Roberts tried to dodge away from the window, but he was too late. The Maestro, through with his flourish, had turned and spied him. Roberts could see the tooth-lacking mouth agape in a broad grin. The Maestro waved his hand amiably. "Come on," said the gesture, reassuringly. "Come on; it's all right now." A violent blush rose to the officer's face.
But he had not time for self-analysis. Along the ruins, at the farther edge of the plaza, the Dios-Dios men were reforming. The panic-stricken groups were being coalesced in a triple line, and between these lines a strange being, in a long robe and incongruous helmet, was slowly passing in weird ceremony. It was the Mad Pope himself. He was locking the lines hand in hand. As he passed before his followers, each took his bolo between his teeth and grasped the hand of the man to the right; and over the clasp the illumined leader made the sign of the cross. It was grotesque, but not laughable. The puerility of garb and ceremonial was lost in the significance of the result. The Dios-Dios hysteria flamed anew. It was as if a monkey had invoked the Death Angel and the Death Angel had answered.
Roberts was leaving the window in haste when his last sweeping glance over the plaza froze him again in attention.
It seemed to him that the red rag which signalled
