For the first few
minutes of their conversation, Marcian felt mistrust, as the deacon
appeared to have no intelligence of any secret purpose in this
meeting; but presently, still gossiping of stones, Leander led him
out of the temple and walked in the shadowy public place beside the
Pantheon.
'That must be purified and consecrated,' he remarked, glancing from
the granite columns of Agrippa's porch to the bronze-tiled dome.
'Too long it has been left to the demons.'
Marcian, preoccupied as he was, listened with awe. Since the ravage
of the Vandals, no mortal had passed those vast doors, behind which
all the gods of heathendom, known now for devils, lurked in retreat.
'I have urged it upon the Holy Father,' Leander added. 'But Vigilius
is all absorbed in the dogmatics of Byzantium. A frown of the
Empress Theodora is more to him than the glory of the Omnipotent and
the weal of Christendom.'
The look which accompanied these words was the first hint to Marcian
that he might speak in confidence. He inquired whether the Pope, as
was reported, would shortly sail for Constantinople.
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