Romola had seemed to hear, as if they had been a cry, the words repeated to her by many lips — the words uttered by Savonarola when he took leave of those brethren of San Marco who had come to witness his signature of the confession: ‘Pray for me, for God has withdrawn from me the spirit of prophecy.’

Those words had shaken her with new doubts as to the mode in which he looked back at the past in moments of complete self-possession. And the doubts were strengthened by more piteous things still, which soon reached her ears.

The nineteenth of May had come, and by that day’s sunshine there had entered into Florence the two Papal Commissaries, charged with the completion of Savonarola’s trial. They entered amid the acclamations of the people, calling for the death of the Frate. For now the popular cry was, ‘It is the Frate’s deception that has brought on all our misfortunes; let him be burned, and all things right will be done, and our evils will cease.’

The next day it is well certified that there was fresh and fresh torture of the shattered sensitive frame; and now, at the first sight of the horrible implements, Savonarola. in convulsed agitation, fell on his knees, and in brief passionate words retracted his confession, declared that he had spoken falsely in denying his prophetic gift, and that if he suffered, he would suffer for the truth — ‘The things that I have spoken, I had them from God.’

But not the less the torture was laid upon him, and when he was under it he was asked why he had uttered those retracting words. Men were not demons in those days, and yet nothing but confessions of guilt were held a reason for release from torture. The answer came: ‘I said it that I might seem good; tear me no more, I will tell you the truth.’

There were Florentine assessors at this new trial, and those words of twofold retractation had soon spread. They filled Romola with dismayed uncertainty.

‘But’ — it ‘dashed across her — ‘there will come a moment when he may speak. When there is no dread hanging over him but the dread of falsehood, when they have brought him into the presence of death, when he is lifted above the people, and looks on them for the last time, they cannot hinder him from speaking a last decisive word. I will be there.’

Three days after, on the 23d of May l498, there was again a long narrow platform stretching across the great piazza, from the Palazzo Veccbio towards the Tetto de’ Pisani. But there was no grove of fuel as before: instead of that, there was one great heap of fuel placed on the circular area which made the termination of the long narrow platform. And above this heap of fuel rose a gibbet with three halters on it; a gibbet which, having two arms, still looked so much like a cross as to make some beholders uncomfortable, though one arm had been truncated to avoid the resemblance.

On the marble terrace of the Palazzo were three tribunals; one near the door for the Bishop, who was to perform the ceremony of degradation on Fra Girolamo and the two brethren who were to suffer as his followers and accomplices; another for the Papal Commissaries, who were to pronounce them heretics and schismatics, and deliver them over to the secular arm; and a third, close to Marzocco, at the corner of the terrace where the platform began, for the Gonfaloniere, and the Eight who were to pronounce the sentence of death.

Again the Piazza was thronged with expectant faces: again there was to be a great f............