was no convent of Preaching Friars, I had with me but one companion, and I found great pleasure in receiving the Religious men who came from the houses in the vicinity, especially those for whom I felt a stronger spiritual friendship. Friar Thomas, (Catherine's Confessor,) and Friar George Naddo, now professor of Theology, proposed coming to see me in the convent of Sienna, in order to exchange spiritual consolations. So as to return more promptly to Catherine, (who always required Friar Thomas.) the two Religious took horses that were lent them by persons of their acquaintance. Arrived at about six miles from the place where they intended going, they had the imprudence to halt and rest themselves: the people of the place were not thieves by profession, but when they saw travellers alone and without defence, they allured them apart, robbed them, and sometimes killed them, so that justice might not discover their crimes.
Having observed these two Religious, unaccompanied and taking rest in an inn, they went before, to the number of ten or twelve, and awaited in the winding paths of a solitary place. When the Religious passed by, they attacked them roughly with swords and lances, dragged them from their horses, robbed them completely, and conducted them with abusive treatment into the depth of the forest: there they held council, and the two Religious comprehended perfectly well that there was question of killing them, and concealing their corpses in order to destroy all trace of their criminal conduct.
In the midst of such a pressing danger. Friar Thomas spared not entreaties, and promises of " saying nothing;" but when he saw that all was useless, and that they were conducting them farther and farther into the deep and
