The pilot gave the signal, the sails were unfurled, the ship rocked for a moment as if courting the breeze, and then it rapidly cleaved the waves.
The cannon again boomed from the _Il Salvatore_, and again the acclamations of the crowd rent the air.
* * * * * The sounds had hardly died away when the spectators, as if impelled by one thought, immediately retired, and made all speed to reach the central part of the city.
The crowd which left the wharf so precipitately soon arrived at the grand square, but they found it already occupied by so compact a mass of human beings, that it was impossible for them to penetrate it.

As far as the eye could reach, there was a sea of heads; all the windows were crowded with women and even children; the roofs swarmed with curious spectators; the iron balustrades seemed to bend under the weight of the children who had climbed upon them.
A solemn silence reigned in the midst of the vast multitude.

Not a sound was heard save the slow and mournful tolling of the death-bell, and at intervals a scream so piercing, so frightful, that those who listened to it turned pale and trembled.

Every eye was fixed upon a particular spot, whence clouds of smoke curled in the air, and from which escaped the cries of distress.
What passed that day on the grand square of Antwerp is thus related by Matthew Bandello, Bishop of Agen, who lived at that period, and who wrote from the testimony of an eye-witness: * * * * * "Upon the appointed day, Simon Turchi was enclosed in the same chair and driven on a wagon through the streets of Antwerp, the good priest accompanying him and exhorting him.

When they reached the grand square, the chair was removed from the wagon.