the house were soon reassured. Bayard refused to regard
them as his prisoners or to take a coin of ransom. The daughters, two
lovely and accomplished girls, were delighted to attend the wounded
knight. They talked and sang to him, they touched the mandolin, they
woke the music of the virginals. In such society the hours flew lightly
by. The wound healed, and in six weeks Bayard was himself again.

On the day of his departure the lady of the house came into his
apartment, and besought him, as their preserver, to accept a certain
little box of steel. The box contained two thousand five hundred golden
ducats. Bayard took it. "But five hundred ducats," he said, "I desire
you to divide for me among the nuns whose convents have been pillaged."
Then, turning to her daughters, "Ladies," he said, "I owe you more than
thanks for your kind care of me. Soldiers do not carry with them pretty
things for ladies; but I pray each of you to accept from me a thousand
ducats, to aid your marriage portions." And with that he poured the
coins into their aprons.

[Illustration: Bayard taking Leave of the Ladies of Brescia.]

His horse was brought, and he was about to mount, when the girls came
stealing down the steps into the castle court, each with a little
present, worked by their own hands, which they desired him to accept.
One brought a pair of armlets, made of gold and silver thread; the
other, a purse of crimson satin. And this was all the spoil that Bayard
carried from the inestimable wealth of Brescia--the little keepsakes of
two girls whom he had saved.

The scenes of Bayard's life at which we have been glancing have been
chiefly those of his great feats of arms. And so it must be still; for
it is these of which the details have survived in history. And yet it
was such incidents as these at Brescia which made the fame of Bayard
what it was and what it is. To his foes, he was the flower of chivalry;
but to his friends, he was, besides, the most adored of men. It is said
that in his native province of Dauphiny, at his death, more than a
hundred ancient soldiers owed to him the roof that covered their old
age; that more than a hundred orphan girls had received their marriage
portions from his bounty. But of such acts the vast majority are
unrecorded; for these are not the deeds which shine in the world's eye.

Gaston de Foix was now before Ravenna. Bayard rode thither with all
speed; he was just in time. Two days after his arrival c