Barbarossa shook his head.
"Your explanations are not satisfactory," he replied; "this is no fever, it is the plague, and the plague is not the result of mere chance, it is the effect of divine wrath! We must humble ourselves before God!"
"By all means, Sire; and since God opposes our designs, we must give up, and acknowledge ourselves to be beaten by Alexander!"
This remark touched the Emperor's pride, and Rinaldo continued his arguments.
"I thought," he said, "that it was only the rabble who had these ideas about God's judgment--"
A wild shriek closed his speech: the Chancellor was a corpse, and Barbarossa stood gazing upon his confidant, whose features still bore the impress of devilish hate.
The Germans, however, did not abandon the bodies of their princes. All were embalmed and transported from Italy beyond the Alps, to be buried in the cathedrals of their native land. Two large tents were pitched, beneath which were laid out in state the deceased nobles: the bishops in full canonicals, with cross and mitre; the knights in complete armor, as if about to go to battle.
A small escort rode up: in front came the cross, borne by the Bishop of Pavia, and followed by the clergy, and then Rinaldo's body, carried by four of his own soldiers; Barbarossa, Rechberg, and a few of the nobles closed the procession. At the entrance, the Bishop of Pavia recited the prayers for the dead, and then the mortal remains of the once powerful Chancellor were deposited with the others. All, save the Emperor and his kinsman, departed in silence, but Frederic still stood there, sad and dejected, a tear in his eye, gazing upon all that was left on earth of those who had died in his cause. There lay his cousin the Duke of Suabia; near him Diepold of Bohemia, Count Berenger of Sulzbach. Rodolph of Pfulendorf, Henry of Tubingen, and Ludolf of Dassel, the bishops of Prague, Ratisbon, and Augsburg, of Basle, of Spires, and of Constance, of Toul and Verdern and Cologne. Who could say whether he too would not soon take his place among these lifeless bodies? He began at last to look with awful fear upon his eternal future, and almost completely weaned from earthly vanities, he returned to his own apartments.