grapes, figs, and pomegranates, and hail the housewives with merry
appeals to buy, not unmixed with high-spiced jests. It was there the
scaffold was erected; and there Ser Niccola beheld Catherine
kneeling in prayer, her head resting on the block.

He climbed the steps with eager joy. At his coming, Catherine rose and
turned toward him with all the look of a bride once more united to her
spouse; she insisted on baring his neck with her own hands and placing
her dear one on the block as on a marriage bed.

Then she knelt down beside him. Thrice he repeated in fervent tones,
"Jesus, Catherine!"--after which the executioner struck with his sword,
and the maiden caught the severed head within her hands. Hereupon all
the victim's blood seemed to be suffused in her, and to fill her veins
with a flood as soft as warm milk; a fragrant odour set her nostrils
quivering, while before her swooning eyes floated the shadows of angels.
Filled with wonder and joy unspeakable, she fell softly into the depths
of celestial ecstasy.

Two women of the third Order of St. Dominic, who stood at the foot of
the scaffold, seeing her stretched there motionless, hastened to raise
her up and support her in their arms. The holy maid, coming to herself,
told them: "I have seen the heavens opened!"

One of the women made as though to wash away with a sponge the blood
that covered St. Catherine's robe, but she stopped her, crying out
eagerly:

"No, no! leave the blood, leave it; never rob me of my purple and my
perfumes!"