The Emperor and suite arranged themselves within, and the Inditos gaped stolidly outside, to hear the Te Deum for their broken shackles. At the most solemn moment, the Grand Chaplain availed himself of his exclusive privilege, which was to present the Gospel to the royal lips. Assisting him in the general service was the hacienda curate. This curate, obscurely found in the Huasteca wilds and yet not a Mexican, was a large sleek man whose paunch bulged repulsively under the priestly surplice. His flabby jowls hung down, and gave his head the shape of a pea, in the top of which were the eyes set close together. They were restless fawning little eyes and they roved constantly. But more than aught else, they were adventurous; two bright, glowing beads of adventure. From the folds of dull yellow flesh they peered forth at the august worshipers. They hovered first over the Emperor before his cushioned _prie-dieu_. Then, in hungry search, they began to roam. They lingered with General Almonte for a moment, but darted on, unsatisfied. They fluttered yet longer over Miguel Lopez, the gorgeously uniformed colonel of Dragoons, and left him only reluctantly. But when they lighted on Monsieur Eloin, they gleamed. There was no longer uncertainty. They laid bare the man as the print of a mass-book, and found him profitable reading. After that, the adventurous orbs returned to their larger prey, the Emperor, and gorging themselves, scintillated more adventurously than ever. And such a feast as the unconscious Hapsburg afforded the ghoul of a priest! It was a loathsome surgery; greedy fingers trembling on the knife, the victim's soul flayed, each nerve of a vanity, or tendon of an ambition, or full-throbbing vein of hope, each and all lifted one by one from the clotted mass and scrutinized exultantly. There was not a feature but held a revelation as sure as vivisection. The high, broad forehead of a gentle poet was often shaded by a dreamy melancholy, but never once did it furrow in either craft or cruelty. In that the priest knew his man for a devout mystic, knew him for a child confidingly looking to a Destiny to inspire his every footstep. Then there was the beard. It was too great a wealth of whisker, its satin, glossy flow of too dandified a precision. The delicate finger tips stroked it softly, affectionately, to the left; then softly, affectionately to the right; and always dreamily. But the most shameless traitor of all was the lower lip. It was the Hapsburg lower lip, heavy and thick and sensuous, and ill-fated. Hanging partly open under the silken drooping moustache, it revealed the spoiled child of royalty, who mistakes obstinacy for decision, and changes whims with despotic petulance. Maximilian believed in his star. But a lower lip is more potent than predestination. He need only have leaned close to his mirror. Then he might have seen what the priest saw so clearly.