unrise.
The plot, of which these forged letters were the initial step, was that
Dolfo Spini with a band of his Compagnacci was to be posted in ambush on
the road, at a lonely spot about five miles from the gates; that he was
to seize Savonarola with the Dominican brother who would accompany him
according to rule, and deliver him over to a small detachment of
Milanese horse in readiness near San Casciano, by whom he was to be
carried into the Roman territory.

There was a strong chance that the penetrating Frate would suspect a
trap, and decline to incur the risk, which he had for some time avoided,
of going beyond the city walls. Even when he preached, his friends held
it necessary that he should be attended by an armed guard; and here he
was called on to commit himself to a solitary road, with no other
attendant than a fellow-monk. On this ground the minimum of time had
been given him for decision, and the chance in favour of his acting on
the letters was, that the eagerness with which his mind was set on the
combining of interests within and without the Church towards the
procuring of a General Council, and also the expectation of immediate
service from the Cardinal in the actual juncture of his contest with the
Pope, would triumph over his shrewdness and caution in the brief space
allowed for deliberation.

Tito had had an audience of Savonarola, having declined to put the
letters into any hands but his, and with consummate art had admitted
that incidentally, and by inference, he was able so far to conjecture
their purport as to believe they referred to a rendezvous outside the
gates, in which case he urged that the Frate should seek an armed guard
from the Signoria, and offered his services in carrying the request with
the utmost privacy. Savonarola had replied briefly that this was
impossible: an armed guard was incompatible with privacy. He spoke with
a flashing eye, and Tito felt convinced that he meant to incur the risk.

Tito himself did not much care for the result. He managed his affairs
so cleverly, that all results, he considered, must turn to his
advantage. Whichever party came uppermost, he was secure of favour and
money. That is an indecorously naked statement; the fact, clothed as
Tito habitually clothed it, was that his acute mind, discerning the
equal hollowness of all parties, took the only rational course in making
them subservient to his own interest.

If Savonarola fell into the snare,