The crowd wavered and fell back before the determined stand of the young prelate, and even Albizzi's head bent under the priestly threat. But, just then, there sounded again on the air the sullen _boom_--_boom_--of the _campana_, and the cry, "_Popolo, popolo!_" rose again from the mob.
"Fly, fly, my Lord Cardinal," said a quick voice, and, turning, Giovanni saw a masked figure and felt a touch upon his bridle-arm. "'T is I, Buonarotti," said the new-comer, slightly raising his visor. "The Signory have declared both thee and Pietro rebels and outlaws! A price is set upon thy head. Pietro has fled already, and when once the news is known, not even thy cardinal's robes nor thy noble name can save thee from the mob."
Giovanni looked at the rapidly increasing crowd, looked at his insufficient guard, already deserting him in fear, and then said, sadly:
"'T were better to die for our house than to desert it, but how will it avail? Come, Giulio,"--and, slipping from their horses, the two lads, guided by Buonarotti and a few faithful friends, escaped from the yelling mob into a small tavern, where disguises were in readiness. The cardinal's scarlet robes and the knight's crossleted tunic were exchanged for the gray habits of Franciscan monks, and then, in sorrow and dismay, the boy cardinal fled from his native city. As he hurried through San Gallo's massive gate, with the _boom_--_boom_, of that terrible bell still tolling the doom of his family, and the "_Popolo; liberta!_" of an aroused and determined people filling the air, he remembered the brilliance and enthusiasm of other passages through that well-known gate, and with the words "Ungrateful,--ah, ungrateful," on his lips, he hastened to the villa at beautiful Careggi, where the defeated Pietro had taken temporary refuge.
But not long could the banished brothers remain at Careggi. "Two thousand crowns of gold to him who will bring to the Signory at Florence the head of either of the outlawed Medici; five thousand crowns to him who will deliver to the Signory the bodies of these pestilent rebels alive." Thus read the cruel ban of their native city and, first, Pietro, and next, Giovanni, turned from the familiar scenes of their loved country-house and fled in great secrecy toward Bologna. But the hunters were after them, and for two anxious weeks this young Giovanni, a cardinal of Rome and a prince of Holy Church, whose boyish days had been filled with pleasure and brightness, whose slightest wish had ever been gratified, remained concealed, in the deepest recesses of the Apennines, a rebel and an outlaw, with a price upon his head.