"I have slept long," he muttered--"and oh such dreams--and methought I saw Irene, but could not speak to her; and while I attempted to grasp her, her face changed, her form dilated, and I was in the clutch of the foul grave-digger. It is late--the sun is high--I must be up and stirring. Irene is in Lombardy. No, no; that was a lie, a wicked lie--she is at Florence--I must renew my search." As this duty came to his remembrance, he rose from the bed--he was amazed at his own debility; at first he could not stand without support from the wall--by degrees, however, he so far regained the mastery of his limbs, as to walk, though with effort and pain. A ravening hunger preyed upon him; he found some scanty and light food in the chamber, which he devoured eagerly. And with scarce less eagerness laved his {200} enfeebled form and haggard face with the water that stood at hand. He now felt refreshed and invigorated, and began to indue his garments, which he found thrown on a heap beside the bed. He gazed with surprise and a kind of self-compassion upon his emaciated hands and shrunken limbs, and began now to comprehend that he must have had some severe but unconscious illness. "Alone too," thought he, "no one near to tend me! Nature my only nurse! But alas! alas! how long a time may thus have been wasted, and my adored Irene----quick, quick, not a moment more will I lose." He soon found himself in the open street; the air revived him; and that morning, the first known for weeks, had sprung up the blessed breeze. He wandered on very slowly and feebly till he came to a broad square, from which, in the vista, might be seen one of the principal gates of Florence, and the fig-trees and olive-groves beyond. It was then that a pilgrim of tall stature approached towards him as from the gate; his hood was thrown back, and gave to view a countenance of great but sad command; a face, in whose high features, massive brow, and proud, unshrinking gaze, shaded by an expression of melancholy more stern than soft, Nature seemed to have written majesty, and Fate disaster. As in that silent and dreary place, these two, the only tenants of the street, now encountered, Adrian stopped abruptly, and said in a startled and doubting voice: "Do I dream still, or do I behold Rienzi?" The pilgrim paused also, as he heard the name, and gazing long on the attenuated features of the young lord, said: "I am he that was Rienzi! and you, pale shadow, is it in this grave of Italy that I meet with the gay and high Colonna? Alas, young friend," he added in a more relaxed and kindly voice, "hath the Plague not spared the flower of the Roman nobles? Come, I, the cruel and the harsh tribune, _I_ will be thy nurse: he who might have been my brother, shall yet claim from me a brother's care."