancel steps and all along the nave he passed; under the gallery where the organ pealed and thundered; under the lifted curtains that were so red--so fearfully red; and out into the glaring street, where the blood-red roses lay and withered, crushed into the red carpet by the passing of many feet. A moment's pause at the door, while the lay officials came forward to replace the canopy-bearers; then the procession moved on again, and he with it, his hands clasping the Eucharistic sun, and the voices of the choristers swelling and dying around him, with the rhythmical swaying of censers and the rolling tramp of feet. “Verbum caro, panem verum, Verbo carnem efficit; Sitque sanguis Christi merum----” Always blood and always blood! The carpet stretched before him like a red river; the roses lay like blood splashed on the stones---- Oh, God! Is all Thine earth grown red, and all Thy heaven? Ah, what is it to Thee, Thou mighty God----Thou, whose very lips are smeared with blood! “Tantum ergo Sacramentum, Veneremur cernui.” He looked through the crystal shield at the Eucharist. What was that oozing from the wafer--dripping down between the points of the golden sun--down on to his white robe? What had he seen dripping down--dripping from a lifted hand?