ee.
And now be quick. Bring hither one of thy page's suits,--mantle and
head-gear. Quick, I say, and whisper not to a soul what I have asked of
thee."

Chapter 7.V. The Inmate of the Tower.

The night slowly advanced, and in the highest chamber of that dark and
rugged tower which fronted the windows of the Cesarini's palace sate a
solitary prisoner. A single lamp burned before him on a table of stone,
and threw its rays over an open Bible; and those stern but fantastic
legends of the prowess of ancient Rome, which the genius of Livy has
dignified into history. ("Avea libri assai, suo Tito Livio, sue storie
di Roma, la Bibbia et altri libri assai, non finava di studiare."--"Vita
di Cola di Rienzi", lib. ii. cap. 13. See translation to motto to Book
VII. page 202.) A chain hung pendent from the vault of the tower, and
confined the captive; but so as to leave his limbs at sufficient liberty
to measure at will the greater part of the cell. Green and damp were the
mighty stones of the walls, and through a narrow aperture, high out of
reach, came the moonlight, and slept in long shadow over the rude floor.
A bed at one corner completed the furniture of the room. Such for months
had been the abode of the conqueror of the haughtiest Barons, and the
luxurious dictator of the stateliest city of the world!

Care, and travel, and time, and adversity, had wrought their change in
the person of Rienzi. The proportions of his frame had enlarged from the
compact strength of earlier manhood, the clear paleness of his cheek was
bespread with a hectic and deceitful glow. Even in his present
studies, intent as they seemed, and genial though the lecture to a mind
enthusiastic even to fanaticism, his eyes could not rivet themselves as
of yore steadily to the page. The charm was gone from the letters.
Every now and then he moved restlessly, started, re-settled himself, and
muttered broken exclamations like a man in an anxious dream. Anon, his
gaze impatiently turned upward, about, around, and there was a strange
and wandering fire in those large deep eyes, which might have thrilled
the beholder with a vague and unaccountable awe.

Angelo had in the main correctly narrated the more recent adventures of
Rienzi after his fall. He had first with Nina and Angelo betaken himself
to Naples, and found a fallacious and brief favour with Louis, king
of Hungary; that harsh but honourable monarch had refused to yield his
illustrious guest to the d