"My lord, you can see the band from here," said one of Lorenzo's troop; they are taking the Pisa road. "They will fall in with our outposts, if they do not mind." "Well, they must be followed, and, if possible, cut off," replied his lord, who had now recovered some presence of mind. "If they take their way toward Pisa we shall have them." "Your pardon, my lord," said Antonio, "but will it not be better to go up to the monastery, and make inquiries there? Depend upon it, the good fathers did not stand looking on at the burning of the villa without marking all, if they did not do all they could. They had no daughters in the villa, and saw more than this poor man, depend upon it. Five minutes will take you thither. You can see one of the towers up yonder, just above the tree-tops." "Well bethought," replied his lord; "we may, indeed, hear tidings there. But we must not lose sight of the enemy. Parisot, ride on to the verge of the rocks there. You can see them thence for ten miles, at least, I should think. Keep good watch upon them. All the rest stay here. I will be back speedily;" and, so saying, with Antonio for a guide, he rode on. CHAPTER XXX. How much accident sometimes serves us--nay, how often our own follies and indiscretions lead us to better results than our wisdom and prudence could have attained! "Conduct is fate," "Knowledge is power," are the favourite doctrines of those who believe they have conduct, or presume they have knowledge. Carried to the infinite, both axioms are true, but in every degree below the infinite they are false; and oh, how false with man! Every abstract, indeed, is often found to be a practical falsehood. The wisest and the best of men, from Socrates to Galileo, have, by the purest conduct, won the worst of fates; and power, either to do good or evil, slipped from the hands of Bacon just when he reached the acme of his knowledge. It seems as if God himself were pleased to rebuke continually the axioms of human vanity, and to show man that no conduct can overrule his will--no knowledge approach even to the steps of power. It was unfortunate for Lorenzo that he had imprudently left all his men but Antonio below. There were two old monks sitting on the rocks just before the great gates of the monastery, and talking with each other earnestly. Both started and rose when they heard the sound of horses' feet; but as the place where they stood commanded a full view down the road, they could see at once that the party which approached was not formidable in point of numbers.