at first
alarmed by hearing the monotonous voices of the criers breaking upon the
solemn stillness; but their fear changed into gladness ineffable, ere
those functionaries had uttered a dozen words of the proclamation which
they were intrusted to make.

What the terms were did not immediately transpire; but two circumstances
which occurred ere it was daybreak, and which, though conducted with
considerable secrecy, nevertheless soon became generally known--these
circumstances, we say, afforded ample scope for comment and gossip.

The first was the occupation of the Riverola Palace by the Ottoman
soldiers who had accompanied Demetrius as an escort, and whom he had
left in Florence; and the second was the fact that two females, closely
muffled up, were removed from the prison of the inquisition, and
delivered over to the charge of the grand vizier's messengers, who
conveyed them out of the city.

But the curiosity excited by these incidents was absorbed in the general
anxiety that was evinced by the Florentine people to feast their eyes
with the grand, interesting, and imposing spectacle which the dawn of
day revealed to their view.

For, far as the eye could reach, on the western side of Florence, and
commencing at the distance of about a quarter of a mile from the city, a
mass of innumerable tents and pavilions showed where the Ottoman army
was encamped! Myriads of banners, of all colors, floated from the tall
javelins to which they were affixed before the entrance of the chief
officers' tents, and in front of the entire encampment waved, at the
summit of a spear planted in the ground, the three crescents, which
invariably accompany the march of a Turkish army. The sunbeams glittered
on thousands of bright crescents; and the brazen pommels of the mounted
sentinels' saddles shone like burnished gold. It was, indeed, a grand
and imposing spectacle:--and the din of innumerable voices mingling with
the sounds of martial music, reached the ears of those Florentines who,
more daring than the rest, advanced nearly up to the outposts of the
encampment.

But in the meantime, a scene of profound and touching interest had taken
place in the gorgeous pavilion of the grand vizier.

While it was yet dark--and ere that martial panorama of tents and
pavilions developed itself to the admiring and astonished eyes of the
Florentines--two females, closely muffled in handsome cashmere shawls,
which had been presented to them for the p