ed the rough pavement, spread with
heaps of armour negligently piled around. At the farther end of the
apartment, Adrian shudderingly perceived, set in due and exact order,
the implements of torture.

Stefanello Colonna, with two other Barons, indolently reclined on seats
drawn around a table, in the recess of a deep casement, from which might
be still seen the same glorious landscape, bounded by the dim spires
of Rome, which Hannibal and Pyrrhus had ascended that very citadel to
survey!

Stefanello himself, in the first bloom of youth, bore already on his
beardless countenance those traces usually the work of the passions and
vices of maturest manhood. His features were cast in the mould of the
old Stephen's; in their clear, sharp, high-bred outline might be noticed
that regular and graceful symmetry, which blood, in men as in animals,
will sometimes entail through generations; but the features were wasted
and meagre. His brows were knit in an eternal frown; his thin and
bloodless lips wore that insolent contempt which seems so peculiarly
cold and unlovely in early youth; and the deep and livid hollows round
his eyes, spoke of habitual excess and premature exhaustion. By him sat
(reconciled by hatred to one another) the hereditary foes of his race;
the soft, but cunning and astute features of Luca di Savelli, contrasted
with the broad frame and ferocious countenance of the Prince of the
Orsini.

The young head of the Colonna rose with some cordiality to receive his
cousin. "Welcome," he said, "dear Adrian; you are arrived in time to
assist us with your well-known military skill. Think you not we shall
stand a long siege, if the insolent plebeian dare adventure it? You know
our friends, the Orsini and the Savelli? Thanks to St. Peter, or Peter's
delegate, we have now happily meaner throats to cut than those of each
other!"

Thus saying, Stefanello again threw himself listlessly on his seat, and
the shrill, woman's voice of Savelli took part in the dialogue.

"I would, noble Signor, that you had come a few hours earlier: we are
still making merry at the recollection--he, he, he!"

"Ah, excellent," cried Stefanello, joining in the laugh; "our cousin has
had a loss. Know Adrian, that this base fellow, whom the Pope has
had the impudence to create Senator, dared but yesterday to send us a
varlet, whom he called--by our Lady!--his ambassador!"

"Would you could have seen his mantle, Signor Adrian!" chimed in the
Sav