But in the course of their converse the Duke of Spoleto revealed himself to be one Count Rupert of Teck, a bondsman of the Swabian branch of the Hohenstauffen, near whose castle his own was situated. In their cause he had fought Margaret of Flanders and King Ottokar of Bohemia, William of Holland and Charles of Anjou. After the fateful day of Benevento, where Manfred, the poet-king, had lost crown and life against the Provencals, he had withdrawn into the fastnesses of Central Italy, collecting about him a company of malcontents, such as follow from afar the camp-fires of an army, and had founded a mythical dukedom of uncertain territory among the Apennines, to chasten the world with his club and bruise the devil and all his progeny. From his stronghold the Duke of Spoleto, as Rupert of Teck more sonorously styled himself, harassed alike the Pope, the Pope's minion and the Guelphs. But of all whose watch-towers frowned from inaccessible heights upon the Roman Campagna, he bore a special and indelible grudge to the lords of Astura, the cause and nature of which he did not see fit to disclose. Francesco listened spellbound to the account of the duke's greatness. He had his own code of laws, and there was no appeal from his decision. In the ravine below, a torrent, thundering over moss-grown boulders, sang a fitting accompaniment to the duke's apotheosis. Far to the south Soracté towered against the gold of the evening sky. By his side a cistus was in bloom, its petals falling upon the long grass and the broken stone. In the valley the peasantry were returning from Vespers. The silvery chimes of the Angelus, from some convent concealed in the forest deeps, smote the silence of evening. Deep to the confines of the dusky sky glimmered the far Tyrrhenian Sea, washing shores remote with sheets of foam. Black cliffs, craggy and solemn, frowned upon the sea. The far heights bristled with woodland, dark under the setting sun. Not once did Francesco interrupt the guttural account his host gave of his campaigns, until the Duke of Spoleto referred to the Frangipani. Some evil fate seemed indeed to have predestined his meeting with the Lord of Astura, and while his late encounter with the brother of Raniero lacked the personal element, Francesco's intuition informed him that, sooner or later, the slumbering spark of an enduring hatred would be fanned into a devouring flame. Francesco's apparently irrelevant question with regard to the origin of his host's acquaintance with the lords of Astura caused the Duke of Spoleto to utter a great oath. "Ha!" he exclaimed, "and shall I not pluck out the heart of the devil, who--" He suddenly checked himself.