Two or three voices took up the story at once, and began to tell it,--all the others correcting, contradicting, or adding incidents. From the confused fragments here and there Agostino gathered that there had been on the day before a popular spectacle in the grand piazza, in which, according to an old superstition of the Middle Ages, Frà Girolamo Savonarola and his opponents were expected to prove the truth of their words by passing unhurt through the fire; that two immense piles of combustibles had been constructed with a narrow passage between, and the whole magistracy of the city convened, with a throng of the populace, eager for the excitement of the spectacle; that the day had been spent in discussions, and scruples, and preliminaries; and that, finally, in the afternoon, a violent storm of rain arising had dispersed the multitude and put a stop to the whole exhibition. "But the people are not satisfied," said Father Angelo; "and there are enough mischief-makers among them to throw all the blame on our father." "Yes," said one, "they say he wanted to burn the Holy Sacrament, because he was going to take it with him into the fire." "As if it could burn!" said another voice. "It would to all human appearance, I suppose," said a third. "Any way," said a fourth, "there is some mischief brewing; for here is our friend Prospero Rondinelli just come in, who says, when he came past the Duomo, he saw people gathering, and heard them threatening us: there were as many as two hundred, he thought." "We ought to tell Father Girolamo," exclaimed several voices. "Oh, he will not be disturbed!" said Father Angelo. "Since these affairs, he hath been in prayer in the chapter-room before the blessed Angelico's picture of the Cross. When we would talk with him of these things, he waves us away, and says only, 'I am weary; go and tell Jesus.'" "He bade me come to him after supper," said Father Antonio. "I will talk with him." "Do so,--that is right," said two or three eager voices, as the monk and Agostino, having finished their repast, arose to be conducted to the presence of the father. CHAPTER XXI. THE ATTACK ON SAN MARCO. They found him in a large and dimly lighted apartment, sitting absorbed in pensive contemplation before a picture of the Crucifixion by Frà Angelico, which, whatever might be its _naïve_ faults of drawing and perspective, had an intense earnestness of feeling, and, though faded and dimmed by the lapse of centuries, still stirs in some faint wise even the practised _dilettanti_ of our day.