“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 Fra Angelico, which, whatever might be its naive 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.

The face upon the cross, with its majestic patience, seemed to shed a blessing down on the company of saints of all ages who were grouped by their representative men at the foot.  Saint Dominic, Saint Ambrose, Saint Augustin, Saint Jerome, Saint Francis, and Saint Benedict were depicted as standing before the Great Sacrifice in company with the Twelve Apostles, the two Maries, and the fainting mother of Jesus,—­thus expressing the unity of the Church Universal in that great victory of sorrow and glory.  The painting was inclosed above by a semicircular bordering composed of medallion heads of the Prophets, and below was a similar medallion border of the principal saints and worthies of the Dominican order.  In our day such pictures are visited by tourists with red guide-books in their hands, who survey them in the intervals of careless conversation; but they were painted by the simple artist on his knees, weeping and praying as he worked, and the sight of them was accepted by like simple-hearted Christians as a perpetual sacrament of the eye, by which they received Christ into their souls.

So absorbed was the father in the contemplation of this picture, that he did not hear the approaching footsteps of the knight and monk.  When at last they came so near as almost to touch him, he suddenly looked up, and it became apparent that his eyes were full of tears.

He rose, and, pointing with a mute gesture toward the painting, said,—­

“There is more in that than in all Michel Angelo Buonarotti hath done yet, though he be a God-fearing youth,—­more than in all the heathen marbles in Lorenzo’s gardens.  But sit down with me here.  I have to come here often, where I can refresh my courage.”