Page:Vorse--The ninth man.djvu/97

 forth. As the city had been quiet through the day, so it was restless through the night, for the scaffold and the darkness between them bred strange doubt in our hearts. Dark groups of people moved restless through the streets up to the Piazza Ogni Santi, and from there it seemed that they were sucked down to the great piazza against their will. Fear moved among them in the darkness of the night and whispered its warnings into their ears.

That quiet, restless ebb and flow of dark forms through dark streets gripped at my heart. I think it seemed to many, as it did to me, that Brother Agnello fought alone against the devils that had so long ruled our hearts. As for me, I fought no more; I strove no more. I was weary with the fight, and with the other drifting shadows I drifted to the Piazza Ogni Santi and back again to the scaffold. And I cared nothing if to-morrow meant life or death, so that it brought peace. I surrendered my spirit to the Brother Minor and found myself praying as if to a saint, "Save us if you can." In that night I ceased to be myself and became a part of the sleepless suspense of that