John Inglesant: A Romance (Volume 2 of 2)Shorthouse, J. H. (Joseph Henry)
History
John Inglesant: A Romance (Volume 2 of 2)
Shorthouse, J. H. (Joseph Henry)
Great Britain -- History -- Charles I, 1625-1649 -- Fiction; Religious fiction
Inglesant turned off by a side street, and, following the narrow winding
lanes with which he was well acquainted, came out into the Via di
Coronari at some midway distance between the prison of the Inquisition
and the Minerva. He was just in time. As he stationed himself against
the wall of the Church of St. Maria de Anima and the German Hospital, he
knew, by the excitement and frantic cries of the crowd, that Molinos was
not far off. He was brought along the street in a large coach with
glass windows, a Dominican friar seated at his side. On each side of
the carriage and at the horses’ heads the Sbirri and Swiss guards
exerted themselves manfully to keep back the people and to clear the
way. A deafening shout and cry rose unceasingly, and every few moments
the crowd, pressing upon the carriage and the guards, caused them to
come to a dead stop. Clinging to the horses’ heads, to the carriage
itself, to the halberds of the Swiss, climbing on the steps and on the
back of the coach, had the crowd desired a rescue, Inglesant thought one
bold and decided leader might have accomplished it in a few desperate
moments. But the mob desired nothing less. This man—who but a few
weeks ago had been followed by admiring crowds, who had been idolized in
courtly saloons, whose steps and walks had been watched with the tender
and holy devotion with which a people watches the man whose life it
takes to be hid in God; whom loving modest women had pointed out to
their children as the holy monk whom they must love and remember all
their lives; whom passionate women, on whose souls the light of God had
broken, had followed trembling, that they might throw themselves at his
feet, and clinging to his gown, hear the words of gospel from his lips;
to whom desperate men had listened whom no other voice had ever
moved;—this man was now the execration of the mob of Rome. Amidst the
roar and din around no word was distinguishable but that terrible one of
"Fire!" that pointed to a heretic’s death at the stake; and, but for the
determined resistance of the guards, Molinos would have been dragged
from the coach and butchered in the streets.
When the carriage arrived opposite the spot upon which Inglesant had
posted himself, he could see Molinos’s face as he sat in the coach. He
was carefully dressed in his priestly habit, and looked about him with a
cheerful serene countenance. "He looks well," said a man, not far from
Inglesant, who had been very bitter against the prisoner; "the secret of
his success is not far to seek, for his face possesses all the charms
that are able to captivate, especially the fair sex."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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