While Baldassarre was possessed by the voice of Savonarola, he had not noticed that another man had entered through the doorway behind him, and stood not far off observing him. It was Piero di Cosimo, who took no heed of the preaching, having come solely to look at the escaped prisoner. During the pause, in which the preacher and his audience had given themselves up to inarticulate emotion, the new-comer advanced and touched Baldassarre on the arm. He looked round with the tears still slowly rolling down his face, but with a vigorous sigh, as if he had done with that outburst. The painter spoke to him in a low tone —

‘Shall I cut your cords for you? I have heard how you were made prisoner.’

Baldassarre did not reply immediately; he glanced suspiciously at the officious stranger. At last he said, ‘If you will.’

‘Better come outside,’ said Piero.

Baldassarre again looked at him suspiciously; and Piero, partly guessing his thought, smiled, took out a knife, and cut the cords. He began to think that the idea of the prisoner’s madness was not improbable, there was something so peculiar in the expression of his face. ‘Well,’ he thought, ‘if he does any mischief, he’ll soon get tied up again. The poor devil shall have a chance, at least.’

‘You are afraid of me,’ he said again, in an undertone; ‘you don’t want to tell me anything about yourself.’

Baldassarre was folding his arms in enjoyment of the long-absent muscular sensation. He answered Piero with a less suspicious look and a tone which had some quiet decision in it.

‘No, I have nothing to tell.’

‘As you please,’ said Piero, ‘but perhaps you want shelter, and may not know how hospitable we Florentines are to visitors with torn doublets and empty stomachs. There’s an hospital for poor travellers outside all our gates, and, if you liked, I could put you in the way to one. There’s no danger from your French soldier. He has been sent off.’

Baldassarre nodded, and turned in silent acceptance of the offer, and he and Piero left the church together.

‘You wouldn’t like to sit to me for your portrait, should you?’ said Piero, as they went along the Via dell’ Oriuolo, on the way to the gate of Santa Croce. ‘I am a painter: I would give you money to get your portrait.’

The suspicion returned into Baldassarre’s glance, as he looked at Piero, and said decidedly, ‘No.’

‘Ah!’ said the painter, curtly. ‘Well, go straight on, and you’ll find the Porta Santa Croce, and outside it there’s an hospital for travellers. So you’ll not accept any service from me?’

‘I give you thanks for what you have done already. I need no more.’

‘It is well,’ said Piero, with a shrug, and they turned away from each other.

‘A mysterious old tiger’ thought the artist, ‘well worth painting. Ugly — with deep lines — looking as if the plough and the harrow had gone over his heart. A fine contrast to my bland and smiling Messer Greco — my Bacco trionfante,’ who has married the fair Antigone in contradiction to all history and fitness. Aha! his scholar’s blood curdled uncomfortably at the old fellow’s clutch! ’

When Piero re-entered the Piazza del Duomo the multitude who had been listening to Fra Girolamo were pouring out from all the doors, and the haste they made to go on their several ways was a proof how important they held the preaching which had detained them from the other occupations of the day. The artist leaned against an angle of the Baptistery and watched the departing crowd, delighting in the variety of the garb and of the keen characteristic faces — faces such as Masaccio had painted more than fifty years before: such as Domenico Ghirlandajo had not yet quite left off painting.

This morning was a peculiar occasion, and the Frate’s audience, always multifarious, had represented even more completely than usual the various classes and political parties of Florence. There were men of high birth, accustomed to public charges at home and abroad, who had become newly conspicuous not only as enemies of the Medici and friends of popular government, but as thorough Piagnoni, espousing to the utmost the doctrines and practical teaching of the Frate, and frequenting San Marco as the seat of another Samuel: some of them men of authoritati6e and handsome presence, like Francesco Valori, and perhaps also of a hot and arrogant temper, very much gratified by an immediate divine authority for bringing about freedom in their own way; others, like Soderini, with less of the ardent Piagnone, and more of the wise politician. There were men, also of family, like Piero Capponi, simply brave undoctrinal lovers of a sober republican liberty, who preferred fighting to arguing, and had no particular reasons for thinking any ideas false that kept out the Medici and made room for public spirit. At their elbows were doctors of law whose studies of Accursius and his brethren had not so entirely consumed their ardour as to prevent them from becoming enthusiastic Piagnoni: Messer Luca Corsini himself, for example, who on a memorable occasion yet to come was to raise his learned arms in street stone-throwing for the cause of rel............