The rich moonlight played among the trellised vines, and trembled in the orange groves in the wide gardens of these mansions, which stretched themselves, sloping downwards, to the very margin of the river. The lilies that grew in the last flower-bed bent their white necks as they sprang to kiss the stream; and the perfume which they exhaled rose the sweeter from its cool freshness. And the Arno itself was no tide-water, no stream for traffic here. Though bolder and deeper, then, at the bridge of Florence, than its current flows at present, yet the little draught that was carried upon it never came above the city. A light breeze from the southward had just swept the mist from the surface of the water; and the white fleeces of weed which floated on its shallows, gently waving with the motion of the stream, gave lustre by their contrast to the deeper blue tint of those calm, unruffled, basin-like, unfathomable pools, which seemed to drink up the strong light from above, rather than to reflect it, so glorious was the brightness of the scene. There was a calm, a repose, at that hour, on the banks of that bright river, as if peace and safety had reigned throughout the world. Yet the silence was not the silence of desolation--it was not the repose of death--but the repose of nature sleeping. The soul felt as though it could lie down for ever upon those green banks, content, and happy, and at rest; and a voice seemed to float across the bright still water, calling on it to come and dwell beneath its lucid deepness. But there are minds to which repose must live a stranger; hearts which in the tomb alone can hope for slumber, or the folding of the hands to sleep: the eye of the Chevalier Di Vasari gazed on the mild scene before him, but in his soul there was a fever which defied its influence. Two months before, and at that same hour, he had stood, as he stood now, upon the banks of the Arno; he had crossed that river then to fly from Florence, pursued by danger, and struggling for his life. He now returned. For what?--for love, or vengeance? What was his hope--his wish? He scarce knew what. End as his errand might, it must be in perplexity, in wretchedness! It was no time, however, then, for thought. A task was to be done; the hour was arrived, and the way lay open before him. Passing his horse's rein to his attendant, he first loosened the long cloak from his shoulder, and cast it over the loins of the reeking, yet still untired brute. "Poor Bayard!" he said, patting the gallant animal's neck, who thrust his nose against his master's breast, as if acknowledging the attention, "you have striven hard to-night for a work in which you have but little interest! Look to him well, Jacopo," continued the Chevalier; "and--take my sword also--see that your own horse be well clothed up, for they are sweating both; and when the day breaks, the air from the river here will be cold and chilly."