High thoughts and daring spirits touched a congenial string in his heart, and not the less, in that he had but rarely met them in his experience of camps and courts.  For the first time in his life, he felt that he had seen the woman who could have contented him even with wedlock, and taught him the proud and faithful love of which the minstrels of Spain had sung.  He sighed, and still gazing on Nina, approached her, almost reverentially; he knelt and kissed the hem of her robe.  “Lady,” he said, “I would I could believe that you have altogether read my nature aright, but I were indeed lost to all honour, and unworthy of gentle birth, if I still harboured a single thought against the peace and virtue of one like thee.  Sweet heroine,”—­he continued—­“so lovely, yet so pure—­so haughty, and yet so soft—­thou hast opened to me the brightest page these eyes have ever scanned in the blotted volume of mankind.  Mayest thou have such happiness as life can give; but souls such as thine make their nest like the eagle, upon rocks and amidst the storms.  Fear me no more—­think of me no more—­unless hereafter, when thou hearest men speak of Giles d’Albornoz, thou mayest say in thine own heart,”—­and here the Cardinal’s lip curled with scorn—­“he did not renounce every feeling worthy of a man, when Ambition and Fate endued him with the surplice of the priest.”

The Spaniard was gone before Nina could reply.

BOOK VIII.  THE GRAND COMPANY.

“Montreal nourrissoit de plus vastes projets...il donnoit a sa campagnie un gouvernement regulier...Par cette discipline il faisoit regner l’abondance dans son camp; les gens de guerre ne parloient, en Italie, que des richesses qu’on acqueroit a son service.”—­Sismondi, “Histoire des Republiques Italiennes”, tom. vi. c. 42.

“Montreal cherished more vast designs...he subjected his company to a regular system of government...By means of this discipline he kept his camp abundantly supplied, and military adventurers in Italy talked of nothing but the wealth won in his service.”—­Sismondi’s “History of Italian Republics”.

Chapter 8.I.  The Encampment.

It was a most lovely day, in the very glow and meridian of an Italian summer, when a small band of horsemen were seen winding a hill which commanded one of the fairest landscapes of Tuscany.  At their head was a cavalier in a complete suit of chain armour, the links of which were so fine, that they resembled a delicate and curious network, but so strongly compacted, that they would have resisted spear or sword no less effectually than the heaviest corselet, while adapting themselves exactly and with ease to every movement of the light and graceful shape of the rider.  He wore a hat of dark green velvet shaded by long plumes, while of two squires behind, the one bore his helmet and lance, the other led a strong warhorse, completely cased in plates of mail, which seemed, however, scarcely