His followers applauded his deed with a shout, but it was a weak and spiritless one, for it was scarcely safe to make fun of the Medici then in Florence, and cowards, you know, always take the stronger side. The supporters of the Medici hastened to wipe out the insult offered to the boy cardinal. They pressed forward to annihilate Albizzi's fast-lessening band, but the young Giovanni interfered. "Nay, hold, friends," he said, "'t is but a carnival frolic, and 't is ended now. Messer Francesco did but speak in jest, and, sure, I bear no malice." But the hot-headed Albizzi, the son of a house that had ever been rivals and enemies of the Medici, would listen to no compromise. "Ho, hark to the smooth-tongued Medici!" he cried. "Boys of Florence, will ye bow to this baby priest? Your fathers were but boys when they struck for the liberties of Florence and drove _this_ fellow's father, the lordly magnifico, like a whipped cur behind the doors of the sacristy, and scattered the blood of _that_ boy's father on the very steps of the altar of the Reparata!"[X] The young Giulio, when he heard this brutal allusion to the murder of his father, could restrain himself no longer; but, rushing at Francesco Albizzi, expended all his fierce young strength upon the older boy in wildly aimed and harmless blows. Giovanni would have again interceded, but when he saw the vindictive young Albizzi draw a short dagger from his girdle, he felt that the time for words had passed. Springing to the relief of his cousin, he clutched the dagger-arm of the would-be murderer. There was a rallying of adherents on both sides; young faces grew hot with passion, and a bloody street fight seemed certain. But, hark! Across the strife comes the clash of galloping steel. There is a rush of hurrying feet, a glare of flaming torches, a glimmer of shining lances, and, around from the Via Larga, in a brilliant flash of color, swings the banner of Florence, the great white lily on the blood-red field. Fast behind it presses the well-known escutcheon of the seven golden balls, and the armed servants of the house of Medici sweeps down upon the combatants. "_Palle, palle!_ Medici, ho, a Medici!" rings the shout of rescue. The flashing Milan sword of young Messer Pietro, the elder brother of Giovanni, gleams in the torchlight, and the headstrong Albizzi and his fellow-rioters scatter like chaff before the onward rush of the paid soldiers of the house of Medici. Then, encompassed by a guard of bristling lances, liveried grooms, and torch-bearers, and followed by a crowd of shouting boys, masked revellers, and exultant retainers, the three lads hurried down the Via Larga; the great gates of the Palace of the Medici swung open to admit them, and the noise and riot of the carnival died away in the distance. Through the hall of arches and up the grand staircase the lads hastened to where, in the spacious _loggia_, or enclosed piazza, Lorenzo the Magnificent stood waiting to receive them.