uld not take too many precautions.
Two more hours passed, while his partisans tried in vain to combat his
refusals. At last, as night was coming on and the people grew ever more
and more impatient and their murmurs began to assume a threatening tone,
Bonvicini declared that he was ready to walk through the fire, holding
nothing in his hand but a crucifix. No one could refuse him this; so Fra
Rondinelli was compelled to accept his proposition. The announcement was
made to the populace that the champions had come to terms and the trial
was about to take place. At this news the people calmed down, in the hope
of being compensated at last for their long wait; but at that very moment
a storm which had long been threatening brake over Florence with such
fury that the faggots which had just been lighted were extinguished by
the rain, leaving no possibility of their rekindling. From the moment
when the people suspected that they had been fooled, their enthusiasm was
changed into derision. They were ignorant from which side the
difficulties had arisen that had hindered the trial, so they laid the
responsibility on both champions without distinction. The Signoria,
foreseeing the disorder that was now imminent, ordered the assembly to
retire; but the assembly thought otherwise, and stayed on the piazza,
waiting for the departure of the two champions, in spite of the fearful
rain that still fell in torrents. Rondinelli was taken back amid shouts
and hootings, and pursued with showers of stones. Savonarola, thanks to
his sacred garments and the host which he still carried, passed calmly
enough through the midst of the mob--a miracle quite as remarkable as if
he had passed through the fire unscathed.

But it was only the sacred majesty of the host that had protected this
man, who was indeed from this moment regarded as a false prophet: the
crowd allowed Savonarola to return to his convent, but they regretted the
necessity, so excited were they by the Arrabbiati party, who had always
denounced him as a liar and a hypocrite. So when the next morning, Palm
Sunday, he stood up in the pulpit to explain his conduct, he could not
obtain a moment's silence for insults, hooting, and loud laughter. Then
the outcry, at first derisive, became menacing: Savonarola, whose voice
was too weak to subdue the tumult, descended from his pulpit, retired
into the sacristy, and thence to his convent, where he shut himself up in
his cell. At that m