“We are not Romans if we suffer this!” said a deserter from Palestrina.
“Fellow-citizens!” exclaimed gruffly a tall man, who had hitherto been making a clerk read to him the particulars of the tax imposed, and whose heavy brain at length understood that wine was to be made dearer—“Fellow-citizens, we must have a new revolution! This is indeed gratitude! What have we benefited by restoring this man! Are we always to be ground to the dust? To pay—pay—pay! Is that all we are fit for?”
“Hark to Cecco del Vecchio!”
“No, no; not now,” growled the smith. “Tonight the artificers have a special meeting. We’ll see—we’ll see!”
A young man, muffled in a cloak, who had not been before observed, touched the smith.
“Whoever storms the Capitol the day after tomorrow at the dawn,” he whispered, “shall find the guards absent!”
He was gone before the smith could look round.
The same night Rienzi, retiring to rest, said to Angelo Villani—“A bold but necessary measure this of mine! How do the people take it?”
“They murmur a little, but seem to recognise the necessity. Cecco del Vecchio was the loudest grumbler, but is now the loudest approver.”
“The man is rough; he once deserted me;—but then that fatal excommunication! He and the Romans learned a bitter lesson in that desertion, and experience has, I trust, taught them to be honest. Well, if this tax be raised quietly, in two years Rome will be again the Queen of Italy;—her army manned—her Republic formed; and then—then—”