s, 'See how just I am!'"

"I do not answer thee now," answered Adrian; "but if thou regrettest
with me this waste of blood, join with me in attempting to prevent it."

"I--not I! let the blood of the slaves flow today: the time is fast
coming when it shall be washed away by the blood of the lords."

"Away, ruffian!" said Adrian, seeking no further parley, and touching
the smith with the flat side of his sword. In an instant the hammer of
the smith swung in the air, and, but for the active spring of the young
noble, would infallibly have crushed him to the earth. Ere the smith
could gain time for a second blow, Adrian's sword passed twice through
his right arm, and the weapon fell heavily to the ground.

"Slay him, slay him!" cried several of the clients of the Colonna, now
pressing, dastard-like, round the disarmed and disabled smith.

"Ay, slay him!" said, in tolerable Italian, but with a barbarous accent,
one man, half-clad in armour, who had but just joined the group, and who
was one of those wild German bandits whom the Colonna held in their pay;
"he belongs to a horrible gang of miscreants sworn against all order
and peace. He is one of Rienzi's followers, and, bless the Three Kings!
raves about the People."

"Thou sayest right, barbarian," said the sturdy smith, in a loud voice,
and tearing aside the vest from his breast with his left hand; "come
all--Colonna and Orsini--dig to this heart with your sharp blades, and
when you have reached the centre, you will find there the object of your
common hatred--'Rienzi and the People!'"

As he uttered these words, in language that would have seemed above his
station (if a certain glow and exaggeration of phrase and sentiment were
not common, when excited, to all the Romans), the loudness of his voice
rose above the noise immediately round him, and stilled, for an instant,
the general din; and when, at last, the words, "Rienzi and the People"
rang forth, they penetrated midway through the increasing crowd, and
were answered as by an echo, with a hundred voices--"Rienzi and the
People!"

But whatever impression the words of the mechanic made on others, it was
equally visible in the young Colonna. At the name of Rienzi the glow
of excitement vanished from his cheek; he started back, muttered to
himself, and for a moment seemed, even in the midst of that stirring
commotion, to be lost in a moody and distant revery. He recovered, as
the shout died away; and saying to th