"You have scarcely as yet the age which is prescribed by the canons," said Dassel; "but the canons are out of date, like many other things. What an absurdity it is to leave talent unrewarded on the pretext of youth! How old are you, Hillin?" There was no reply. "I ask you your age." Still there was the same silence! He turned his head and started back in horror. Hillin was dead, his hand still held the pen, his arms rested on the table, and his head had fallen forward upon the parchment. Shaking his head in astonishment, Dassel walked towards the corpse and then called for his servants. His fear had passed away, for the Chancellor was not easily agitated. "Hillin is dead," he said; "the young man had fine prospects, and would have been useful; but dead, he is only a nuisance. Take away this carcass!" At this moment the Emperor sent for him, and Rinaldo, throwing into the fire the now useless letter, dressed himself in his court-robes and repaired to his master's presence. Frederic's face was sad and calm. He replied to his minister's bow with a mute smile, and motioned him to a seat. "Chancellor," he said; "we have done all that is possible. But Heaven seems inexorable; the plague rages with renewed fury; two-thirds of my army have perished, and if we remain here longer, the remainder will share their fate." "Still we must stay here. Our flight will only aggravate our condition; I have foreseen all this. The plague will cease as unexpectedly as it began." "But if it really were a chastisement from God?" said Barbarossa. Rinaldo sneered viciously: he looked steadily at the Emperor for a moment, and then answered,-- "We must then suppose that God amuses himself by punishing the Romans every year; for every year the heat raises these noxious vapors from the marshes, and breeds a pestilential fever; it is an unhealthy climate, that is all that can be said." 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.