“Save me! save me, brother!” he shrieked aloud, and the shriek reached Cola’s ear;—the snort of the fiery charger breathed hot upon him;—a moment more, and with one wild shrill cry of “Mercy, mercy” he fell to the ground—a corpse: the lance of the pursuer passing through and through him, from back to breast, and nailing him on the very sod where he had sate, full of young life and careless hope, not an hour ago.
The horseman plucked forth his spear, and passed on in pursuit of new victims; his comrades following. Cola had descended,—was on the spot,—kneeling by his murdered brother. Presently, to the sound of horn and trumpet, came by a nobler company than most of those hitherto engaged; who had been, indeed, but the advanced-guard of the Colonna. At their head rode a man in years, whose long white hair escaped from his plumed cap and mingled with his venerable beard. “How is this?” said the chief, reining in his steed, “young Rienzi!”
The youth looked up, as he heard that voice, and then flung himself before the steed of the old noble, and, clasping his hands, cried out in a scarce articulate tone: “It is my brother, noble Stephen,—a boy, a mere child!—the best—the mildest! See how his blood dabbles the grass;—back, back—your horse’s hoofs are in the stream! Justice, my Lord, justice!—you are a great man.”
“Who slew him? an Orsini, doubtless; you shall have justice.”
“Thanks, thanks,” murmured Rienzi, as he tottered once more to his brother’s side, turned the boy’s face from the grass, and strove wildly to feel the pulse of his heart; he drew back his hand hastily, for it was crimsoned with blood, and lifting that hand on high, shrieked out again, “Justice! justice!”
The group round the old Stephen Colonna, hardened as they were in such scenes, were affected by the sight. A handsome boy, whose tears ran fast down his cheeks, and who rode his palfrey close by the side of the Colonna, drew forth his sword. “My Lord,” said he, half sobbing, “an Orsini only could have butchered a harmless lad like this; let us lose not a moment,—let us on after the ruffians.”
“No, Adrian, no!” cried Stephen, laying his hand on the boy’s shoulder; “your zeal is to be lauded, but we must beware an ambush. Our men have ventured too far—what, ho, there!—sound a return.”
The bugles, in a few minutes, brought back the pursuers,—among them, the horseman whose spear had been so fatally misused. He was the leader of those engaged in the conflict with Martino di Porto; and the gold wrought into his armour, with the gorgeous trappings of his charger, betokened his rank.
“Thanks, my son, thanks,” said the old Colonna to this cavalier, “you have done well and bravely. But tell me, knowest thou, for thou hast an eagle eye, which of the Orsini slew this poor boy?—a foul deed; his family, too, our clients!”
“Who? yon lad?” replied the horseman, lifting the helmet from his head, and wiping his heated brow; “say you so! how came he, then, with Martino’s rascals? I fear me the mistake hath cost him dear. I could but suppose him of the Orsini rabble, and so—and so—”
“You slew him!” cried Rienzi, in a voice of thunder, starting from the ground. “Justice! then, my Lord Stephen, justice! you promised me justice, and I will have it!”
“My poor youth,” said the old man, compassionately, “you should have had justice against the Orsini; but see you not this has been an error? I do not wonder you are too grieved to listen to reason now. We must make this up to you.”
“And let this pay for masses for the boy’s soul; I grieve me much for the accident,” said the younger Colonna, flinging down a purse of gold. “Ay, see us at the palace next week, young Cola—next week. My father, we had best return towards the boat; its safeguard may require us yet.”
“Right, Gianni; stay, some two of you, and see to the poor lad’s corpse;—a grievous accident! how could it chance?”
The company passed back the way they came, two of the common soldiers alone remaining, except the boy Adrian, who lingered behind a few moments, striving to console Rienzi, who, as one bereft of sense, remained motionless, gazing on the proud array as it swept along, and muttering to himself, “Justice, justice! I will have it yet.”
The loud voice of the elder Colonna summoned Adrian, reluctantly and weeping, away. “Let me be your brother,” said the gallant boy, affectionately pressing the scholar’s hand to his heart; “I want a brother like you.”
Rienzi made no reply; he did not heed or hear him—dark and stern thoughts, thoughts in which were the germ of a mighty revolution, were at his heart. He woke from them with a start, as the soldiers were now arranging their bucklers so as to make a kind of bier for the corpse, and then burst into tears as he fiercely motioned them away, and clasped the clay to his breast till he was literally soaked with the oozing blood.
The poor child’s garland had not dropped from his arm even when he fell, and, entangled by his dress, it still clung around him. It was a sight that recalled to Cola all the gentleness, the kind heart, and winning graces of his only brother—his only friend! It was a sight that seemed to make yet more inhuman the untimely and unmerited fate of that innocent boy. “My brother! my brother!” groaned the survivor; “how shall I meet our mother?—how shall I meet even night and solitude again?—so young, so harmless! See ye, sirs, he was but too gentle. And they will not give us justice, because his murderer was a noble and a Colonna. And this gold, too—gold for a brother’s blood! Will they not”—and the young man’s eyes glared like fire—“will they not give us justice? Time shall show!” so saying, he bent his head over the corpse; his lips muttered, as with some prayer or invocation; and then rising, his face was as pale as the dead beside him,—but it was no longer pale with grief!
From that bloody clay, and that inward prayer, Cola di Rienzi rose a new being. With his young brother died his own youth. But for that event, the future liberator of Rome might have been but a dreamer, a scholar, a poet; the peaceful rival of Petrarch; a man of thoughts, not deeds. But from that time, all his faculties, energies, fancies, genius, became concentrated into a single point; and patriotism, before a vision, leapt into the life and vigour of a passion, lastingly kindled, stubbornly hardened, and awfully consecrated,—by revenge!
Chapter 1.II. An Historical Survey—not to Be Passed Over, Except by
Those Who Dislike to Understand What They Read.
Years had passed away, and the death of the Roman boy, amidst more noble and less excusable slaughter, was soon forgotten,—forgotten almost by the parents of the slain, in the growing fame and fortunes of their eldest son,—forgotten and forgiven never by that son himself. But, between that prologue of blood, and the political drama which ensues,—between the fading interest, as it were, of a dream, and the more busy, actual, and continuous excitements of sterner life,—this may be the most fitting time to place before the reader a short and rapid outline of the state and circumstances of that city in which the principal scenes of this story are laid;—an outline necessary, perhaps, to many, for a full comprehension of the motives of the actors, and the vicissitudes of the plot.
Despite the miscellaneous and mongrel tribes that had forced their settlements in the City of the Caesars, the Roman population retained an inordinate notion of their own supremacy over the rest of the world; and, degenerated from the iron virtues of the Republic, possessed all the insolent and unruly turbulence which characterised the Plebs of the ancient Forum. Amongst a ferocious, yet not a brave populace, the nobles supported themselves less as sagacious tyrants than as relentless banditti. The popes had struggled in