The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1908-03-29

from pulpit prophecy and denuncia-
ton to political activity To Tito fe,l
the task of Turing the friar outside
of the walls. With habitual prudence
he fulfilled his duty well-but at the
came time he took pains to warn the
priest not to venture without an
escort. Thus. whichever side won, ne
had the confidence of both.
An accident disclosed his plotting,
tn ough not the full measure of his
duplicity, to Romola. hardly had she
recovered from the shock before
Baldassarre came to her and told her
his story in way not to be disbe-
lieved. They would not believe me-"
said he. because he lied and said l
was mad. And my knowledge is gone
all gone. I am old. My mind will
not come back. But you will help me!
He has been false to you, too. He has
another wife and children"
StImblingly, brokenly. he told her
about Tessa, whose story he had
learned easily after Tito's appearance
at the little home. Romola thrust some
money into his hand and went home
stunned.
She had not yet gath cred her
thoughts to some semblance of clear
ness before new and far more terri
BILE blow fell upon her. Her godfather
other members. of his party and
charged with high treason-and Tito,
who had been one of the plotters, was
the man who had betrayed them in
return for a high office promised him
by the other side.
Three days afterward she babe the
noble old man a last FAREWELL before
he assembled the scaffold, which was
the reward that a grateful republic
pa T. a fAr
ishly and devotedly in its service.
Romola never looked on Tito again. but
fed to the Mediterranean There, in a
poor village stricken with pestflence, from
which even the priests had gone, she
tended the stick until the simple peasants
truly thought her the Holy Mother her
self. and the priests themselves, brought
back by the report, were inclined to wor
ship the beautiful, solemn woman who
walked among them with divine compass
sion and yet with eyes that seemed to
look far away forever.
1t was as if with Romola's departure
the only angel that still stood between
Tito and ever deeper sin had fed. Ever
more cunningly he played the spy FOR
both Sides and seized on higher honors
with each stroke. Deity he helped on
the plots to undermine Savonarola, until
at last there came frightful success
and the inspired priest, after grievous
| fortunes. was burned at the stake.
| When his great soul went forth int
| the great silence there went before 1t
| the soul of his betrayer. At the moment
| of the friar's arrest all the furies OF riot
| had been loosed in Florence. Tito, caught
| on a bridge between two mobs. both bent
| on the blood of any richly dressed man..
! tried to escape them by leaping into the
J river. A splendid swimmer. he struck
! Off unfearingly down the stream, aiming
| for a dark, lonely bank where he might
| get ashore unobserved.
But another man, hungry, houseless
| and forsaken, had chosen that dark place
| for his rest that night and now sat glar-
| ing in helpless, vengeful thought upon
| the stream. Suddenly he saw face in
| a moonbeam that struck across a wave.
The next instant Tito dragged himself
| to the bank and was pinned down by the
| BETRAYED Baldasarre. The old man grasp
ed the round throat with all the energy
| left in his body and knelt on Tito's chest
| with the power of madness.
! Tito's staring eyes looked at him with
terrible dread. He WIS helpless in that
| grip, strengthened o. hate. Tie bright
eyes, SO well beloved grew dim and rigid.
Still Baldassarre knelt there and gripped
the graceful throat.
When a chance passerby many hours
aftcrward found the two bodies, one still