Pelagius died in January 590, but it was late in that year before his successor was forced into the vacant place. In the meantime Gregory had appealed to the Emperor, begging that he would oppose the election and support him in his resistance. This letter fell into the hands of the Præfect of Rome, who intercepted it, and wrote in his own name and that of the people a contrary prayer, begging the Emperor Maurice to sanction and give authority to their choice. It was only when the answer was received confirming the election, that Gregory became aware of the trick played upon him; and all his natural aversion strengthened by this deceitful proceeding, he withdrew secretly from the city, hiding himself, it is said, in a cave among the woods. Whether this means that he had made his way to the hills, and found this refuge among the ruins of Tusculum, or in some woodland grotto about Albano, or that some of the herdsmen's huts upon the Campagna amid the broken arches of the aqueducts received and concealed him, it is impossible to tell. It is said that the place of his retreat was made known by a light from heaven which made an illumination about him in his stony refuge, for the legend is unsparing in the breadth of its effects and easily appropriates the large miracle which in the Old Testament attends the passage of a whole nation to the service of an individual, without any of that sense of proportion which is to be found in older records. This light suggests somehow the wide breadth of the Campagna where its distant glow could be seen from afar, from the battlements of Rome herself, rather than the more distant hills. And we must hope that this direct betrayal by Heaven of his hiding-place showed Gregory that the appointment against which he struggled had in fact the sanction of the higher powers.