scorn your maledictions.--Heaven blesses whom you curse,
and curses whom you bless!"

Few of the soldiers present had ever before heard a speaking-trumpet,
and these words seemed supernatural, while the distant echo gave
credence to the speedy realization of the prophecy. But Frederic, more
enlightened, skilfully parried the blow, and aware of a report which
had been circulated latterly, that an angel had descended from heaven
to curse Victor and his partisans, he looked on in scornful silence,
while the crowd broke out in clamorous surprise.

Suddenly a straw effigy of the Pope, crowned with rags, with a paper
mitre on its head, and a scroll with the inscription, in large letters,
of "Pope Victor" in its hand, was hurled from the walls by a catapult,
and fell close to Octavian's feet, while, amid a burst of contemptuous
laughter, the voice again shouted through the trumpet, "Straw Pope!
Straw Pope!"

Octavian was thunderstruck, and stood gazing with a wild stare upon the
effigy, and his face assumed an expression so ridiculously stupid, that
Rinaldo and the bystanders, remarking the absurd resemblance between it
and the figure, could with difficulty restrain their mirth.

Frederic reflected grimly for a moment, but soon found means to turn
this incident to profit.

"Resume your seat!" he said to Victor, and then rising with the fierce
and decided manner which so well became him, he commanded silence. Even
Rinaldo's face wore a serious expression, and all awaited,
breathlessly, the monarch's harangue.

"What means all this? What seeks Milan with these sinful mockeries?
Will that accursed city never respect anything? She turns into ridicule
even the holy symbols of spiritual power; she mocks at the legitimate
Head of the Church; and that her insults may be the better heard, a
miserable speaking-trumpet cries them from the walls! Remember the
tyranny which reigns in Milan, think of the destruction of Lodi and the
misfortunes of Como; think of all those things, and then tell me if
that city does not merit destruction!"

Frederic ceased, but his words had produced the desired effect.

"She deserves her fate!" cried, eagerly, the soldiers of Lodi and Como
who were present; "she deserves her fate; down with Milan!"

"Yes, she deserves it," resumed the Emperor, "and this time we
ourselves will execute the decrees of justice!" He paused, and raising
his hand to his brow, took off the crown. Then, his eyes raised to