Day dawned at length, and found the party of horsemen some five miles from the city of Florence; but their course was no longer to be pursued in that direction. Under the guidance of Antonio, they left the broad highway between Pisa and Florence, and began to ascend by a narrower and steeper path toward the villa they were seeking. It was a wild and somewhat savage region through which they now passed--beautiful, indeed, but stern in its beauty. The sides of the Apennines in those days were covered with dense forests, which, long after, were cut down to take away their shelter from the robbers which infested them; and the oaks and chestnuts had even in some places encroached upon the road. In other spots, however, large masses of rock appeared; and in others, again, the path, having been cut along the side of the hill, displayed a grand view over the wide and beautiful valley of the Arno and the surrounding country. At the first of these gaps, where the open landscape presented itself, neither Lorenzo nor Antonio looked toward it, for both had matter of thought within which made them somewhat indifferent to external objects. They might have even passed the second and third without notice, but one of the soldiers who followed exclaimed, "That is a good large body of men, my lord." "Ha!" cried Lorenzo, immediately turning his eyes to the open country. "Indeed it is, Parisot. There must be full five hundred spears." "More than that, sir," replied the man; "but they are not coming our way." "Nor going to Florence, either," remarked Antonio. "They are no Florentine troops, Monsieur Parisot." "I do not know what they are," said the soldier, "but I know what they are not. They are not French troops, or you would see them in better order. Why, they are riding along like a flock of Sarcelles." "Ay, I see," said Antonio; "not half the regularity of a flock of wild geese." "Don't you think, my lord," continued Parisot, without remarking Antonio's quiet sneer at his boast of his countrymen's military array, "don't you think they look like one of those irregular bands which we sometimes saw in the Roman States? people said they were kept up by Cardinal Borgia. They go flying about just in the same way, shifting from flank to rear--now in line, now in hedge, and now in no order at all." "They do look like them," said Lorenzo; "but I should hardly think the cardinal would venture his men so far as this." "Oh, my lord, you cannot tell how far he will venture," said Antonio, "especially when he is only taking the dues of the Church. He and his holy father have a right to tithes, and those bands are merely sent out to collect a tenth of all the property in Italy. But what are they doing now? Some twenty of them have gone to that pretty little villa to get a draught of water, I warrant." "Well, let us pass on," said Lorenzo; "they do not see us up here, or they might prove troublesome fellow-travellers."