"Are you wounded?"
"Yes, general; I received the stroke that was intended for you, but parried it, and the blow was slight."
"I am a thousand times indebted to you for the service you have rendered me, and hope that you will not leave me a second time without your sheltering presence.—Ho! a horse there for the Bernardine monk!"
No sooner were Melac's commands uttered than they were obeyed, for he that tarried when the tyrant spoke was sure to come to grief. The monk swung himself into the saddle with the agility of a trooper, and, although the horse reared and plunged, he never swerved from his seat.
"Verily you are a curious specimen of a monk," laughed Melac. "I never saw a brother so much to my taste before. Come, follow me to the market-place, and you shall see my skill in pyrotechnics. If I had but Nero's field of operations, I could rival his burning of Rome. Happy Nero, that could destroy a Rome!"
"Do you, also, envy Nero his sudden death?" asked the monk.
"Why, yes; though I would like to put off the evil day as far as may be, I hope to die a sudden and painless death."
"Sudden and painless death," muttered the monk, between his teeth.
"You allude to death on the field of battle?"
"Ay, that do I; it is the only end befitting a soldier. See—we are at the gates. The way is obstructed by corpses," continued he, urging his horse over a heap of dead that lay in the streets. "Luckily, they will not have to be buried; they shall have a funeral pile, like that of the ancients."
"Is the entire city to be destroyed?" asked the monk.