be a personage about thirty years old, of a tall and stately figure, who wore the habit of a Knight Hospitaller of St. John. A long black mantle, wrought in the left with a white cross in eight points, covered nearly his whole person; his feet and arms only appeared, except the head, and were cased in brass mail. His helmet was carried by one of the attendants, and his white hood was drawn partially over his face to keep off the sun; but the countenance which appeared from it was remarkable for the noble and austere beauty of its expression, shadowed with a deep cast of melancholy and pride. His black hair curling short round his temples and face, completed the effect of the high and imposing severity of character stamped on its princely lineaments. This expression was not unsuitable to the mingled professions of priest and warrior assumed by the Knights of St. John, who, in addition to their military devotion, were bound in the strict rules of chastity and obedience professed by the hermits of St. Augustine.

The third leader was apparently several years younger than the Knight of St. John, and from his golden spurs and arms was of similar rank, but of a lay order of chivalry. The elastic plates of silver mail in which he was clad from head to foot, displayed a figure of extraordinary strength and agility, though inferior in height to that of the Hospitaller, to whose gloomy garb his array brilliantly contrasted. The splendour of his appointments, indeed, amply supported the title, which from the emblazonment on his shield he seemed to have assumed, of the Knight of the Sun. His armour glittered like the lucid scales

of a fresh-caught salmon, and on his breast it was so skilfully wrought into a blazing sun, that the luminary appeared as if reflected in a mirror. He wore a cap of silver tissue, in which was a sprig of purple broom; and the joyous gallant countenance, which expressed careless good humour, reckless daring, and high spirits, well harmonized with the warlike coxcombry of his array. His complexion had been originally very fair, and the long brown hair and blue laughing hawk's eye marked his northern descent. But the fierce sun of Italy had embrowned the skin wherever it was not usually covered by the helmet, and presented something of the effect of a bronze mask, which, however, gave a soldierly and veteran look to the otherwise youthful and blooming counte

nance.

For some time the travellers had been winding up the steep brow of an acclivity, on a road which was formed only by cutting down a few trees, the trunks of which still remained half hidden among the grass, and made the horses stumble every instant. On one side was a lofty succession of dark desolate hills, at whose base they proceeded; on the other stretched down a fathomless chaos of rocks, precipices, forests, and torrents, forming a mountainous valley, which seemed as if dashed together by nature in a fit of madness. Beyond the valley appeared a still vaster pile of hills towering one above the other like the Titans' stairs to heaven, until the topmost shone white as if with snow, and bounded the immense view.

The travellers proceeded for some time in silence, probably too fatigued for conversation, as they

seemed to have made a long journey, their horses' tongues hanging out, and their breasts covered with foam. The English knight had been humming a roundelay in his own language-the chief words distinguished being "Robin Hood, and the good greenwood." But the still and sultry calm into which the evening gradually closed produced an effect even on his buoyant spirits.

"Messer Bembo," he said at last, addressing the ecclesiastic in good Italian, but with a foreign accent; "methinks this castle of yours, if it be not removed by faerie art, should now be somewhere in sight."

"I have noted the canon this last half hour or so, and he sometimes checks his mule as if he misdoubted his own guidance," said the Hospitaller, with a quietly sarcastic smile.

"No, monsignor, no," replied the ecclesiastic, with nevertheless a very puzzled countenance. "It is true that it is now seven years since I last found my way to my good friend Savelli's castle; for since Ferrara and his holiness disagreed at the sword's point, I have had but little occasion to go to Rome; and yet it distinctly appears to me as if in the old time it crowned the summit of this gorge, thereby commanding the pass, by the irrefragable sign that all who crossed the Apennines were compelled to come this way to pay their composition, and obtain the free leave and protection of my Lord Jacopo Savelli. He had a tower built over the road on purpose, and I myself once heard him order the portcullis to be driven down upon a gang of insolent traders of Genoa, who

refused to pay what he ordered them,-three crowns, I think it was, a head, with a velvet robe for my lady, and ten fine wax candles for his lordship's chapel." "And did it spike any of the jolly burghers?" said the young knight, laughing heartily.

"Nay, the fright was enough for them;" replied Messer Bembo, laughing also until his eye suddenly lighted upon the stern and displeased countenance of the Hospitaller. "But I am the more certain that we are in the right way now I observe yonder mountain, resembling a white cone projecting among the clouds, at the end of that promontory of woody rocks."

"You are right as to the cone, Messer, but for the castle, by St. George, I do no more see it than the battlements of my father's strong place of Beaufort, in England!" said the young knight.

"Let us push on; perchance the walls may be hidden in the height," said Messer Bembo, pricking on his mule.

"Or perchance a cloud may be around it-and yet the summit shines very clear," said the Hospitaller. "What say you, Messer Canonico, if the Borgia, when he crossed these mountains on his late ravages in Tuscany, took the opportunity to destroy a fortress belonging to so noted an enemy of his name!"

"I say, then, my royal lord, that we shall lodge worse than I thought, to-night," replied Messer Bembo, dismally and with a sigh of weariness.

"How, Messer Pietro Bembo, will you ever forget my injunctions, and how much depends on their ob

servation?" said the Knight Hospitaller, in an angry

tone.

"Nay, monsignor, but the Borgias are all for making love to us now-a-days," returned the canon submissively.

"And are, therefore, the more to be feared! replied the Knight of St. John. "The Borgias regard no faith, human or divine; and if they had me in their power would, perhaps, compel me into this infernal marriage with their demon daughter."

"Hush, or some of the fellows may hear us gabble, and only William of Bampton is to be trusted!" said the younger knight. "Not but that they are all very good rascals, and English to the backbone, but they are by no means aware of the wiles of this land, and oft mistake crafty wine for honest ale."

"Then, monsignor, I would say, reverend brother, I marvel what brings you to Rome, for he who shuns the wolf, should surely not hide in his cave?" continued Messer Bembo.

"If there be any time sacred with the Borgia, it will surely be this of the glorious Christian jubilee," replied the Hospitaller. "The vast multitude of pilgrims will render our arrival unnoted, and while the city is in their hands they will not suffer so crying an enormity as the molestation of one of their number. But," he continued with rising warmth,

no one knows better than thou, Pietro, my intent in journeying to Rome. Sithence my father is so