"Not Heaven but the Pope hath cursed them," he retorted vehemently. "Why doth he not banish them from his dominions? Nay, he knows how needful they are to the State. When he exiled them from all save the three cities of refuge, and when the Jewish merchants of the seaports of the East put our port of Ancona under a ban, so that we could not provision ourselves, did not his Holiness hastily recall the Jews, confessing their value? Which being so, it is love we should offer them, not hatred and a hundred degrading edicts."
"Thou shalt burn in the Forum for this," spluttered the Judge. "Who art thou to set thyself up against God's Vicar?"
"He God's Vicar? Nay, I am sooner God's Vicar. God speaks through me."
His wan, emaciated face had grown rapt and shining; to the awed mob he loomed gigantic.
"This is treason and blasphemy. Arrest him!" cried the Judge.
The Friar faced the soldiers unflinchingly, though only the body of the old Jew divided him from their prancing horses.
"Nay," he said softly, and a sweet smile mingled with the mystery of his look. "God is with me. He hath set this bulwark of death between you and my life. Ye will not fight under the banner of the Anti-Christ."
"Death to the renegade!" cried a voice in the crowd. "He calls the Pope Anti-Christ."
"Ay, he who is not for us is against us. Is it for Christ that he rules Rome? Is it only the Jews whom he vexes? Hath not his rage for power brought the enemy to the gates of Rome? Have not his companies of foreign auxiliaries flouted our citizens? Ye know how Rome hath suffered through the machinations of his bastard son, with his swaggering troop of cut-throats. Is it for Christ that he hath begotten this terror of our streets?"
"Down with Baccio Valori!" cried a stentorian voice, and a dozen enthusiastic throats echoed the shout.