"Enough! enough!" cried Montreal, colouring with rage and shame.
"Rodolf, you have a skilful eye in these matters, how many Northmen
would it take to give that same gibbet to the upstart?"

Rodolf scratched his huge head, and seemed awhile lost in calculation;
at length he said, "You, Captain, must be the best judge, when I tell
you, that twenty thousand Romans are the least of his force, so I heard
by the way; and this evening he is to accept the crown, and depose the
Emperor."

"Ha, ha!" laughed Montreal, "is he so mad? then he will want not our aid
to hang himself. My friends, let us wait the result. At present neither
barons nor people seem likely to fill our coffers. Let us across the
country to Terracina. Thank the saints," and Montreal (who was not
without a strange kind of devotion,--indeed he deemed that virtue
essential to chivalry) crossed himself piously, "the free companions are
never long without quarters!"

"Hurrah for the Knight of St. John!" cried the mercenaries. "And hurrah
for fair Provence and bold Germany!" added the Knight, as he waved his
hand on high, struck spurs into his already wearied horse, and, breaking
out into his favourite song,

"His steed and his sword,
And his lady the peerless," &c.,

Montreal, with his troop, struck gallantly across the Campagna.

The Knight of St. John soon, however, fell into an absorbed and moody
reverie; and his followers imitating the silence of their chief, in a