t if he was alive in that hour it was no
thanks to Messer Simone, who had sold him to Griffo, and had, as he
believed, sent him and his companions to a certain and treacherous
death, and that he would have perished if Messer Griffo had not been
persuaded to play an honorable part and be faithful to the city of
Florence. When the woman had done speaking she slipped away from Dante
and disappeared into the crowd, and Dante, with that strange story
humming in his brain, waited with little patience till Messer Guido had
finished saying his say to the listening authorities. Then he sprang
forward toward the Captain of the People, declaring, in a loud voice,
that Messer Simone was a traitor to the city, inasmuch as to gratify a
private hate, he had sent him and his fellows to perish in an ambuscade.

Now at these words, of course, the brawling was renewed a thousandfold
worse than before, every man screaming at the top of his voice and
gesticulating, as if in the hope that pantomime might succeed in
conveying his opinions where words indeed must fail in the hubbub. Under
cover of the clamor, men of the Red party and men of the Yellow party
challenged one another to the arbitrament of steel, and what with the
shouting and counter-shouting and the clatter of weapons, and the
stamping of many feet on the cobbles, there was such a din set up as
seemed to some of us, in our bewilderment, likely to last forever. Words
would speedily have become blows and blows brought blood, and all the
place become a battle-field very presently, if it had not been for the
presence of the Captain of the People and the Priors of the city, whose
dignity indeed counted for nothing to allay the tumult, but whose strong
escort of armed men served the turn better by keeping the would-be
combatants apart, that were so lusting to be upon one another. After a
while, for want of a better settlement, this composition was agreed
upon, or, rather, was decided upon by the Priors, that were enabled to
enforce their authority by their showing of armed force.

What they did was to put the Peace of Florence, as the custom was in
those days, upon the belligerent disputants. According to this custom,
each of the parties to any quarrel that threatened to become such a
public brawl as might cause disturbance to the state was called upon to
clasp the hand of the Captain of the People, and swear to keep the Peace
of the City. If he did this, he was suffered to go to his o