“Senator,” answered Arimbaldo, taking up the word, “you have kept your word to us.  You have raised us to the highest rank your power could bestow, and this has amply atoned our humble services.”

“I am glad ye allow thus much,” said the Tribune.

Arimbaldo proceeded, somewhat more loftily, “I trust, my Lord, you do not doubt us?”

“Arimbaldo,” replied Rienzi, in a voice of deep, but half-suppressed emotion; “you are a lettered man, and you have seemed to share my projects for the regeneration of our common kind.  You ought not to betray me.  There is something in unison between us.  But, chide me not, I am surrounded by treason, and the very air I breathe seems poison to my lips.”

There was a pathos mingled with Rienzi’s words which touched the milder brother of Montreal.  He bowed in silence.  Rienzi surveyed him wistfully, and sighed.  Then, changing the conversation, he spoke of their intended siege of Palestrina, and shortly afterwards retired to rest.

Left alone, the brothers regarded each other for some moments in silence.  “Brettone,” said Arimbaldo at length, in a whispered voice, “my heart misgives me.  I like not Walter’s ambitious schemes.  With our own countrymen we are frank and loyal, why play the traitor with this high-souled Roman?” (The anonymous biographer of Rienzi makes the following just remark:  “Sono li tedeschi, come discendon de la Alemagna, semplici, puri, senza fraude, come si allocano tra’ taliani, diventano mastri coduti, viziosi, che sentono ogni malizia.”—­“Vita di Cola di Rienzi”, lib. ii. cap. 16.)

“Tush!” said Brettone.  “Our brother’s hand of iron alone can sway this turbulent people; and if Rienzi be betrayed, so also are his enemies, the Barons.  No more of this!  I have tidings from Montreal; he will be in Rome in a few days.”

“And then?”

“Rienzi, weakened by the Barons (for he must not conquer)—­the Barons, weakened by Rienzi—­our Northmen seize the Capitol, and the soldiery, now scattered throughout Italy, will fly to the standard of the Great Captain.  Montreal must be first Podesta, then King, of Rome.”

Arimbaldo moved restlessly in his seat, and the brethren conferred no more on their projects.

The situation of Rienzi was precisely that which tends the most to sour and to harden the fairest nature.  With an intellect capable of the grandest designs, a heart that beat with the loftiest emotions, elevated to the sunny pinnacle of power and surrounded by loud-tongued adulators, he knew not among men a single breast in which he could confide.  He was as one on a steep ascent, whose footing crumbles, while every bough at which he grasps seems to rot at his touch.  He found the people more than ever eloquent in his favour, but while they shouted raptures as he passed, not a man was capable of making a sacrifice for him!  The liberty of a state is never achieved by a single individual; if not the people—­if not the