antage
offered by the facades and roofs of the houses, and such spaces of the
pavement as were free to the public. Men were seated on iron rods that
made a sharp angle with the rising wall, were clutching slim pillars
with arms and legs, were astride on the necks of the rough statuary that
here and there surmounted the entrances of the grander houses, were
finding a palm's-breadth of seat on a bit of architrave, and a footing
on the rough projections of the rustic stonework, while they clutched
the strong iron rings or staples driven into the walls beside them.

For they were come to see a Miracle: cramped limbs and abraded flesh
seemed slight inconveniences with that prospect close at hand. It is
the ordinary lot of mankind to hear of miracles, and more or less to
believe in them; but now the Florentines were going to see one. At the
very least they would see half a miracle; for if the monk did not come
whole out of the fire, they would see him enter it, and infer that he
was burned in the middle.

There could be no reasonable doubt, it seemed, that the fire would be
kindled, and that the monks would enter it. For there, before their
eyes, was the long platform, eight feet broad, and twenty yards long,
with a grove of fuel heaped up terribly, great branches of dry oak as a
foundation, crackling thorns above, and well-anointed tow and rags,
known to make fine flames in Florentine illuminations. The platform
began at the corner of the marble terrace in front of the Old Palace,
close to Marzocco, the stone lion, whose aged visage looked frowningly
along the grove of fuel that stretched obliquely across the Piazza.

Besides that, there were three large bodies of armed men: five hundred
hired soldiers of the Signoria stationed before the palace; five hundred
Compagnacci under Dolfo Spini, far-off on the opposite side of the
Piazza; and three hundred armed citizens of another sort, under Marco
Salviati, Savonarola's friend, in front of Orgagna's Loggia, where the
Franciscans and Dominicans were to be placed with their champions.

Here had been much expense of money and labour, and high dignities were
concerned. There could be no reasonable doubt that something great was
about to happen; and it would certainly be a great thing if the two
monks were simply burned, for in that case too God would have spoken,
and said very plainly that Fra Girolamo was not His prophet.

And there was not much longer to wait, for it was