A thought, which he instantly carried into execution, entered his mind.  He would paint a new standard!  How his heart beat, when he again stood before the easel!

He regarded the heretics as heathens.  The Spaniards were shortly going to fight against them and for the faith.  So he painted the Saviour on one side of the standard, the Virgin on the other.  The artist’s widow sat to him for the Madonna, a young soldier for the Christ.

No scruples, no consideration for the criticisms of teachers now checked his creating hand; the power was his, and whatever he did must be right.

He placed upon the Saviour’s bowed figure, Costa’s head, as he had painted it in Titian’s studio, and the Madonna, in defiance of the stern judges in Madrid, received the sibyl’s face, to please himself and do honor to his mother.  He made her younger, transformed her white hair to gleaming golden tresses.  One day he asked Flora to sit still and think of something very serious; he wanted to sketch her.

She gaily placed herself in position, saying: 

“Be quick, for serious thoughts don’t last long with me.”

A few days later both pictures were finished, and possessed no mean degree of merit; he rejoiced that after the long interval he could still accomplish something.  His mother was delighted with her son’s masterpieces, especially the Madonna, for she instantly recognized herself, and was touched by this proof of his faithful remembrance.  She had looked exactly like it when a young girl, she said; it was strange how precisely he had hit the color of her hair; but she was afraid it was blaspheming to paint a Madonna with her face; she was a poor sinner, nothing more.

Florette was glad that the work was finished, for restlessness again began to torture her, and the mornings had been so lonely.  Zorrillo—­it caused her bitter pain—­had not cast even a single glance at her, and she began to miss the society of men, to which she had been accustomed.  But she never complained, and always showed Ulrich the same cheerful face, until the latter told her one day that he must leave her for some time.

He had already defeated in little skirmishes small bodies of peasants and citizens, who had taken the field against the mutineers; now Colonel Romero called upon him to help oppose a large army of patriots, who had assembled between Lowen and Tirlemont, under the command of the noble Sieur de Floyon.  It was said to consist Of students and other rebellious brawlers, and so it proved; but the “rebels” were the flower of the youth of the shamefully-oppressed nation, noble souls, who found it unbearable to see their native land enslaved by mutinous hordes.

Ulrich’s parting with his mother was not a hard one.  He felt sure of victory and of returning home, but the excitable woman burst into tears as she bade him farewell.

The Eletto took the field with a large body of troops; the majority of the mutineers, with them.  Captain and Quartermaster Zorrillo, remained behind to hold the citizens in check.