“Ah, yes; a messenger from Fra Moreale.  I wrote to the Knight, reproving him for his desertion on our ill-starred return from Corneto, and intimating that five hundred lances would be highly paid for just now.”

“Ah,” said Savelli; “and what is his answer!”

“Oh, wily and evasive:  He is profuse in compliments and good wishes; but says he is under fealty to the Hungarian king, whose cause is before Rienzi’s tribunal; that he cannot desert his present standard; that he fears Rome is so evenly balanced between patricians and the people, that whatever party would permanently be uppermost must call in a Podesta; and this character alone the Provencal insinuates would suit him.”

“Montreal our Podesta?” cried the Orsini.

“And why not?” said Savelli; “as good a well-born Podesta as a low-born Tribune?  But I trust we may do without either.  Colonna, has this messenger from Fra Moreale left the city?”

“I suppose so.”

“No,” said Orsini; “I met him at the gate, and knew him of old:  it is Rodolf, the Saxon (once a hireling of the Colonna), who has made some widows among my clients in the good old day.  He is a little disguised now; however, I recognised and accosted him, for I thought he was one who might yet become a friend, and I bade him await me at my palace.”

“You did well,” said the Savelli, musing, and his eyes met those of Orsini.  Shortly afterwards a conference, in which much was said and nothing settled, was broken up; but Luca di Savelli, loitering at the porch, prayed the Frangipani, and the other Barons, to adjourn to the Orsini’s palace.

“The old Colonna,” said he, “is well-nigh in his dotage.  We shall come to a quick determination without him, and we can secure his proxy in his son.”

And this was a true prophecy, for half-an-hour’s consultation with Rodolf of Saxony sufficed to ripen thought into enterprise.

Chapter 4.V.  The Night and its Incidents.

With the following twilight, Rome was summoned to the commencement of the most magnificent spectacle the Imperial City had witnessed since the fall of the Caesars.  It had been a singular privilege, arrogated by the people of Rome, to confer upon their citizens the order of knighthood.  Twenty years before, a Colonna and an Orsini had received this popular honour.  Rienzi, who designed it as the prelude to a more important ceremony, claimed from the Romans a similar distinction.  From the Capitol to the Lateran swept, in long procession, all that Rome boasted of noble, of fair, and brave.  First went horsemen without number, and from all the neighbouring parts of Italy, in apparel that well befitted the occasion.  Trumpeters, and musicians of all kinds, followed, and the trumpets were of silver; youths bearing the harness of the knightly war-steed, wrought with gold, preceded the march of the loftiest matronage of Rome, whose