“And you have not heard, then,” said the cavalier, eagerly, “that they have excommunicated him?”

“I knew that was threatened,” said the monk, “but I did not think it possible that it could befall a man of such shining holiness of life, so signally and openly owned of God that the very gifts of the first Apostles seem revived in him.”

“Does not Satan always hate the Lord,” said the cavalier.  “Alexander and his councils are possessed of the Devil, if ever men were,—­and are sealed as his children by every abominable wickedness.  The Devil sits in Christ’s seat, and hath stolen his signet-ring, to seal decrees against the Lord’s own followers.  What are Christian men to do in such case?”

The monk sighed and looked troubled.

“It is hard to say,” he answered.  “So much I know,—­that before I left Florence our master wrote to the King of France touching the dreadful state of things at Rome, and tried to stir him up to call a general council of the Church.  I much fear me this letter may have fallen into the hands of the Pope.”

“I tell you, father,” said the young man, starting up and laying his hand on his sword, “we must fight!  It is the sword that must decide this matter!  Was not the Holy Sepulchre saved from the Infidels by the sword?—­and once more the sword must save the Holy City from worse infidels than the Turks.  If such doings as these are allowed in the Holy City, another generation there will be no Christians left on earth.  Alexander and Caesar Borgia and the Lady Lucrezia are enough to drive religion from the world.  They make us long to go back to the traditions of our Roman fathers,—­who were men of cleanly and honorable lives and of heroic deeds, scorning bribery and deceit.  They honored God by noble lives, little as they knew of Him.  But these men are a shame to the mothers that bore them.”

“You speak too truly, my son,” said the monk.  “Alas! the creation groaneth and travaileth in pain with these things.  Many a time and oft have I seen our master groaning and wrestling with God on this account.  For it is to small purpose that we have gone through Italy preaching and stirring up the people to more holy lives, when from the very hill of Zion, the height of the sanctuary, come down these streams of pollution.  It seems as if the time had come that the world could bear it no longer.”

“Well, if it come to the trial of the sword, as come it must,” said the cavalier, “say to your master that Agostino Sarelli has a band of one hundred tried men and an impregnable fastness in the mountains, where he may take refuge, and where they will gladly hear the Word of God from pure lips.  They call us robbers,—­us who have gone out from the assembly of robbers, that we might lead honest and cleanly lives.  There is not one among us that hath not lost houses, lands, brothers, parents, children, or friends, through their treacherous cruelty.  There be those whose wives and sisters have been forced into the Borgia harem; there be those whose children have been tortured before their eyes,—­those who have seen the fairest and dearest slaughtered by these hell-hounds, who yet sit in the seat of the Lord and give decrees in the name of Christ.  Is there a God?  If there be, why is He silent?”