"Not when there is anything to be done, my lord; and there will be, as long as Rome is not entirely in the power of the Emperor!"
"What means that statue on the top of the tower?" asked Goswin, pointing to the castle.
"Ah! that is a strange story," replied the tailor, laughing. "They used to call the fort, Adrian's Mausoleum, but ever since an angel lighted on it, it has been named the tower of Saint Angelo."
"An angel came there? This is a strange story."
"I will tell it to you in a few words. It happened one night while Gregory the Great occupied the throne of St. Peter, that a terrible pestilence had broken out in Rome. None knew whence the scourge came, nor what caused it, but he who was smitten fell dead at once; the very air was infected, and it is since then that it is customary to say when a man sneezes: God bless you!--that means: may God preserve you from the pestilence! Now, when the disease had reached its height, Pope Gregory ordered a general fast and a procession through the city, to implore God's pity. Nothing was of any avail, although the physicians opposed the procession, on the ground that the concourse of so many persons would necessarily tend to spread the contagion. Gregory, absorbed in pious meditations, mounted to the summit of that tower, precisely as Alexander has since done. The people marched slowly onward, chanting the miserere; at every moment their ranks grew thinner, as a corpse fell to the ground. Suddenly the sky became illumined, and an angel was seen upon the tower. He held in his hand a fiery sword, which he brandished over the city, and then he seemed to return it to the scabbard. At the same instant the plague disappeared. It is for this that you see there the image of the blessed Archangel St. Michael, who protects us still, for since then the pestilence has never appeared among us."
"This is indeed a marvellous legend!" said Goswin. "The flaming sword in the hand of St. Michael clearly shows the punishment which God intended for the Romans."
"There is no doubt about it," sneered Guerrazzi.
"You laugh?"
"Certainly; for I look upon the legend as an idle tale: old women often see miracles where our cool, good sense perceives nothing which is not entirely natural."
"But did not the plague cease?"