"Can I render your eminence any aid?" His round eyes, starting out of his head like a runaway hare's, glanced at me in fear, and the stick he bore dropped from his hand, no doubt much to the satisfaction of the mule. At first he was unable to speak, for my words seemed to fill the man with terror, and I had to repeat the question, before he stammered out-- "You are mistaken, sir; I am no eminence, but a poor brother of Mount Carmel, on my way to Foligno, out of this hell behind me," and he glanced over his shoulder towards Rome. "I see," I answered with a smile, "but if the poor brother of Mount Carmel will look more closely at me, he will see a friend. In short, your eminence, I am Di Savelli." "_Corpo di Bacco!_ I mean our Lady be thanked. And so it is you, cavaliere! Take my advice, and turn your horse's head to Foligno. On beast!" and he kicked at the mule, which moved not an inch. "I am for Rome, your eminence; but what has happened?" "Oh, that I had a horse!" he groaned. "What has happened? Everything has happened. Alexander is dead or dying. Cesare dead, they say, and burning in Hades by this. Orsini and Colonna at the old game of hammer and tongs----" "And the Cardinal--D'Amboise?" "Safe enough I believe, as the Orsini hold the Borgo, and have declared for France." "Trust me, your reverence, you will be safer in Rome than out of it. The whole country will rise at the news, and the habit of Mount Carmel will not save the Cardinal of Strigonia. Turn back with me, and I will escort you to the Palazzo Corneto." To make a short story, D'Este agreed after a little persuasion, and the mule was kind enough to amble back very willingly to Rome. We placed his eminence in the centre of our troops, and went onwards, entering the city by the Porta Pinciana, riding along leisurely in the direction of S. Trinita di Monti, and thence straight on towards the Ripetta. It was a work of no little danger to make this last passage, for everywhere bands of plunderers were engaged in gutting the houses, many of which were in flames, and we continually came across dead bodies, or passed houses from which we heard shrieks of agony. We could help no one. It was all we could do to keep our own heads on our shoulders; but by dint of shouting, "_A Colonna!_" with the Colonna, and "_Orsini_! _Orsini!_" with their rivals, and sometimes hitting a shrewd blow or two, we crossed the Ripetta, and in a few minutes were safe in the Palazzo Corneto.