"Then you must come here the second of July or the middle of August. The Palio is the name given to the race, and as the city is still divided into contrade, these horses are mounted by representatives of the different ones. But I have a friend who came here one summer, and he says that in spite of the crowds and the display of rich banners and colors these races are now rather tame affairs."
"Nothing is what it used to be," said Ellen, half mockingly. "My brother," she explained, turning to Irma, "is romantic, and always longing for the past, in spite of which I don't believe he would have cared to live in Italy in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries."
"Well, they did some things better than we can, the men of those days. Just come for a moment to the Palazzo Municipio, and I'll show you some pictures that will make you envy the Sienese."
As the girls followed he marched them rapidly from room to room, decorated with enormous frescoes, in which were shown the victories of the Sienese over their neighbors, especially over their chief rival, Florence. From the great Council Hall they passed to the Hall of the Nine, who at one time were supreme in the Government of Siena. After one or two efforts Irma ceased trying to understand the allegorical figures that had almost as large a place in the pictures as the historical. But the color was so beautiful, and generally the paintings were so pleasing that she restrained the laugh that was often on her lips, when something appeared to her particularly absurd. But Richard, who had been here before, had the meanings of the allegories, as well as the historical incidents, at his tongue's end.
In one room, he told them, a treacherous leader of the Sienese forces had been entrapped and stabbed to death by The Fifteen, who then were the rulers of Siena, and he would have described fully these blood-curdling events, if Ellen had permitted.
Finally, as they drove towards home, Richard pointed out several old palaces in which leading families had lived, and in almost every case he had a tale of Salimbeni or Tolomei or Saraceni in the days when the followers of one great house would kill hundreds of the followers of the other. "When," said Richard, "these narrow streets literally ran blood in those old days of Guelph and Ghibelline."
"Thank you," said Irma faintly, as they reached their hotel, "I feel as if I had swallowed a whole history."
"Well," responded Richard, "I thought it was well for you to accomplish all you could this morning, for I don't see why you shouldn't make quick work with Siena, and go on with us to-morrow or the next day to San Gimignano."