And, what was more, he experienced a curiously pleasing sensation in the act, and in this impulse towards tenderness discovered things that were strange and long forgotten.
It was now the drowsy noon of day, and the wood was full of shadows and of stealthy, creeping sunlight.
He rested for a pace, then, refreshed by the siesta, he rode onward, other thoughts beginning to throng his mind.
He was entering a sphere of action.
Hitherto his life had been as that of a recluse. The peace of the cloister had enveloped him as a mighty cloak of safety. It had dominated him even to the point of total paralysis of his energies. Of the purpose of his journey he was still in ignorance. Yet, an inner voice whispered to him that it was the clarion call of the Church Militant that had called him out of his repose.
There could be no further compromise between the warring factions.
The death-struggle between Guelph and Ghibelline had reached its highest crest. Henceforth he would be the soldier of the Church. A chasm, no eternity could bridge, would gape between himself and the friends of his youth. Thus Fate had willed it. Hurled into a seething vortex, he was swept onward by the resistless tide.
Now and again moments of resonant incredulity beat upon his brain. Why had his guiltless youth been condemned, why had he been sold into bondage?
For a moment he started, retreating precipitately into the shadows.
On the far bank of the river, whose glittering coils wound through the emerald depths of the valley, there, among the aspens, he descried a company of horsemen, waiting, spears erect, helmets glittering, the wind tossing the dark manes of their horses.