r."

"Yes," said one, "they say he wanted to burn the Holy Sacrament, because
he was going to take it with him into the fire."

"As if it could burn!" said another voice.

"It would to all human appearance, I suppose," said a third.

"Any way," said a fourth, "there is some mischief brewing; for here is
our friend Prospero Rondinelli just come in, who says, when he came past
the Duomo, he saw people gathering, and heard them threatening us: there
were as many as two hundred, he thought."

"We ought to tell Father Girolamo," exclaimed several voices.

"Oh, he will not be disturbed!" said Father Angelo. "Since these
affairs, he hath been in prayer in the chapter-room before the blessed
Angelico's picture of the Cross. When we would talk with him of these
things, he waves us away, and says only, 'I am weary; go and tell
Jesus.'"

"He bade me come to him after supper," said Father Antonio. "I will talk
with him."

"Do so,--that is right," said two or three eager voices, as the monk and
Agostino, having finished their repast, arose to be conducted to the
presence of the father.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE ATTACK ON SAN MARCO.

They found him in a large and dimly lighted apartment, sitting absorbed
in pensive contemplation before a picture of the Crucifixion by Fra
Angelico, which, whatever might be its _naive_ faults of drawing and
perspective, had an intense earnestness of feeling, and, though faded
and dimmed by the lapse of centuries, still stirs in some faint wise
even the practised _dilettanti_ of our day.

The face upon the cross, with its majestic patience, seemed to shed a
blessing down on the company of saints of all ages who were grouped by
their representative men at the foot. Saint Dominic, Saint Ambrose,
Saint Augustin, Saint Jerome, Saint Francis, and Saint Benedict were
depicted as standing before the Great Sacrifice in company with the
Twelve Apostles, the two Maries, and the fainting mother of Jesus,--thus
expressing the unity of the Church Universal in that great victory of
sorrow and glory. The painting was inclosed above by a semicircular
bordering composed of medallion heads of the Prophets, and below was a
similar medallion border of the principal saints and worthies of the
Dominican order. In our day such pictures are visited by tourists with
red guide-books in their hands, who survey them in the intervals of
careless conversation; but they were painted by the simple artist on
his knees, wee