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Hannibal, was defeated and slain on the
mountain which still bears his name. A river runs at the base; and
it was clothed by trees now yellow and red, tinged thus by the
winds of autumn, except where a cluster of ilexes gave life to the
scenery. As he advanced, the rains poured down, and the hills, now
more distant, were hid in mist; while towards the east the gloomy
Adriatic filled the air with its restless murmurs. Castruccio had
passed swiftly through this country before, when he went to the
Festa d'Inferno at Florence. It was then adorned by the fresh
spring; the sunbeams illuminated the various folds of the
mountains, and the light waves coursed one another, dancing under
the dazzling light. Castruccio remembered this; and he gazed
sullenly on the sky obscured by a thick woof of black clouds, and
reproached that with changing, as his fortune changed. Yet,
reflecting on the chances that had occurred during his last
journey, his imagination wandered to Euthanasia, and paused there,
resting with delight on her beloved image.
    He passed through many towns, among which he had no friends, and
sought for none. Yet, if he had desired protection, several of
these were ruled by Ghibeline lords, who would have welcomed him
with hospitality. Rimini was then governed by the husband of
Francesca, whose hapless fate is immortalized by Dante. She was
dead; but the country people, with a mixture of pity and religious
horror, still spoke of her as the loveliest creature that had ever
dwelt on earth, yet for whose lost soul, condemned to eternal
pains, they dared not even pray.
    Castruccio journeyed slowly on. He was weak and unable to endure
continued exercise. Yet his mind recovered by degrees its wonted
strength; and imagination, ever at work, pictured his future life,
brilliant with glowing love, transcendent with glory and success.
Thus, in solitude, while no censuring eye could check the exuberant
vanity, he would throw his arms to the north, the south, the east,
and the west, crying,--"There--there--there, and there, shall
my fame reach!"--and then, in gay defiance, casting his eager
glance towards heaven:--"and even there, if man may climb the
slippery sides of the arched palace of eternal fame, there also
will I be recorded."
    He was yet a boy in his seventeenth year when he said this. His
desires were afterwards to a considerable extent fulfilled: would
he not have been happier, if they had failed, and he, in blameless
obscurity, had sunk with the millions that compose the nations of
the earth, into the vast ocean of oblivion? The sequel of his
history must solve the riddle.
CHAPTER III
    CASTRUCCIO passed through Bologna, Ferrara and Rivigo, to arrive
at Este. It was not the most favourable period for a visit to
Lombardy. The beauty of that country consists in its exquisite
vegetation: its fields of waving corn, planted with rows of trees
to which vines are festooned, form prospects, ever varying in their
combinations, that delight and refresh the eye; but autumn had
nearly stripped the landscape, and the low lands were overflowed by
the inundation of various rivers. Castruccio's mind, fixed on
the imagination of future events, found no amusement in the wintry
scene; but he saw with delight the mountains that were the bourn of
his journey, become more and more distinct. Este is situated nearly
at the foot of the Euganean hills, on a declivity overlooked by an
extensive and picturesque castle, beyond which is a convent; the
hills rise from behind, from whose heights you discover the vast
plain of Lombardy, bounded to the west by the far Apennines of
Bologna, and to the east by the sea and the towers of Venice.
    Castruccio ascended the hill immediately above the town, to seek
for the habitation of Guinigi. The autumnal wind swept over it,
scattering the fallen leaves of the chestnut wood; and the swift
clouds, driven over the boundless plain, gave it the appearance, as
their shadows came and went, of a heaving sea of dusky