ounded the alarm, and when we came up with their outposts
the army had formed in battle array.

I was glad of this, for it has never been my practice to fall upon and
massacre sleeping men. My trumpeter sounded a parley and with a white
handkerchief on the staff from which I had stripped my ensign I rode out
to meet Napoleone.

I told him that I came as messenger from the Pope to bid him keep the
peace, for the war was over.

He replied that he had already received that news from Ippolito de'
Medici, who on the previous evening had come and gone; but that it was
not easy to pacify such men as the Orsini when their blood was up.

"Then I will pacify them," I cried, "for peace I will have, though I
fight for it."

"That is the peace for me," he replied, and at it we went.

I banged them well, and the monks of Subiaco coming up in good time when
we were nearly spent, joined in the fray with their war-cry of "The Holy
Column!" and "Christ for Colonna!" My sister's vassals also made a sally
from the castle but were driven back, certain of Orsini's men following
them closely and throwing firebrands upon them as they dashed through
the postern gate. That was the great disaster and tragedy of the day,
for the tower in which the fugitives had sought shelter was the
powder-magazine and a spark from the fiery missile thrown, guided by the
evil one, found its way to a little trail of the devil's dust, which had
been scattered on the stairs, and so fired the mine in that pent-up
hell.

With a noise as of the rending of mountains the tower belched a volcano
of flame and the battle-field was as Sodom and Gomorrah when the heavens
rained brimstone.

By good fortune the occupants of the castle were chiefly in a tower upon
the other side of the court, at whose foot the main battle was now
raging, so that the loss of life was not so great as it might otherwise
have been. As it was we were all so terrified that we ceased from our
fighting, Orsini's men fleeing in hot haste, nor did our troops pursue,
but busied themselves in giving help to the wounded. At the same time
those within the castle, seeing that the battle was over, opened its
gates, and to my unutterable joy I beheld Fenice and my sister standing
unharmed within its portal.

So it was that we pacified the wild Orsini, and later a new castle was
born phoenix-like from the ashes of the old. But for a while it was
deserted, for Cardinal Pompeo would no longer risk the li