All at once there went up a shout louder than ever, the crowd swayed backwards and forwards, then opened out, and admitted the Carroccio or war-car in Florence. It was painted red, and drawn by oxen housed in red trappings. The great beasts had dragged the car slowly from the chapel of St. John's, where it stood in times of peace, and laboured along under its weight. From the car itself projected two poles on which hung the banner of the Commonwealth, a red giglio on a white field. Immediately behind this came another car, bearing the Martinello or war-bell, which was incessantly clanging out its angry notes. It was to ring now for a full month, without ceasing. Around the cars were the principal nobles of the city, and the oxen being guided to the "bankrupt stone," were there unharnessed. Pietro Soderini, the brother of his eminence of Volterra, who was then Gonfaloniere for life, raised his hand. In a moment there was silence, and the vast audience listened to the brief oration that fell from the lips of their chief magistrate. He painted in stirring words the dangers of the times; he called to the people to forget party hatreds in the face of the common crisis; he appealed to their past, and then concluded: "Therefore," said he, "for the safety of the State, have we to whom that safety is entrusted put our hope in God, and our hands to the sword. Citizens, we give to our enemies, to Rome, and to Spain, war, red war--and God defend the right!" With that, he drew off his glove of mail and flung it on the pavement, where it fell with a sudden crash. The silence of the crowd continued for a little, and then, from forty thousand throats rang out cheer after cheer, as the sturdy citizens roared out their approval of the gage thrown down. In the midst of all this some partisan of the Medici, hysterically excited, raised a shout of _Palle_! _Palle!_ "Blood of St. John!" exclaimed Ceci, "who is that fool? He will die." It was the well-known cry of the exiled Medici, and it drove the crowd to madness. Instantly there was an answering yell. "_Popolo_! _Popolo!_ Death to tyrants!" I cannot tell what happened exactly; but in the distance, I saw a man being tossed and torn by the mob. For a moment, his white face rose above the sea of heads, with all the despair in it that the face of a drowning man has, when it rises for the last time above the waves; then it sank back, and something mangled and shapeless was flung out into the piazza, where it lay very still. I stood awestruck by this vengeance. "Yet the Medici _will_ come back, signore!" Ceci whispered this in my ear, as he stood with his hand on my shoulder. CHAPTER VII. THE GARDEN OF ST. MICHAEL.