d had fallen forward upon the
parchment.

Shaking his head in astonishment, Dassel walked towards the corpse and
then called for his servants. His fear had passed away, for the
Chancellor was not easily agitated.

"Hillin is dead," he said; "the young man had fine prospects, and would
have been useful; but dead, he is only a nuisance. Take away this
carcass!"

At this moment the Emperor sent for him, and Rinaldo, throwing into the
fire the now useless letter, dressed himself in his court-robes and
repaired to his master's presence.

Frederic's face was sad and calm. He replied to his minister's bow with
a mute smile, and motioned him to a seat.

"Chancellor," he said; "we have done all that is possible. But Heaven
seems inexorable; the plague rages with renewed fury; two-thirds of my
army have perished, and if we remain here longer, the remainder will
share their fate."

"Still we must stay here. Our flight will only aggravate our condition;
I have foreseen all this. The plague will cease as unexpectedly as it
began."

"But if it really were a chastisement from God?" said Barbarossa.

Rinaldo sneered viciously: he looked steadily at the Emperor for a
moment, and then answered,--

"We must then suppose that God amuses himself by punishing the Romans
every year; for every year the heat raises these noxious vapors from
the marshes, and breeds a pestilential fever; it is an unhealthy
climate, that is all that can be said."

Barbarossa shook his head.

"Your explanations are not satisfactory," he replied; "this is no
fever, it is the plague, and the plague is not the result of mere
chance, it is the effect of divine wrath! We must humble ourselves
before God!"

"By all means, Sire; and since God opposes our designs, we must give
up, and acknowledge ourselves to be beaten by Alexander!"

This remark touched the Emperor's pride, and Rinaldo continued his
arguments.

"I thought," he said, "that it was only the rabble who had these ideas
about God's judgment--"

A wild shriek closed his speech: the Chancellor was a corpse, and
Barbarossa stood gazing upon his confidant, whose features still bore
the impress of devilish hate.

The Germans, however, did not abandon the bodies of their princes. All
were embalmed and transported from Italy beyond the Alps, to be buried
in the cathedrals of their native land. Two large tents were pitched,
beneath which were laid out in state the deceased nobles: the bishops
in