Frederic gazed contemptuously upon his former partisan. Bonello was a man still in the prime of life, and, though short in stature, well and powerfully built. His visage, though dejected, was calm. Like the majority of the inferior nobility, he had been long one of the warmest adherents of the Emperor, although he had acted as such rather through necessity than from choice. His glance fell before that of his sovereign. "Are you ready to die the death of a traitor?" asked Frederic. "I am ready to die," answered Guido; "but I implore you to withdraw the epithet of traitor!" "And why, pray?" "Sire, Guido Bonello was a traitor only on the day when he swore allegiance to his country's tyrant, forgetting, for a moment, that he was a Lombard." "Are you not ashamed to seek thus to disguise your felony?" asked Frederic. "Sire, we may bow in obedience to the monarch, who by his victorious arms has conquered Lombardy. But when tyranny reigns in the place of justice, when our rights are trampled underfoot, when our country is laid waste and her inhabitants held to ransom, when the Emperor's iron heel is placed upon the necks of a kneeling people, then, Sire, obedience becomes a crime! It is better to die free, than live as slaves! If it needs be that Italy obey you against her will, exile her population and replace it with serfs." The monarch, as grand justiciary of the Empire, had allowed the prisoner full freedom of speech in his defence; but when he had concluded: "The usual Lombard argument," he exclaimed; "the invention of some facts, the misrepresentation of others! You call tyranny the energetic punishment of traitors whom I had loaded with favors; legitimate taxation you term extortion! But who, then, have given greater evidences of tyranny over the weak than the Lombards themselves? Remember Como and Lodi--think of the excesses committed there before our army restored order! Were not those cities, the so-called allies of Milan, only her slaves? But it is not for a sovereign to seek excuses before a traitor! Go, the gallows awaits you!" Calmly, without bravado as without faltering, the prisoner heard his sentence; but as the men-at-arms advanced to seize him, he raised his head: "There exists an ancient custom," said he, "honored even among the heathens. All those who are condemned to death, are permitted to make one last request, which is granted to them." "'Tis well--what is yours?" "Delay the execution for three days." "Why ask for this delay?" The tone of the prisoner changed. His confidence left him, his lips trembled convulsively; and a tear stood in his eye. "Pshaw!" he said, "I can scarcely believe myself guilty of such weakness! But there are times when the feelings of a father are stronger than the duties of the patriot. Let me see my child once more; she is the sole fruit of my once happy marriage. When one is so near his last hour, there is much to be done."