The times dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1903-1914, 1908-03-29

Who had betrayed them In return fok
high once promised him by the oth<
or eide.
Three days afterward she bade this
roblo old man a last farewell before
he assembled the scaffold which wlI
the reward that a. grateful republic
gave him for lifetime spent unselS
fishly and devotedly in its service.
Romola never looked on Tito again.
but fled to the Mediterranean. There.
In poor village stricken with pests
| lence, from which even the priests had
| gone she tended the sick until the
simple peasants truly thought her the
Holy Mother herself, and the priests
themselves, brought back by the re-
| port were inclined TO worship tha
beautiful solemn woman who walked
among them with divine compassion
and yet with eyes that seemed to look
| far away forever.
ture the only angel that still stood
between Tito and ever deeper sin had
fed. Ever more cunningly he played
4 the spy for both sides. and seized on
4 higher honors with each stroke. Deity
he helped on the plots, to undermine
| SAvonarola, until at last there came q
| frightful success, and the inspired
Il
burned at the stake.
When his great soul went forth into
the great silence there went before
II the soul of his betrayer. AT the mo-
/ ment OF the friar's arrest all the furies
/ OF riot had been loosed in Florence.
Tito. caught on bridge between two
niobs. both bent on the blood of any
richly dressed man. tried TO escape
them by ieaping into the river. A
.Is-..~s IL
| fearingly down the stream. aiming for
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 glaring in helpless, svengeful
thought upon the stream. Suddenly he
saw face I'm moonbeam that struck
| across a wave.
The next instant Tito dragged him.
self to the bank. and was pinned down
by the betrayed Baldassarre. The old
| man grasped 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 was helpless
In that CRISP. strengthened by hate.
The bright eyes. SO well beloved. grew
dim and rigid. Still Baldassarre knel,
there and grippsd the graceful throat.
When chance pazserby many hours
afterward found the two bodies, ono
still gripping the other. Savonarola
was writhing under the torture and
crying out In his unbearable agony,
II will contest!
Romola his devoted follower, re-
turned to be near him at the end.eand
watched his tall figure. manned by his
ltornentors. ascend the great heap OF
fuel In the great piazza by the Palace
vecchio. The torches were thrust at
the pile She covered her face. and
saycnarola's voice passed into eternal
stiffness.
Amid the black, irideous ruin of her
own life and the life of the Florence
that she loved SO deeply, the brave.
proud blood of the Bardis famed full
In this last descendant of their race.
She would not suffer her existence to
trail broken-winged through useless
years. Instead she rose and sought
out those who needed her.
So few years after, in handsome.
cheerful room looking forth upon the
l glorious heights OF Fiesole. she sat
|. with a placid face. her cheek a little
sunken but her beauty greater than
before, looking forth upon the noun
! tains At her feet sat a handsome lad
! and a pretty. blue-eyed girl. Nearby
, lsat stout young woman with round.
, good -natured face, most content and
: happy
: drsn, she expiated the sin OF the hus-
band whom she had long ceased to
love, but whose crimes against her
self she had forgiven.