he must often speak in virtue of yesterday’s faith, hoping it will come back tomorrow.
It was in preparation for a scene which was really a response to the popular impatience for some supernatural guarantee of the Prophet’s mission, that the wooden pulpit had been erected above the church-door.
But while the ordinary Frati in black mantles were entering and arranging themselves, the faces of the multitude were not yet eagerly directed towards the pulpit: it was felt that Savonarola would not appear just yet, and there was some interest in singling out the various monks, some of them belonging to high Florentine families, many of them having fathers, brothers, or cousins among the artisans and shopkeepers who made the majority of the crowd.
It was not till the tale of monks was complete, not till they had fluttered their books and had begun to chant, that people said to each other, “Fra Girolamo must be coming now.”
That expectation rather than any spell from the accustomed wail of psalmody was what made silence and expectation seem to spread like a paling solemn light over the multitude of upturned faces, all now directed towards the empty pulpit.
The next instant the pulpit was no longer empty. A figure covered from head to foot in black cowl and mantle had entered it, and was kneeling with bent head and with face turned away. It seemed a weary time to the eager people while the black figure knelt and the monks chanted. But the stillness was not broken, for the Frate’s audiences with Heaven were yet charged with electric awe for that mixed multitude, so that those who had already the will to stone him felt their arms unnerved.
At last there was a vibration among the multitude, each seeming to give his neighbour a momentary aspen-like touch, as when men who have