of gold!"

"Hark!" cried Giacomo, hastening to the lattice, "hear you the hoofs
below? Ah, a gallant company!"

"Returned from hawking," answered Angelo, regarding wistfully the
cavalcade, as it swept the narrow street. "Plumes waving, steeds
curvetting--see how yon handsome cavalier presses close to that dame!"

"His mantle is the colour of mine," sighed Giacomo.

As the gay procession paced slowly on, till hidden by the winding
street, and as the sound of laughter and the tramp of horses was yet
faintly heard, there frowned right before the straining gaze of the
pages, a dark massive tower of the mighty masonry of the eleventh
century: the sun gleamed sadly on its vast and dismal surface, which was
only here and there relieved by loopholes and narrow slits, rather
than casements. It was a striking contrast to the gaiety around, the
glittering shops, and the gaudy train that had just filled the space
below. This contrast the young men seemed involuntarily to feel; they
drew back, and looked at each other.

"I know your thoughts, Giacomo," said Angelo, the handsomer and elder of
the two. "You think yon tower affords but a gloomy lodgment?"

"And I thank my stars that made me not high enough to require so grand a
cage," rejoined Giacomo.

"Yet," observed Angelo, "it holds one, who in birth was not our
superior."

"Do tell me something of that strange man," said Giacomo, regaining his
seat; "you are Roman and should know."

"Yes!" answered Angelo, haughtily drawing himself up, "I am Roman! and I
should be unworthy my birth, if I had not already learned what honour is
due to the name of Cola di Rienzi."

"Yet your fellow-Romans merely stoned him, I fancy," muttered Giacomo.
"Honour seems to lie more in kicks than money. Can you tell me,"
continued the page in a louder key, "can you tell me if it be true, that
Rienzi appeared at Prague before the Emperor, and prophesied that the
late Pope and all the Cardinals should be murdered, and a new Italian
Pope elected, who should endue the Emperor with a golden crown, as
Sovereign of Sicilia, Calabria, and Apulia, (An absurd fable, adopted
by certain historians.) and himself with a crown of silver, as King of
Rome, and all Italy? And--"

"Hush!" interrupted Angelo, impatiently. "Listen to me, and you shall
know the exact story. On last leaving Rome (thou knowest that, after
his fall, he was present at the Jubilee in disguise) the Tribune--" here
Angelo, pausing, looke