nd he would have obtained the fulfilment of his
request from Otto; but Pope Gregory remembered how he himself had been
driven out penniless and scantily clothed, to make way for John of
Calabria, and his heart was hardened, and he would not let the prisoner
go. Wherefore Saint Nilus foretold that because neither the Pope nor the
Emperor would have mercy, the wrath of God should overtake them both.
And indeed they were both cut off in the flower of their youth--Gregory
within one year, and Otto not long afterwards.

Meanwhile they sent Nilus away and laid siege to the Castle of Sant'
Angelo, where Crescenzio and his men had shut themselves up with a good
store of food and arms. No one had ever taken that fortress, nor did
any one believe that it could be stormed. But Pope and Emperor were
young and brave and angry, and they had a great army, and the people of
Rome were with them, every man. They used such engines as they
had,--catapults, and battering-rams, and ladders; and yet Crescenzio
laughed, for the stone walls were harder than the stone missiles, and
higher than the tallest ladders, and so thick that fire could not heat
them from without, nor battering-ram loosen a single block in a single
course; and many assaults were repelled, and many a brave soldier fell
writhing and broken into the deep ditch with his ladder upon him.

When the time of fate was fulfilled, the end came on a fair April
morning; one ladder held its place till desperate armed hands had
reached the rampart, and swift feet had sprung upon the edge, and one
brave arm beat back the twenty that were there to defend; and then there
were two, and three, and ten, and a score, and a hundred, and the great
castle was taken at last. Nor do we know surely that it was ever taken
again by force, even long afterwards in the days of artillery. But
Crescenzio's hour had come, and the Emperor took him and the twelve
chief nobles who were with him, and cut off their heads, one by one, in
quick justice and without torture, and the heads were set up on spikes,
and the headless bodies were hung out from the high crenellations of the
ramparts. Thus ended Crescenzio, but not his house, nor the line of
Theodora, nor died he unavenged.

[Illustration: CHURCH OF SANT' EUSTACHIO

From a print of the last century]

It is said and believed that Pope Gregory perished by the hands of the
Crescenzi, who lived in the little street behind the Church of Saint
Eustace. As for