“These are not words that should pass between friends,” said Brettone, turning pale with suppressed emotion.
“Friends!—ye are my friends, then!—your hands! Friends, so ye are!—and shall prove it! Dear Arimbaldo, thou, like myself, art book-learned,—a clerkly soldier. Dost thou remember how in the Roman history it is told that the Treasury lacked money for the soldiers? The Consul convened the Nobles. ‘Ye,’ said he, ‘that have the offices and dignity should be the first to pay for them.’ Ye heed me, my friends; the nobles took the hint, they found the money—the army was paid. This example is not lost on you. I have made you the leaders of my force, Rome hath showered her honours on you. Your generosity shall commence the example which the Romans shall thus learn of strangers. Ye gaze at me, my friends! I read your noble souls—and thank ye beforehand. Ye have the dignity and the office; ye have also the wealth!—pay the hirelings, pay them!” (See the anonymous biographer, lib. ii. cap. 19.)
Had a thunderbolt fallen at the feet of Brettone, he could not have been more astounded than at this simple suggestion of Rienzi’s. He lifted his eyes to the Senator’s face, and saw there that smile which he had already, bold as he was, learned to dread. He felt himself fairly sunk in the pit he had digged for another. There was that in the Senator-Tribune’s brow that told him to refuse was to declare open war, and the moment was not ripe for that.
“Ye accede,” said Rienzi; “ye have done well.”
The Senator clapped his hands—his guard appeared.
“Summon the head constables of the soldiery.”
The brothers still remained dumb.
The constables entered.
“My friends,” said Rienzi, “Messere Brettone and Messere Arimbaldo have my directions to divide amongst your force a thousand florins. This evening we encamp beneath Palestrina.”
The constables withdrew in visible surprise. Rienzi gazed a moment on the brothers, chuckling within himself—for his sarcastic humour enjoyed his triumph. “You lament not your devotion, my friends!”