avelli fell also back, and
whispered to Orsini; the Frangipani, and some other of the nobles,
exchanged meaning looks; Rienzi, entering the sacred edifice in which,
according to custom, he was to pass the night watching his armour, bade
the crowd farewell, and summoned them the next morning, "To hear things
that might, he trusted, be acceptable to heaven and earth."

The immense multitude received this intimation with curiosity and
gladness, while those who had been in some measure prepared by Cecco del
Vecchio, hailed it as an omen of their Tribune's unflagging resolution.
The concourse dispersed with singular order and quietness; it was
recorded as a remarkable fact, that in so great a crowd, composed of men
of all parties, none exhibited licence or indulged in quarrel. Some of
the barons and cavaliers, among whom was Luca di Savelli, whose sleek
urbanity and sarcastic humour found favour with the Tribune, and a few
subordinate pages and attendants, alone remained; and, save a single
sentinel at the porch, that broad space before the Palace, the Basilica
and Fount of Constantine, soon presented a silent and desolate void to
the melancholy moonlight. Within the church, according to the usage of
the time and rite, the descendant of the Teuton kings received the order
of the Santo Spirito. His pride, or some superstition equally weak,
though more excusable, led him to bathe in the porphyry vase which
an absurd legend consecrated to Constantine; and this, as Savelli
predicted, cost him dear. These appointed ceremonies concluded, his arms
were placed in that part of the church, within the columns of St. John.
And here his state bed was prepared. (In a more northern country, the
eve of knighthood would have been spent without sleeping. In Italy, the
ceremony of watching the armour does not appear to have been so rigidly
observed.)

The attendant barons, pages, and chamberlains, retired out of sight to
a small side chapel in the edifice; and Rienzi was left alone. A single
lamp, placed beside his bed, contended with the mournful rays of the
moon, that cast through the long casements, over aisle and pillar, its
"dim religious light." The sanctity of the place, the solemnity of the
hour, and the solitary silence round, were well calculated to deepen
the high-wrought and earnest mood of that son of fortune. Many and high
fancies swept over his mind--now of worldly aspirations, now of more
august but visionary belief, till at l