And among those shifting black films were a crowd of human
creatures, floating and falling into unknown depths of darkness, and
striking out wild arms of appeal and entreaty and despair,--the
faces of these were all familiar, and were the life-like portraits
of many of those pre-eminent in the history of the time. Chief
among them was the Sovereign Pontiff, waxen and wan and dark-eyed,--
he was depicted as fastening fetters of iron round the body of a
beautiful youth, laurel-crowned, the leaves of the laurel bearing
faint gold letters which spelt the word "Science." Huddled beside
him was a well-known leader of the Jesuits, busily counting up heaps
of gold,--another remarkable figure was that of a well-known magnate
of the Church of England, who, leaning forward eagerly, sought to
grasp and hold the garment of the Pope, but was dragged back by the
hand of a woman crowned with an Imperial diadem. After these and
other principal personages came a confusion of faces--all
recognisable, yet needing study to discern;--creatures drifting
downwardly into the darkness,--one was the vivisectionist whose name
was celebrated through France, clutching at his bleeding victim and
borne relentlessly onwards by the whirlwind,--and forms and faces
belong to men of every description of Church-doctrine were seen
trampling underneath them other human creatures scarcely
discernible.
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