to their friends; the throngs of citizens and their wives in holiday dress; the sellers of sherbet, ices and pastry bearing their trays and barrels through the crowd with strange cries and the jingling of bells; the friars of every order in their various habits, the street-musicians, the half-naked lazzaroni, cripples and beggars, who fringed the throng like the line of scum edging a fair lake;—­this medley of sound and colour, which in fact resembled some sudden growth of the fiery soil, was an expressive comment on the abate’s words.

“Look,” he continued, as he and Odo drew aside to escape the mud from an emblazoned chariot, “at the gold-leaf on the panels of that coach and the gold-lace on the liveries of those lacqueys.  Is there any other city in the world where gold is so prodigally used?  Where the monks gild their relics, the nobility their servants, the apothecaries their pills, the very butchers their mutton?  One might fancy their bright sun had set them the example!  And how cold and grey all soberer tints must seem to these children of Apollo!  Well—­so it is with their religion and their daily life.  I wager half those naked wretches yonder would rather attend a fine religious service, with abundance of gilt candles, music from gilt organ-pipes, and incense from gilt censers, than eat a good meal or sleep in a decent bed; as they would rather starve under a handsome merry King that has the name of being the best billiard-player in Europe than go full under one of your solemn reforming Austrian Archdukes!”

The words recalled to Odo Crescenti’s theory of the influence of character and climate on the course of history; and this subject soon engrossing both speakers, they wandered on, inattentive to their surroundings, till they found themselves in the thickest concourse of the Toledo.  Here for a moment the dense crowd hemmed them in; and as they stood observing the humours of the scene, Odo’s eye fell on the thick-set figure of a man in doctor’s dress, who was being led through the press by two agents of the Inquisition.  The sight was too common to have fixed his attention, had he not recognised with a start the irascible red-faced professor who, on his first visit to Vivaldi, had defended the Diluvial theory of creation.  The sight raised a host of memories from which Odo would gladly have beaten a retreat; but the crowd held him in check and a moment later he saw that the doctor’s eyes were fixed on him with an air of recognition.  A movement of pity succeeded his first impulse, and turning to de Crucis he exclaimed:—­“I see yonder an old acquaintance who seems in an unlucky plight and with whom I should be glad to speak.”

The other, following his glance, beckoned to one of the sbirri, who made his way through the throng with the alacrity of one summoned by a superior.  De Crucis exchanged a few words with him, and then signed to him to return to his charge, who presently vanished in some fresh shifting of the crowd.