gleamed like stars amidst the uncertain gloom which filled the building.
A solemn high mass had been celebrated at midnight with extraordinary
pomp, amidst all the splendour of candles, chants, golden vestments, and
swinging, steaming censers; but of all this glorious display there now
remained only the regulation number of tapers necessary for the
celebration of the masses at each of the fifteen altars ranged around the
edifice. These masses began at midnight and did not cease till noon.
Nearly four hundred were said during those twelve hours at the Rosary
alone. Taking the whole of Lourdes, where there were altogether some
fifty altars, more than two thousand masses were celebrated daily. And so
great was the abundance of priests, that many had extreme difficulty in
fulfilling their duties, having to wait for hours together before they
could find an altar unoccupied. What particularly struck Pierre that
evening, was the sight of all the altars besieged by rows of priests
patiently awaiting their turn in the dim light at the foot of the steps;
whilst the officiating minister galloped through the Latin phrases,
hastily punctuating them with the prescribed signs of the cross. And the
weariness of all the waiting ones was so great, that most of them were
seated on the flagstones, some even dozing on the altar steps in heaps,
quite overpowered, relying on the beadle to come and rouse them.

For a moment Pierre walked about undecided. Was he going to wait like the
others? However, the scene determined him against doing so. At every
altar, at every mass, a crowd of pilgrims was gathered, communicating in
all haste with a sort of voracious fervour. Each pyx was filled and
emptied incessantly; the priests' hands grew tired in thus distributing
the bread of life; and Pierre's surprise increased at the sight. Never
before had he beheld a corner of this earth so watered by the divine
blood, whence faith took wing in such a flight of souls. It was like a
return to the heroic days of the Church, when all nations prostrated