assemblages; but as the mortality continued to spread, and the corpses
immediately became covered with black spots, a great fear seized the
minds of all.

"He is dead! really dead!" said Gervase, who was supporting the body of
his friend Ambrose. "May God have mercy on his soul!"

And he made the sign of the cross on his forehead.

"But see how black he becomes!" said Anselm. "By all the saints! it is
the plague!"

Scarcely had he spoken, when his words were repeated by the crowd.

"The plague! the plague!" was cried out on all sides.

"God help us! the pestilence is in Rome!" exclaimed the people, as they
fled tumultuously through the doors to escape from the infected
atmosphere.

At first the Emperor's face flushed with anger, for he imagined that it
was a scheme concocted by the malevolence of his adversaries; but when
the crowd began to scatter in disorder, and the terrible cry, "the
pestilence is among us," was heard, a mortal dread fell upon the
Imperial retinue. The bishops grew pale, and many a remorseful
conscience whispered,--

"It is the vengeance of an offended God."

Still Frederic gave no signs of fear or agitation; his dauntless spirit
was a stranger to any such sentiments. He merely regretted the
interruption of the ceremony, that was all. He had erected his
triumphal throne in the Church of St. Peter, in the very heart of
Christendom, and his eyes gleamed with menace and discontent, as though
he would have forced the pestilence itself to recoil before his frown.
But death fears no mortal man, not even him who, seated on the topmost
pinnacle of successful ambition, thinks to rival God.

Already the plague had struck down some of Frederic's own retinue.

Count Ludolf of Dassel, the Chancellor's brother, had fallen dead, at a
few steps from the throne; and his neighbor, the Bishop Alexander of
Lodi, a few moments after, shared his fate. The prelates looked with
stupid wonder at these corpses, all bearing distinctive marks of the
scourge. Not one among them had the courage to stoop down and perform
the last duties which the Church enjoins. These men had none of the
noble sentiments of their calling; they had the vices and the passions
of the court, hands fitted only to wield the sword, and guilty hearts
which scarcely now began to be touched by repentance.

Many wished to follow the example set them by the Romans, but the
Emperor's voice forbade.

"What means this, my lords? What, Bishop of