ng of the 17th of
November 1494.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

THE PRISONERS.

The sky was grey, but that made little difference in the Piazza del
Duomo, which was covered with its holiday sky of blue drapery, and its
constellations of yellow lilies and coats of arms. The sheaves of
banners were unfurled at the angles of the Baptistery, but there was no
carpet yet on the steps of the Duomo, for the marble was being trodden
by numerous feet that were not at all exceptional. It was the hour of
the Advent sermons, and the very same reasons which had flushed the
streets with holiday colour were reasons why the preaching in the Duomo
could least of all be dispensed with.

But not all the feet in the Piazza were hastening towards the steps.
People of high and low degree were moving to and fro with the brisk pace
of men who had errands before them; groups of talkers were thickly
scattered, some willing to be late for the sermon, and others content
not to hear it at all.

The expression on the faces of these apparent loungers was not that of
men who are enjoying the pleasant laziness of an opening holiday. Some
were in close and eager discussion; others were listening with keen
interest to a single spokesman, and yet from time to time turned round
with a scanning glance at any new passer-by. At the corner, looking
towards the Via de' Cerretani--just where the artificial rainbow light
of the Piazza ceased, and the grey morning fell on the sombre stone
houses--there was a remarkable cluster of the working people, most of
them bearing on their dress or persons the signs of their daily labour,
and almost all of them carrying some weapon, or some tool which might
serve as a weapon upon occasion. Standing in the grey light of the
street, with bare brawny arms and soiled garments, they made all the
more striking the transition from the brightness of the Piazza. They
were listening to the thin notary, Ser Cioni, who had just paused on his
way to the Duomo. His biting words could get only a contemptuous
reception two years and a half before in the Mercato, but now he spoke
with the more complacent humour of a man whose party is uppermost, and
who is conscious of some influence with the people.

"Never talk to me," he was saying, in his incisive voice, "never talk to
me of bloodthirsty Swiss or fierce French infantry: they might as well
be in the narrow passes of the mountains as in our streets; and peasants
have destroyed the