suddenly, as if struck by lightning, the man fell forward on his face: he stood up no more. Immediately afterwards appeared a boy with fair hair on the tower above the gateway; he cut down with a battle-axe the imperial purple standard, and in place of the fallen banner planted, on a tall spear, which shone afar, a blue shield. "'My Hortari,' then cried Garibrand, the Duke, 'my brother's son, stolen many weeks ago, and thought dead! _His_ shield, the victorious blue shield of our house, of our family. Forward, ye Bajuvaren! Now to cut our way to Hortari!' "But there was nothing more through which to cut our way; the Tribune was not there; the slaves of the Tribune were also not to be found in the fortress: the brave child was the only human being inside the Capitol. The fight before the gate was over immediately; the enemy shut out, powerless, one man springing on the back of another trying to climb the high walls, pressed still harder by us, soon threw down their arms and yielded. A few certainly, despairing of grace, or despising it, spurred their horses from the steep path into the abyss below. The gate of the citadel of Juvavum flew open from the inside, and young Hortari sprang into his uncle's arms; this youth of the Bajuvaren had won for his people the Capitol of Juvavum." "Hail to the youth Hortari! The minstrels will have him in remembrance!" "Hail to the youth Hortari!" sounded loud through the wide halls of the Basilica. When the joyous cry had died away, quarrelling words were heard at the farther end of the building. In the apse behind the altar, two, flushed with wine, were in loud strife. In a chest containing Roman memorials, which the zealous Johannes had taken away from his flock, in order to wean them from their pagan superstitions, the two men had found a small, beautifully-carved marble relief, representing the three Graces tenderly clasping each other. They had seized the piece of sculpture; and screaming and shouting, now dragged and pulled each other through the church till they stood before Vestralp and Helmbert. Then one of the disputants let fall the marble and flashed his short knife against his opponent, who immediately dropped the plunder and seized the hand-axe in his girdle. "Halt, Agilo!" cried Vestralp, seizing the arm of his fellow tribesman. "Stab _Romans_, if thou wilt, not Alemanni," shouted Helmbert, and struck down the knife of his countryman. "Well! You shall decide," cried both disputants with one breath. "I saw it first," cried the Alemannian. "I wished to hang it on my favourite horse as a breast-plate." "But I took it first," retorted the other. "They are the three fate-spinning sisters. I should hang it up over my child's cradle." "The strife is easily settled," said Vestralp, picked up the three Graces from the floor, took the axe from the hand of the Alemannian, aimed well, and cut the relief exactly through the middle. Helmbert seized the two pieces and said: