“I bring tidings to you of your kindred.  Your niece and sister are here in Florence, and would see you.  You will find them at the house of one Gherardo Rosselli, a rich citizen of noble blood.”

“Why are they there?” said the monk, lost in amazement.

You must know, then, that a most singular discovery hath been made by your niece at Rome.  The sister of her father, being a lady of the princely blood of Colonna, hath been assured of her birth by the confession of the priest that married him; and being driven from Rome by fear of the Borgias, they came hither under my escort, and wait to see you.  So, if you will come with me now, I will guide you to them.”

“Even so,” said Father Antonio.

CHAPTER XXXI.

MARTYRDOM.

In a shadowy chamber of a room overlooking the grand square of Florence might be seen, on the next morning, some of the principal personages of our story.  Father Antonio, Baccio della Porta, Agostino Sarelli, the Princess Paulina, Agnes, with her grandmother, and mixed crowd of citizens and ecclesiastics who all spoke in hushed and tremulous voices, as men do in the chamber of mourners at a funeral.  The great, mysterious bell of the Campanile was swinging with dismal, heart-shaking toll, like a mighty voice from the spirit-world; and it was answered by the tolling of all the bells in the city, making such wavering clangors and vibrating circles in the air over Florence that it might seem as if it were full of warring spirits wrestling for mastery.

Toll! toll! toll!  O great bell of the fair Campanile! for this day the noblest of the wonderful men of Florence is to offered up.  Toll! for an era is going out,—­the era of her artists, her statesmen, her poets, and her scholars.  Toll! for an era is coming in,—­the era of her disgrace and subjugation and misfortune!

The stepping of the vast crowd in the square was like the patter of a great storm, and the hum of voices rose up like the murmur of the ocean; but in the chamber all was so still that one could have heard the dropping of a pin.

Under the balcony of this room were seated in pomp and state the Papal commissioners, radiant in gold and scarlet respectability; and Pilate and Herod, on terms of the most excellent friendship, were ready to act over again the part they had acted fourteen hundred years by before.  Now has arrived the moment when the three followers of the Man of Calvary are to be degraded from the fellowship of His visible Church.

Father Antonio, Agostino, and Baccio stood forth in the balcony, and, drawing in their breath, looked down, as the three men of the hour, pale and haggard with imprisonment and torture, were brought up amid the hoots and obscene jests of the populace.  Savonarola first was led before the tribunal, and there, with circumstantial minuteness, endued with all his priestly vestments, which again, with separate ceremonies of reprobation and ignominy, were taken from him.  He stood through it all serene as stood his Master when stripped of His garments on Calvary.  There is a momentary hush of voices and drawing in of breaths in the great crowd.  The Papal legate takes him by the hand and pronounces the words, “Jerome Savonarola, I separate thee from the Church Militant and the Church Triumphant.”