ch,
according to custom, sate, in solemn pomp, the Senator of Rome--and the
face of that young man was as the face of a demon!

"Ha!" said he, muttering to himself, and recalling the words of Rienzi
seven years before--"Blessed art thou who hast no blood of kindred to
avenge!"

Chapter 10.VI. The Suspense.

Walter de Montreal was buried in the church of St. Maria dell' Araceli.
But the "evil that he did lived after him!" Although the vulgar
had, until his apprehension, murmured against Rienzi for allowing so
notorious a freebooter to be at large, he was scarcely dead ere they
compassionated the object of their terror. With that singular species of
piety which Montreal had always cultivated, as if a decorous and natural
part of the character of a warrior, no sooner was his sentence fixed,
than he had surrendered himself to the devout preparation for death.
With the Augustine Friar he consumed the brief remainder of the night
in prayer and confession, comforted his brothers, and passed to the
scaffold with the step of a hero and the self-acquittal of a martyr. In
the wonderful delusions of the human heart, far from feeling remorse at
a life of professional rapine and slaughter, almost the last words
of the brave warrior were in proud commendation of his own deeds. "Be
valiant like me," he said to his brothers, "and remember that ye are now
the heirs to the Humbler of Apulia, Tuscany, and La Marca."

(Pregovi che vi amiate e siate valorosi al mondo, come fui
io, che mi feci fare obbedienza a la Puglia, Toscana, e a La
Marca."--"Vita di Cola di Rienzi", lib. ii. cap. 22. "I pray
you love one another, and be valorous as was I, who made
Apulia, Tuscany and La Marca own obedience to me."--"Life of
Cola di Rienzi".)

This confidence in himself continued at the scaffold. "I die," he said,
addressing the Romans--"I die contented, since my bones shall rest in
the Holy City of St. Peter and St. Paul, and the Soldier of Christ shall
have the burial-place of the Apostles. But I die unjustly. My wealth is
my crime--the poverty of your state my accuser. Senator of Rome,
thou mayst envy my last hour--men like Walter de Montreal perish not
unavenged." So saying, he turned to the East, murmured a brief prayer,
knelt down deliberately, and said as to himself, "Rome guard my
ashes!--Earth my memory--Fate my revenge;--and, now, Heaven receive my
soul!--Strike!" At the first blow, the head was severed f