linament. Raffaello seized upon a wine-flask, and gently placing his arms beneath the fast-paling youth, first moistened his lips, and then urged him to swallow.

"Brother Arensberg, be not angry with me! I have broken your orders. List to me, while I can speak. We tracked a party from St. Angelo. We were long obedient to your commands to use no violence. But there was a woman's shriek for help, and I forgot my duty and

"And rescued her, I'll be sworn," exclaimed Raffaello, triumphantly.

We saw her safe within the Chigi palace," returned Rupert. Rupert!"

66

"My brother!"

"I bless thee for it, yet I must condemn thee," said Arensberg, with half-assumed, half-sincere sternness. "Were you not commanded to do nothing but observe?"

The young Graf, pale though he had been from loss of blood, blushed crimson at a rebuke which he knew he deserved, according to the laws of military obedience, too well.

"Go on with your report, or rather recount it more minutely, Rupert, if you can," eagerly asked Arensberg.

"I can add nothing more, save that the Cardinal himself has fallen."

"Fallen?" ejaculated both Arensberg and Raffaello --and they both looked aghast“ Fallen ?

"My Lord of Arensberg, I must leave you," said Raffaello. "I must leave you, and that instantly. Think not," he added with a smile, "that I do so in order to desert a friend in trouble. Trust me I will not be idle on your behalf."

"Go, dear, noble friend: I trust you with-yea, I trust you with mine honour even."

"Will your brave young brother be able to sit his horse to-morrow, think you?" asked Raffaello, in a low voice.

"Sit him to-morrow? Yes, sit him directly," returned Rupert. "I can ride this instant-unless it be in flight," he continued proudly.

"Then, my dear young lord, you must lose no time. Flight? Did you say flight? To counsel that would be useless. I know you too thoroughly, I admire you too warmly and too sincerely to counsel flight. But now that the Cardinal has fallen.

"He is not dead," interrupted Rupert; "would he were!"

"Now that the Cardinal has fallen," continued Raffaello, as if there had been no interruption, "the lady for whom you have fought so well, so nobly, is in the greatest danger every second she remains in Rome.

"Believe me, my good Lord Arensberg, not even Agostino Chigi could protect her, even if he would. For God's sake bear her, and that quickly, beyond the frontiers."

It would be difficult to imagine a more painful

predicament than that in which Count Arensberg found himself. He felt no resentment against Bianca for her rash judgment upon his conduct. Even if he had, his chivalrous honour would have nerved him to risk each and everything, save honour, in her behalf. But stir one step from Rome he could not-dared not. Was he not on duty as the envoy of his Prince? True, his mission had fulfilled its purpose; and on the very morrow, after his audience with the Government, he had to leave. Nevertheless, for him, an Envoy Extraordinary, to violate the laws of office, and to leave the Court in haste, and with attendant doubts and surmises, if not positive accusations, this would be treason to his princely

master.

Then also there recurred again and again the conviction that, even were all other objections powerless, the Lady Bianca would receive no boon, however great, from him.

How then could he answer to Raffaello? How?

"Move hence I cannot, my noble friend, and that thou knowest. I leave utterly and wholly my brother to your guidance."

"Then all I bargain for," said Raffaello, "is that, as soon as possible, you provide your brother with credentials that he is moving forward with a portion of your suite as Envoy, and that you give him an escort as strong as you can spare. Those credentials will serve him for a pass through the Porta S. Lorenzo. And," he continued, turning to Rupert,

"do you, my dear young lord, wait near the Basilica of San Lorenzo. You shall be detained no longer than I can help. And God speed you homeward with your charge!"

CHAPTER XI.

"YESTERDAY I burned the Satanic works of the Pope. It would have been better had it been the Pope himself we had burned; I mean the Pontifical See. If you do not break off with Rome, woe to your souls! Let every Christian well reflect that in holding communion with the Papists he renounces his eternal salvation. Abomination to the modern Babylon! While I have a breath in my body I will cry abomination ! "*

Who utters this daring philippic against the Church of Rome?—against a church of fifteen centuries, which claimed an apostle for its founder, holy martyrs for its witnesses, wise and learned confessors for its advocates, miracles innumerable for its authentication, and an incalculable list of suffrages from among nations and potentates for its permanent institution?

Who thus presumes to defy and to burn the edicts, and to brand with reprobation the rule of him whom the largest, and fairest, and most mighty portion of Christendom had for so many ages proclaimed to be God's Vicegerent?

*Note 11.