"And if it is all to vanish in a few years, why do we paint?" mused Padraig with a swift melancholy in his voice. Matteo's hand fell heavily upon his arm. "Because we must not lose our souls--that is why. The life of our work will last long enough to be seen and known by others. They will remember it, and do their work better. Thus it will go on, generation after generation, until painters come who can use all that we have learned since Rome fell, and cap it with new visions. Every generation has its dragon to dispose of. When I have tamed my dragon he will take me to the skies--maybe." It was not long after this that Matteo, overhauling the flat leather-bound coffer in which he kept his belongings, dragged up from the bottom of the collection some parchments covered with miscellaneous sketches, mostly of heads and figures. He had received a message from a sharp-faced Italian peddler-boy that day, and had been looking rather grave. On the plaster of the wall, in the sunset light, he began to draw, roughing it out with quick sure strokes, a procession of men and horses with some massive wheeled vehicle in the center. Presently this was seen to be a staging like a van, drawn by six white oxen harnessed in scarlet. Upon it stood churchmen in robes of ceremony, grouped about a tall standard rising high above their heads--a globe surmounted by a crucifix. Padraig knew what this was. It was the Carocchio or sacred car bearing the standard of Milan--but Matteo was a Florentine. "Patricio caro," said the artist turning to his young pupil, "to-morrow we shall have to part. I have told the Prince that you are quite capable of finishing his banquet-hall, and that I have other business. So I have, but not what he may think. I had word to-day that Barbarossa has crossed the Alps. This time it will be a fight to the end. "You know, for we have talked often of it, that the League of the Lombard cities is the great hope of the Communes in Italy. Moreover, it is your fight as well as ours. If the Empire conquers it will stamp those Communes flat, and take good care that the cities make no headway toward further resistance. The next step--for Frederick has said that he is another Charlemagne--will be the conquest of France, and then he will try to hurl the whole force of his Empire against Henry Plantagenet, his only great rival. Myself, I doubt if he can do that. When men do not want to fight they seldom win battles. "Now there are three hundred young men of the leading houses of Lombardy who have sworn to guard the Carocchio with their lives. The Archbishop and his priests will stand upon the car in the battle and administer the sacrament to the dying. If the Emperor takes it this time it will be after the death of every man of the 'juramento.' I am a Florentine, that is true, but I shall be a foot-soldier in that fight. If we live, we will have our cities free. If we die--it is for our own cities as well as theirs.