blood, and the Marquis acknowledged the introduction with one of those
graceful bows that Arthur hated, because they made him doubly feel the
stiffness of his own limitation. He was glad to linger with Lanty, who
was looking in wonder at the grim buildings.

'And did the holy Father live here?' said he. 'Faith, and 'twas a
quare taste he must have had; I wonder now if there would be vartue in
a bit of a stone from his palace. It would mightily please my old
mother if there were.'

'I thought it was the wrong popes that lived here,' suggested Arthur.

Lanty looked at him a moment as if in doubt whether to accept a heretic
suggestion, but the education received through the Abbe came to mind,
and he exclaimed -

'May be you are in the right of it, sir; and I'd best let the stones
alone till I can tell which is the true and which is the false. By the
same token, little is the difference it would make to her, unless she
knew it; and if she did, she'd as soon I brought her a hair of the old
dragon's bristles.'

Lanty found another day or two's journey bring him very nearly in
contact with the old dragon, for at Tarascon was the cave in which St.
Martha was said to have demolished the great dragon of Provence with
the sign of the cross. Madame de Bourke and her children made a devout
pilgrimage thereto; but when Arthur found that it was the actual Martha
of Bethany to whom the legend was appended, he grew indignant, and
would not accompany the party. 'It was a very different thing from the
martyrs of Lyon and Vienne! Their history was credible, but this--'