unsheathed sword, and his wonder grew as he looked on.

"We ask your pardon, Fra Arnoldo," cried the chief, still kneeling.
"How could we guess that you were breakfasting out here this morning?
We thought you far in the north."

"And therefore thought yourselves free to rob strangers and steal
cattle, and cut one anothers' throats?"

"This is probably a part of the civilization of a republic," observed
Gilbert, with a smile.

But the highwaymen, all dismounted now, came crowding to the feet of
Arnold of Brescia in profound, if not lasting, contrition, and they
begged a blessing of the excommunicated monk.




CHAPTER IX


Gilbert lodged at the sign of the Lion, over against the tower of Nona,
by the bridge of Sant' Angelo. The inn was as old as the times of
Charlemagne, when it had been named in honour of Pope Leo, who had
crowned him emperor. But the quarter was at that time in the hands of
the great Jewish race of Pierleoni, whose first antipope, Anacletus,
had not been dead many years, and who, though they still held the
castle and many towers and fortresses in Rome, had not succeeded in
imposing the antipope Victor upon the Roman people, against the will of