s he himself might be dragged into the fire and burned, and the
Prophet might come out whole by magic, and the Church be none the
better. And then, after all our talking, there's not so much as a
blessed lay brother who will offer himself to pair with that pious sheep
Fra Domenico."

"It is the peculiar stupidity of the tonsured skull that prevents them
from seeing of how little consequence it is whether they are burned or
not," said Tito. "Have you sworn well to them that they shall be in no
danger of entering the fire?"

"No," said Spini, looking puzzled; "because one of them will be obliged
to go in with Fra Domenico, who thinks it a thousand years till the
fagots are ready."

"Not at all. Fra Domenico himself is not likely to go in. I have told
you before, my Dolfo, only your powerful mind is not to be impressed
without more repetition than suffices for the vulgar--I have told you
that now you have got the Signoria to take up this affair and prevent it
from being hushed up by Fra Girolamo, nothing is necessary but that on a
given day the fuel should be prepared in the Piazza, and the people got
together with the expectation of seeing something prodigious. If, after
that, the Prophet quits the Piazza without any appearance of a miracle
on his side, he is ruined with the people: they will be ready to pelt
him out of the city, the Signoria will find it easy to banish him from
the territory, and his Holiness may do as he likes with him. Therefore,
my Alcibiades, swear to the Franciscans that their grey-frocks shall not
come within singeing distance of the fire."

Spini rubbed the back of his head with one hand, and tapped his sword
against his leg with the other, to stimulate his power of seeing these
intangible combinations.

"But," he said presently, looking up again, "unless we fall on him in
the Piazza, when the people are in a rage, and make an end of him and
his lies then and there, Valori and the Salviati and the Albizzi will
take up arms and raise a fight for him. I know that was talked of when
there was the hubbub on Ascension Sunday. And the people may turn round
again: there may be a story raised of the French king coming again, or
some other cursed chance in the hypocrite's favour. The city will never
be safe till he's out of it."

"He _will_ be out of it before long, without your giving yourself any
further trouble than this little comedy of the Trial by Fire. The wine
and the sun will make