against all evil-doers. All fighting in the camp is strictly
forbidden. Should the offender be a knight, his arms will be taken from
him, and he will be expelled from the army. If he is a varlet, he will
be flogged, his head shaved, and his shoulder marked with a red-hot
iron, unless his master redeems him by the payment of fifty pennies."

The herald paused to give his hearers time for reflection. The first
article had produced a bad effect upon the Italians, who were
accustomed to great license in respect to their personal quarrels, and
on all sides black and angry glances were exchanged.

"Flogged, shaved, and marked with a hot iron, for that trifle!" said
the crowd. "It is too severe!"

"Do you hear that, Migleo?" said a voice. "He values us at fifty
pennies a piece--it's absurd!"

The herald again commanded silence.

"If any one wounds a soldier, he shall lose his hand; whoever kills one
shall be decapitated!"

"I say, Migleo, what would you look like, with a shaved head?"

"Don't you think, Robbio, that in the course of a fortnight, the most
of us will have neither heads nor hands? For my part, it is as
impossible for me to keep my hands off a Pavian, as it is to meet a
chicken without wringing its neck?"

"And I can't look at a Novara man, without wanting to spit in his
face," said a Pavian, who stood by; and it was with difficulty the two
were kept from fighting, even under the eyes of Hesso himself.

"Silence, fools!" said Robbio; "do you want to get into the
executioner's clutches, already?"

"For the first theft, a varlet shall be flogged, shaved, and marked
with the iron; for the second, he shall be hanged!" added the herald.

"There is one omission in the law about theft," said a voice. "It is
forbidden to the varlets to rob, but there is nothing said about the
masters. What would happen if the offender were a count, a duke, or a
king?"

"Silence," cried another voice, whose piercing tone bore a great
resemblance to that of the jester Lanzo. "Don't you know that the
nobles never steal? they merely indulge their illustrious desires!"

"Whoever shall hold any communication with the Cardinal Roland, falsely
styling himself Pope Alexander III., shall be put under the ban of the
Emperor; it is permitted to kill him wherever found!"

"Do you hear that? to pillage is not to steal; the Emperor can permit
anything."

"Alexander is the true Pope; Victor is the anti-Pope; is that not so,
comrades?"