“How came it hither?” cried one; “I was first at the market.”

“We found it here at daybreak,” said a vender of fruit:  “no one was by.”

“But why do you fancy Rienzi had a hand in it?”

“Why, who else could?” answered twenty voices.

“True!  Who else?” echoed the gaunt smith.  “I dare be sworn the good man spent the whole night in painting it himself.  Blood of St. Peter! but it is mighty fine!  What is it about?”

“That’s the riddle,” said a meditative fish-woman; “if I could make it out, I should die happy.”

“It is something about liberty and taxes, no doubt,” said Luigi, the butcher, leaning over the chains.  “Ah, if Rienzi were minded, every poor man would have his bit of meat in his pot.”

“And as much bread as he could eat,” added a pale baker.

“Chut! bread and meat—­everybody has that now!—­but what wine the poor folks drink!  One has no encouragement to take pains with one’s vineyard,” said a vine-dresser.

“Ho, hollo!—­long life to Pandulfo di Guido!  Make way for master Pandulfo; he is a learned man; he is a friend of the great Notary’s; he will tell us all about the picture; make way, there—­make way!”

Slowly and modestly, Pandulfo di Guido, a quiet, wealthy, and honest man of letters, whom nought save the violence of the times could have roused from his tranquil home, or his studious closet, passed to the chains.  He looked long and hard at the picture, which was bright with new, and yet moist colours, and exhibited somewhat of the reviving art, which, though hard and harsh in its features, was about that time visible, and, carried to a far higher degree, we yet gaze upon in the paintings of Perugino, who flourished during the succeeding generation.  The people pressed round the learned man, with open mouths; now turning their eyes to the picture, now to Pandulfo.

“Know you not,” at length said Pandulfo, “the easy and palpable meaning of this design?  Behold how the painter has presented to you a vast and stormy sea—­mark how its waves—­”

“Speak louder—­louder!” shouted the impatient crowd.

“Hush!” cried those in the immediate vicinity of Pandulfo, “the worthy Signor is perfectly audible!”

Meanwhile, some of the more witty, pushing towards a stall in the marketplace, bore from it a rough table, from which they besought Pandulfo to address the people.  The pale citizen, with some pain and shame, for he was no practised spokesman, was obliged to assent; but when he cast his eyes over the vast and breathless crowd, his own deep sympathy with their cause inspired and emboldened him.  A light broke from his eyes; his voice swelled into power; and his head, usually buried in his breast, became erect and commanding in its air.