"Their arrogance knew no bounds, and when they were questioned about their acts, they only replied by menaces or raillery, and this state of affairs lasted for twenty years, when, as war was imminent with Lucca, the Council raised troops and enrolled mercenaries. Several battles were fought in which the enemy was beaten and was obliged to flee, abandoning their colors, their arms, prisoners, and all the booty in their camp. "The man who had led the soldiers from battle, whom they had acclaimed as triumphant and laurel-crowned Caesar, around their campfires, was a poor _condottiere_[25], who possessed nothing in the world except his clothes, his buff jerkin and his heavy sword. [Footnote 25: Italian mercenary or free-lance, in the Middle Ages.--TRANSLATOR.] "They called him _Hercules_, on account of his strong muscles, his imposing build, and his large head, and also _Malavista_, because in those butcheries he had no pity, no weakness, but seemed, with his great murderous arms, as if he had the long reach of death itself. He had neither title, deeds, fortune, nor relations, for he had been born one night in the tent of a female camp follower; for a long time, an old, broken drum had been his cradle, and he had grown up anyhow, without knowing those maternal kisses and endearments that warm the heart, or the pleasure of not always sleeping on a hard bed, or of always eating tough beef, or of being obliged to tighten his sword belt when luck had turned like a weathercock when the wind shifts, and a man would gladly give all his share of the next booty for a moldy crust of bread and a glass of water. "He was a simple and a brave man, whose heart was as virgin as some virgin shore, on which no human foot has ever yet left its imprint. "The Chiefs of the Council were imprudent enough to summon Hercules Malavista within the walls of the town, and to celebrate his arrival with almost imperial splendor, more, however, to deceive the people and to regain their waning popularity by means of some one else, by a ceremony copied from those of Pagan Rome, than to honor and recompense the services of a soldier whom they despised at the bottom of their hearts. "The bells rang a full peal, and the archbishop and clergy and choir boys went to meet the Captain, singing psalms and hymns of joy, as if it might have been Easter. The streets and squares were strewn with branches of box roses and marjoram, while the meanest homes were decorated with flags, and hung with drapery and rich stuffs.