but with eyes turned
towards the quarter of the expected procession, the young Roman moved
yet nearer towards the river.

Presently the train came in view,--a gallant company, in truth; horsemen
in front, riding two abreast, where the path permitted, their steeds
caparisoned superbly, their plumes waving gaily, and the gleam of their
corselets glittering through the shades of the dusky twilight. A large
and miscellaneous crowd, all armed, some with pikes and mail, others
with less warlike or worse fashioned weapons, followed the cavaliers;
and high above plume and pike floated the blood-red banner of the
Orsini, with the motto and device (in which was ostentatiously displayed
the Guelfic badge of the keys of St. Peter) wrought in burnished gold.
A momentary fear crossed the boy's mind, for at that time, and in that
city, a nobleman begirt with his swordsmen was more dreaded than a wild
beast by the plebeians; but it was already too late to fly--the train
were upon him.

"Ho, boy!" cried the leader of the horsemen, Martino di Porto, one of
the great House of the Orsini; "hast thou seen a boat pass up the
river?--But thou must have seen it--how long since?"

"I saw a large boat about half an hour ago," answered the boy, terrified
by the rough voice and imperious bearing of the cavalier.

"Sailing right a-head, with a green flag at the stern?"

"The same, noble sir."

"On, then! we will stop her course ere the moon rise," said the baron.
"On!--let the boy go with us, lest he prove traitor, and alarm the
Colonna."

"An Orsini, an Orsini," shouted the multitude; "on, on!" and, despite
the prayers and remonstrances of the boy, he was placed in the
thickest of the crowd, and borne, or rather dragged along with the
rest--frightened, breathless, almost weeping, with his poor little
garland still hanging on his arm, while a sling was thrust into his
unwilling hand. Still he felt, through all his alarm, a kind of childish
curiosity to see the result of the pursuit.

By the loud and eager conversation of those about him, he learned that
the vessel he had seen contained a supply of corn destined to a fortress
up the river held by the Colonna, then at deadly feud with the Orsini;
and it was the object of the expedition in which the boy had been thus
lucklessly entrained to intercept the provision, and divert it to
the garrison of Martino di Porto. This news somewhat increased his
consternation, for the boy belonged to a fam