The dance was at the very top of its progress; all the youths and maidens were bright and smiling; the musicians scraped and plucked like mad, and the strings quivered with happy melody. All about against the wall the elders ranged at gaze, recalling wistfully or cheerfully, according to their temperaments, the days when they, too, tripped lightly to music and made love in a measure, and some old toes ached for a caper. While the mirth was at its blithest there suddenly came an interruption to the gayety, and in a twink, one knew not how, the dance that had been so jovial and harmonious seemed suddenly resolved into its individual elements, so many youths and men, and so many maids and matrons staring at the thing that had thus suddenly marred their pleasure. I, that had been placed by chance at a post in the dance the most removed from the main door of the apartment, was not at first aware of what had caused the commotion among the dancers; I was only aware of the commotion and the pause in the [Pg 177]dancing and the knowledge that the faces of those near to me showed surprise or fear or wonder, according to their instinct. Meanwhile the musicians in their gallery, knowing nothing of any reason why they should stop, were still twitching their strings busily, though no one marked them and no one danced to their music. But I, being resolved to argue, as it were, from the effect to the cause, pushed my way through the men and women that were huddled together in my neighborhood, and then I came to an open space of the floor, and face to face, at a distance, with the cause of the disturbance.

This cause was Messer Simone dei Bardi, who was standing in the centre of the room with Messer Folco Portinari and other grave elders about him, and he was talking in a loud voice, as it were, to them in particular, but also in general to the assembled company. Now, I had never in all my life felt any kindly liking for Messer Simone, but I had to confess to myself that he cut something of a flourishing figure just then and just there. While all of us that were gathered under Messer Folco's roof were habited in our best bravery of velvets and soft stuffs and furs and such gold trinkets and jewels as it were in our power to display, and so looked very frivolous and foppish and at ease, Messer Simone dei Bardi came among us clad as a soldier-citizen of a great Republic should be clad [Pg 178]in time of danger to his nation. His huge bulk was built about in steel, a great sword swung at his side, and though his head was bare, a page in his livery stood close behind him resting his master's helmet in the bend of his arm. So lapped in mail, so menacing in carriage, Simone might have seemed some truculent effigy of the god Mars suddenly appearing from the riven earth in a pastoral gallantry of shepherds and shepherdesses.

What he was saying he was saying very clearly with the purpose that all should hear, and I among the rest benefited by what he said. It was to this effect: that our enemies the Aretines were planning a secret stroke at Florence, knowledge of which had come to his patriotic ears; and according to the estimation of his mind, it was no time for Florentine citizens to be singing and dancing and making merry when there was a stroke to be struck with a strong hand against her enemies.

These bellicose words of Messer Simone found their immediate echo in the hearts of all men present; for to do us Florentines justice, we have never loved frolicking so much that we did not like fighting a great deal better, and we have never had private business or private pleasure which we were not ready at a moment's notice to thrust on one side when the great bell of the city sounded its warning of danger to the Republic. So for the immediate time Messer Simone was the hour's hero, [Pg 179]and dancing and banqueting and laughing and love-making were clean forgotten, and every youth and every mature man there present, and, for that matter, every elder, too, was eager to ring himself in steel and to teach the devils of Arezzo of what stuff a Florentine citizen was made. I must honestly and soberly confess that I myself was so readily intoxicated with the heady wine of the excitement about me that I found myself cheering and shouting as lustily as the rest, for the which I do not blame myself, and that I found myself for the moment regarding Messer Simone dei Bardi as a kind of hero, for the which I severely blame myself even now, after all this lapse of years.

When Messer Simone found that he had got the company, so to speak, in the hollow of his hands, he was silent for a little while, looking about him sharply, as if he were making sure of the courage and enthusiasm of his fellow-citizens, and seeking to find in the press of flushed and eager faces any countenance that seemed unwilling to answer to his call. All about him the elders of the city were gathered giving and taking counsel, giving, I think for the most part, more readily than taking, and hurriedly revolving in their minds what were best to do for the city in the crisis that Messer Simone had made plain to them. While these deliberations went on, we that had been dancing danced no longer, nor had desire to dance, and though some [Pg 180]talked among themselves, the main kept silence, for the most part waiting upon events. By this time, my wits having grown cooler and my old distrust of Messer Simone being resuscitated, I scrutinized him closely as he stood there in his steel coats, the centre figure of the assembly.

As I looked at Messer Simone where he stood there, girt with strength in every line of his body, in every curl of his crisp hair and short beard, in the watchful ferocity of his eyes, he seemed to me a kind of symbol of what man may be who is unlifted by any inspiration of divinity or tincture of letters from the common herd. In him brute strength, brutish desires, brutal passions were presented, so it seemed to my fancy, as a kind of warning to others of what man may be that is content to be merely man, with no higher thought in him than the gratification of his instincts and his impulses. I have heard tell in travellers' tales of strange lands, beneath fiercer suns than ours, where naked savages disport themselves with the lawless assurance of wild beasts, and it seemed to me—being always given to speculation—that Messer Simone, if he found himself in such a company, would never be at a loss, but would straightway be admitted to their ruffian fellowship. I think, indeed, he would be better suited for such companionship than for citizenship of the fair, the wise, the gifted, the civilized queen-city of Florence. But [Pg 181]even as such savages are reported to have, in place of a higher wit, such natural craft as Providence has implanted in the hearts of foxes and hyenas and other such wild beasts, so Messer Simone, for all his bestiality, could be cunning enough when it served his ends, as you shall presently learn.

In a little while Messer Simone began to speak again, and to tell his hearers of the plan which he had formed for the service of Florence and the confusion of her enemies. This plan, as you already know, was to be furthered by the enrollment of all such among the youth of Florence as desired to prove themselves true patriots into a body which was to be known by the high-sounding name of the Company of Death, the meaning of this title being that those who so enrolled themselves were prepared at any moment to give their lives for the advantage of the mother-city. Messer Simone's plan had, as we now learned, been applauded by all the magnates, such as Messer Corso Donati and Messer Vieri dei Cerchi, and had received the approval of the priors of the city. As the scheme was due to Messer Simone, it was agreed on all hands that he should be its leader so long as the Republic of Florence was in a state of war. Whoever had taught him his lesson, Messer Simone had learned it creditably enough. He talked well, and while you listened to him it was hard not to feel that the Company of Death was indeed a very noble and [Pg 182]hopeful thought, and that it might very well be the duty of all honorable patriots to join it. But such thoughts might have cooled off under reflection and deliberation if Messer Simone had not been at the pains to prevent reflection and deliberation by a cunning stroke of policy.

So he pitched his loud voice some notes higher, bellowing like a bull of Bashan as he rolled off sonorous sentences very deftly learned and remembered, in which glory and the service of the state and the example of old Rome were cleverly compounded into a most patriotic pasty. Even as he was in the thick of his speaking there came a flourish of trumpets at the door, and to the sound of that music there came into the room a brace of pages that were habited in cloth of gold, and that bore on their breasts the badge that showed them to be the servants of Messer Simone. This pair of pages carried between them a mighty gold charger, and on this charger lay a huge book of white vellum that was bound and clasped in gold. These pages were followed by other two pages, one of whom carried ink in a great golden ink-horn and sand in a golden basin, while the other bore a kin............