“My son, my son!” he cried, “they have murdered him;”—­he halted abrupt and irresolute, then adding, “But I will avenge!” wheeled round, and spurred again through the arch,—­when a huge machine of iron, shaped as a portcullis, suddenly descended upon the unhappy father, and crushed man and horse to the ground—­one blent, mangled, bloody mass.

The old Colonna saw, and scarce believed his eyes; and ere his troop recovered its stupor, the machine rose, and over the corpse dashed the Popular Armament.  Thousands upon thousands, they came on; a wild, clamorous, roaring stream.  They poured on all sides upon their enemies, who drawn up in steady discipline, and clad in complete mail, received and broke their charge.

“Revenge, and the Colonna!”—­“The Bear and the Orsini!”—­“Charity and the Frangipani!” (Who had taken their motto from some fabled ancestor who had broke bread with a beggar in a time of famine.) “Strike for the Snake (The Lion was, however, the animal usually arrogated by the heraldic vanity of the Savelli.) and the Savelli!” were then heard on high, mingled with the German and hoarse shout, “Full purses, and the Three Kings of Cologne.”  The Romans, rather ferocious than disciplined, fell butchered in crowds round the ranks of the mercenaries:  but as one fell, another succeeded; and still burst with undiminished fervour the countercry of “Rome, the Tribune, and the People!—­Spirito Santo, Cavaliers!” Exposed to every shaft and every sword by his emblematic diadem and his imperial robe, the fierce Rienzi led on each assault, wielding an enormous battle-axe, for the use of which the Italians were celebrated, and which he regarded as a national weapon.  Inspired by every darker and sterner instinct of his nature, his blood heated, his passions aroused, fighting as a citizen for liberty, as a monarch for his crown, his daring seemed to the astonished foe as that of one frantic; his preservation that of one inspired:  now here, now there; wherever flagged his own, or failed the opposing, force, glittered his white robe, and rose his bloody battle-axe; but his fury seemed rather directed against the chiefs than the herd; and still where his charger wheeled was heard his voice, “Where is a Colonna?”—­“Defiance to the Orsini!”—­“Spirito Santo, Cavaliers!” Three times was the sally led from the gate; three times were the Romans beaten back; and on the third, the gonfalon, borne before the Tribune, was cloven to the ground.  Then, for the first time, he seemed amazed and alarmed, and, raising his eyes to heaven, he exclaimed, “O Lord, hast thou then forsaken me?” With that, taking heart, once more he waved his arm, and again led forward his wild array.