And at those two rival shouts, you saw waving on high the golden bear of the Orsini, with the motto—­“Beware my embrace!” and the solitary column on an azure ground, of the Colonna, with Adrian’s especial device—­“Sad, but strong.”  The train of Martino Orsini was much more numerous than that of Adrian, which last consisted but of ten servitors.  But Adrian’s men attracted far greater admiration amongst the crowd, and pleased more the experienced eye of the warlike Knight of St. John.  Their arms were polished like mirrors; their height was to an inch the same; their march was regular and sedate; their mien erect; they looked neither to the right nor left; they betrayed that ineffable discipline—­that harmony of order—­which Adrian had learned to impart to his men during his own apprenticeship of arms.  But the disorderly train of the Lord of Porto was composed of men of all heights.  Their arms were ill-polished and ill-fashioned, and they pressed confusedly on each other; they laughed and spoke aloud; and in their mien and bearing expressed all the insolence of men who despised alike the master they served and the people they awed.  The two bands coming unexpectedly on each other through this narrow defile, the jealousy of the two houses presently declared itself.  Each pressed forward for the precedence; and, as the quiet regularity of Adrian’s train, and even its compact paucity of numbers, enabled it to pass before the servitors of his rival, the populace set up a loud shout—­“A Colonna for ever!”—­“Let the Bear dance after the Column!”

“On, ye knaves!” said Orsini aloud to his men.  “How have ye suffered this affront?” And passing himself to the head of his men, he would have advanced through the midst of his rival’s train, had not a tall guard, in the Pope’s livery, placed his baton in the way.

“Pardon, my Lord! we have the Vicar’s express commands to suffer no struggling of the different trains one with another.”

“Knave! dost thou bandy words with me?” said the fierce Orsini; and with his sword he clove the baton in two.

“In the Vicar’s name, I command you to fall back!” said the sturdy guard, now placing his huge bulk in the very front of the noble’s path.

“It is Cecco del Vecchio!” cried those of the populace, who were near enough to perceive the interruption and its cause.

“Ay,” said one, “the good Vicar has put many of the stoutest fellows in the Pope’s livery, in order the better to keep peace.  He could have chosen none better than Cecco.”

“But he must not fall!” cried another, as Orsini, glaring on the smith, drew back his sword as if to plunge it through his bosom.