“Sir Walter de Montreal,” said Adrian, “your frankness perhaps makes me presumptuous; but when I hear you talk, like a huxtering trader, of selling alike your friendship and your forbearance, I ask myself, ’Is this the great Knight of St. John; and have men spoken of him fairly, when they assert the sole stain on his laurels to be his avarice?”

Montreal bit his lip; nevertheless, he answered calmly, “My frankness has brought its own penance, Lord Adrian.  However, I cannot wholly leave so honoured a guest under an impression which I feel to be plausible, but not just.  No, brave Colonna; report wrongs me.  I value Gold, for Gold is the Architect of Power!  It fills the camp—­it storms the city—­it buys the marketplace—­it raises the palace—­it founds the throne.  I value Gold,—­it is the means necessary to my end!”

“And that end—­”

“Is—­no matter what,” said the Knight coldly.  “Let us to our tents, the dews fall heavily, and the malaria floats over these houseless wastes.”

The pair rose;—­yet, fascinated by the beauty of the hour, they lingered for a moment by the brook.  The earliest stars shone over its crisping wavelets, and a delicious breeze murmured gently amidst the glossy herbage.

“Thus gazing,” said Montreal, softly, “we reverse the old Medusan fable the poets tell us of, and look and muse ourselves out of stone.  A little while, and it was the sunlight that gilded the wave—­it now shines as brightly and glides as gaily beneath the stars; even so rolls the stream of time:  one luminary succeeds the other equally welcomed—­equally illumining—­equally evanescent!—­You see, the poetry of Provence still lives beneath my mail!”

Adrian early sought his couch; but his own thoughts and the sounds of loud mirth that broke from Montreal’s tent, where the chief feasted the captains of his band, a revel from which he had the delicacy to excuse the Roman noble, kept the Colonna long awake; and he had scarcely fallen into an unquiet slumber, when yet more discordant sounds again invaded his repose.  At the earliest dawn the wide armament was astir—­the creaking of cordage—­the tramp of men—­loud orders and louder oaths—­the slow rolling of baggage-wains—­and the clank of the armourers, announced the removal of the camp, and the approaching departure of the Grand Company.

Ere Adrian was yet attired, Montreal entered his tent.

“I have appointed,” he said, “five score lances under a trusty leader, to accompany you, noble Adrian, to the borders of Romagna; they wait your leisure.  In another hour I depart; the on-guard are already in motion.”

Adrian would fain have declined the proffered escort; but he saw that it would only offend the pride of the chief, who soon retired.  Hastily Adrian endued his arms—­the air of the fresh morning, and the glad sun rising gorgeously from the hills, revived his wearied spirit.  He repaired to Montreal’s tent, and found him alone, with the implements of writing before him, and a triumphant smile upon his countenance.