Frà Girolamo tried to speak, but his tongue refused to move.
“Look again,” urged the voice, low, insistent and mocking.
The Friar gazed up through the smoke and flame, and in the horrid blaze saw another figure dangle at the rope’s end, then drop; again, in the instant’s downward fall he saw the face–livid and despairing.
This time his own. His–face and figure.
“See how the people of Florence burn Girolamo Savonarola!” cried the stranger. “These people who wept to hear you preach in the Duomo!”
Frà Girolamo fell back a step and raised a shuddering hand to shut out the awful fire.
The other flung back his mantle, and the great glow of the fire caught the embroideries on the gay dress hitherto concealed beneath.
“You dethroned the Medici,” he said; “these,”–he pointed to the crowd–“will dethrone you.”
Soft blackness rose up, choking the bright flames, blotting out the shouting people, the dim outline of the buildings swirling round the feet of Frà Girolamo and mounting to his eyes. He cast himself on his knees and seemed to sink forward on nothingness; his senses broke and forsook him; he flung out his hands and made an effort to hurl off the darkness as if it were a mantle tossed over his head; he felt his knees strike stone, the blackness rent, tore, lifted and disappeared; he found himself lying up the hospital steps; before him the low wall, the cypress tree, the laurel branches; beyond, the darkening pure sky. And beside him the tall stranger staring at him through the holes of his hideous mask.