Although Hesso could not understand their words, he could read their thoughts. "You hate and fear me, do you!--Ah well! there's no love lost between us," he growled, with a still fiercer expression in his eyes. The loud blast of the trumpets resounded, and the herald commanded silence. Thousands awaited with trembling anxiety. The man of the scarlet tabard made another sign; but still the dull murmur went on unceasingly; he raised his truncheon, and when, after many efforts, silence had been enforced, he proclaimed, in a clear and distinct voice, the wishes of the Emperor. "In the name of our sovereign liege, listen to the punishments to be enforced against all evil-doers. All fighting in the camp is strictly forbidden. Should the offender be a knight, his arms will be taken from him, and he will be expelled from the army. If he is a varlet, he will be flogged, his head shaved, and his shoulder marked with a red-hot iron, unless his master redeems him by the payment of fifty pennies." The herald paused to give his hearers time for reflection. The first article had produced a bad effect upon the Italians, who were accustomed to great license in respect to their personal quarrels, and on all sides black and angry glances were exchanged. "Flogged, shaved, and marked with a hot iron, for that trifle!" said the crowd. "It is too severe!" "Do you hear that, Migleo?" said a voice. "He values us at fifty pennies a piece--it's absurd!" The herald again commanded silence. "If any one wounds a soldier, he shall lose his hand; whoever kills one shall be decapitated!" "I say, Migleo, what would you look like, with a shaved head?" "Don't you think, Robbio, that in the course of a fortnight, the most of us will have neither heads nor hands? For my part, it is as impossible for me to keep my hands off a Pavian, as it is to meet a chicken without wringing its neck?" "And I can't look at a Novara man, without wanting to spit in his face," said a Pavian, who stood by; and it was with difficulty the two were kept from fighting, even under the eyes of Hesso himself. "Silence, fools!" said Robbio; "do you want to get into the executioner's clutches, already?" "For the first theft, a varlet shall be flogged, shaved, and marked with the iron; for the second, he shall be hanged!" added the herald. "There is one omission in the law about theft," said a voice. "It is forbidden to the varlets to rob, but there is nothing said about the masters. What would happen if the offender were a count, a duke, or a king?" "Silence," cried another voice, whose piercing tone bore a great resemblance to that of the jester Lanzo. "Don't you know that the nobles never steal? they merely indulge their illustrious desires!" "Whoever shall hold any communication with the Cardinal Roland, falsely styling himself Pope Alexander III., shall be put under the ban of the Emperor; it is permitted to kill him wherever found!"