at the material power of Rome was increasing in a
frightful manner, was forced this time to yield, and to issue to
Savonarola an order to leave off preaching. He obeyed, and bade farewell
to his congregation in a sermon full of strength and eloquence.

But the withdrawal of Savonarola, so far from calming the ferment, had
increased it: there was talk about his prophecies being fulfilled; and
some zealots, more ardent than their mastery added miracle to
inspiration, and loudly proclaimed that Savonarola had offered to go down
into the vaults of the cathedral with his antagonist, and there bring a
dead man to life again, to prove that his doctrine was true, promising to
declare himself vanquished if the miracle were performed by his
adversary. These rumours reached the ears of Fra Francesco, and as he
was a man of warm blood, who counted his own life as nothing if it might
be spent to help his cause, he declared in all humility that he felt he
was too great a sinner for God to work a miracle in his behalf; but he
proposed another challenge: he would try with Savonarola the ordeal of
fire. He knew, he said, that he must perish, but at least he should
perish avenging the cause of religion, since he was certain to involve in
his destruction the tempter who plunged so many souls beside his own into
eternal damnation.

The proposition made by Fra Francesco was taken to Savanarola; but as he
had never proposed the earlier challenge, he hesitated to accept the
second; hereupon his disciple, Fra Domenico Bonvicini, more confident
than his master in his own power, declared himself ready to accept the
trial by fire in his stead; so certain was he that God would perform a
miracle by the intercession of Savonarola, His prophet.

Instantly the report spread through Florence that the mortal challenge
was accepted; Savonarola's partisans, all men of the strongest
convictions, felt no doubt as to the success of their cause. His enemies
were enchanted at the thought of the heretic giving himself to the
flames; and the indifferent saw in the ordeal a spectacle of real and
terrible interest.

But the devotion of Fra Bonvicini of Pescia was not what Fra Francesco
was reckoning with. He was willing, no doubt, to die a terrible death,
but on condition that Savanarola died with him. What mattered to him the
death of an obscure disciple like Fra Bonvicini? It was the master he
would strike, the great teacher who must be involved in his