of the Frate. For now the popular cry
was, "It is the Frate's deception that has brought on all our
misfortunes; let him be burned, and all things right will be done, and
our evils will cease."

The next day it is well certified that there was fresh and fresh torture
of the shattered sensitive frame; and now, at the first sight of the
horrible implements, Savonarola, in convulsed agitation, fell on his
knees, and in brief passionate words _retracted his confession_,
declared that he had spoken falsely in denying his prophetic gift, and
that if he suffered, he would suffer for the truth--"The things that I
have spoken, I had them from God."

But not the less the torture was laid upon him, and when he was under it
he was asked why he had uttered those retracting words. Men were not
demons in those days, and yet nothing but concessions of guilt were held
a reason for release from torture. The answer came: "I said it that I
might seem good; tear me no more, I will tell you the truth."

There were Florentine assessors at this new trial, and those words of
twofold retraction had soon spread. They filled Romola with dismayed
uncertainty.

"But,"--it flashed across her--"there will come a moment when he may
speak. When there is no dread hanging over him but the dread of
falsehood, when they have brought him into the presence of death, when
he is lifted above the people, and looks on them for the last time, they
cannot hinder him from speaking a last decisive word. I will be there."

Three days after, on the 23rd of May 1498, there was again a long narrow
platform stretching across the great piazza, from the Palazzo Vecchio
towards the Tetta de' Pisani. But there was no grove of fuel as before:
instead of that, there was one great heap of fuel placed on the circular
area which made the termination of the long narrow platform. And above
this heap of fuel rose a gibbet with three halters on it; a gibbet
which, having two arms, still looked so much like a cross as to make
some beholders uncomfortable, though one arm had been truncated to avoid
the resemblance.

On the marble terrace of the Palazzo were three tribunals; one near the
door for the Bishop, who was to perform the ceremony of degradation on
Fra Girolamo and the two brethren who were to suffer as his followers
and accomplices; another for the Papal Commissaries, who were to
pronounce them heretics and schismatics, and deliver them over to the
secular arm;