The Pope, Julius II., alarmed by the spread of sorcery in Lombardy, had sent him with bulls and powers of committal and of extraordinary punishments. Monna Cassandra stood in grave peril; and was warned both by the nuns of the Monastero Maggiore and by the archbishop. She and Messer Galeotto had already fled from Rome to escape this same Fra Giorgio; they knew that once fallen into his hands they would find no escape, and determined to take refuge in France, perhaps in England or even Scotland.
Two days before their setting forth, Giovanni was with Cassandra in her lonely room of the Palazzo Carmagnole. The sunshine, veiled by the thick cypress branches, was scarce brighter than moonlight; the girl seemed even fairer and calmer than was her wont. Now that parting was at hand, Giovanni realised how dear she was to him.
'Shall I not see you yet once more?' he asked her. 'Will you not reveal to me that mystery of which you have spoken?'
Cassandra looked fixedly at him; then drew from a casket a flat four-cornered stone of transparent green. It was the famous 'Tabula Smaragdina,' the emerald tablet said to have been found in a cave near Memphis in the hands of the mummy of a certain priest, who was an incarnation of Hermes Trismegistus, the Egyptian Horus, the god of boundaries, the guide of the dead to the underworld. It was engraved both in Coptic and in Greek with these verses.
Ουρανο ανω ουρανο κατω
Αστερα ανω αστερα κατω
Παν ανω παν τουτο κατω
Ταυτα λαβε και ευτυχε.
(Heaven above, heaven below;
Stars above, stars below;