Quickly the horses were released, and the carriage rolled on amid “Vivas!” for the Honourable Forza. Without mishap Corso Magenta was attained, and they drew up at the portal of the convent. The chubby face and mournful eyes of Brother Sebastiano greeted the Cardinal, and the iron-bound door swung wide to him. Swift were the movements of the brothers when they realised what had occurred. Not only his Eminence under their roof, but with him the Honourable Forza, wounded and in need of succour! Suddenly the calm of the place was changed to bustling activity. Two of the brothers lugged a cot into a large high-ceiled room where sunshine entered, and the prior Sebastiano sent others here and there for liniment, water, lint for the bandage, and a flask of brandy. “You have placed me in good hands,” Mario said to the Cardinal from the cot on which he reclined; “and I beg of you to retard your journey no longer. Here you may leave me and have no anxiety.” “Of that I am certain,” the Cardinal agreed, with a nod of confidence to Brother Sebastiano. “Therefore I shall try for that train.” He looked at his watch. “Twenty minutes after the hour. That the delays to-day are of long duration is my hope; a forlorn one, yet I’ll pursue it, for to Como I must go.” Brother Sebastiano and his fellows held up their hands in dismay. Passion was rioting without, but on their side of the convent walls they knew a sense of security, as if the turmoil of the world, which had turned humanity back to the instincts of the jungle, was far away. They shuddered at the thought that violent hands might be laid on the Cardinal. Heaven would not permit it, but suppose--suppose his Eminence should receive a black eye! “Travelling to-day within the city walls or without,” Brother Sebastiano ventured to admonish him, “is a most perilous undertaking.” “Difficult we have found it,” the Cardinal owned, “but hardly perilous.” There was a low murmur of respectful dissent from the monks. “Perilous, too, for the body, we can assure your Eminence. Ah, what if harm should befall you!” “Allay your fear, my dear brothers,” the other said, lightly, with an assuring smile. “Suppose they do take my carriage? I can call a cab. Failing there I can walk. The problem, you see, is exceedingly simple. As to harm corporeal--come, now, why should the people harm me? To my knowledge I have not harmed them.” “True, true,” Brother Sebastiano hastened to assent. “And yet, if your Eminence will pardon, there is our Brother Ignazio. He, too, did them no harm; but look at his eye!” Brother Ignazio had just entered the room, carrying a vessel of water. One of his eyelids and the flesh above and below were of deep violet shading down to sickly yellow.