The dawn came, slow and grey upon that agonized assembly:  and just as the last star faded from the melancholy horizon, and by the wan and comfortless heaven, they regarded each other’s faces, almost spectral with anxiety and fear, the great bell of the Capitol sounded the notes in which they well recognised the chime of death!  It was then that the door opened, and a drear and gloomy procession of cordeliers, one to each Baron, entered the apartment!  At that spectacle, we are told, the terror of the conspirators was so great, that it froze up the very power of speech. ("Diventarono si gelati, che non poteno favellare.”) The greater part at length, deeming all hope over, resigned themselves to their ghostly confessors.  But when the friar appointed to Stephen approached that passionate old man, he waved his hand impatiently, and said—­“Tease me not!  Tease me not!”

“Nay, son, prepare for the awful hour.”

“Son, indeed!” quoth the Baron.  “I am old enough to be thy grandsire; and for the rest, tell him who sent thee, that I neither am prepared for death, nor will prepare!  I have made up my mind to live these twenty years, and longer too;—­if I catch not my death with the cold of this accursed night.”

Just at that moment a cry that almost seemed to rend the Capitol asunder was heard, as, with one voice, the multitude below yelled forth—­

“Death to the conspirators!—­death! death!”

While this the scene in that hall, the Tribune issued from his chamber, in which he had been closeted with his wife and sister.  The noble spirit of the one, the tears and grief of the other (who saw at one fell stroke perish the house of her betrothed,) had not worked without effect upon a temper, stern and just indeed, but naturally averse from blood; and a heart capable of the loftiest species of revenge.

He entered the Council, still sitting, with a calm brow, and even a cheerful eye.

“Pandulfo di Guido,” he said, turning to that citizen, “you are right; you spoke as a wise man and a patriot, when you said that to cut off with one blow, however merited, the noblest heads of Rome would endanger the State, sully our purple with an indelible stain, and unite the nobility of Italy against us.”

“Such, Tribune, was my argument, though the Council have decided otherwise.”

“Hearken to the shouts of the populace, you cannot appease their honest warmth,” said the demagogue Baroncelli.

Many of the Council murmured applause.

“Friends,” said the Tribune, with a solemn and earnest aspect, “let not Posterity say that Liberty loves blood; let us for once adopt the example and imitate the mercy of our great Redeemer!  We have triumphed—­let us forbear; we are saved—­let us forgive!”

The speech of the Tribune was supported by Pandulfo, and others of the more mild and moderate policy; and for a short but animated discussion, the influence of Rienzi prevailed, and the sentence of death was revoked, but by a small majority.