It was not wonderful that its palaces and its magazines, glittering with splendor and bursting with treasure, should arouse the avidity of a reckless and famishing soldiery.

Had not a handful of warriors of their own race rifled the golden Indies?
Had not their fathers, few in number, strong in courage and discipline, revelled in the plunder of a new world?
Here were the Indies in a single city.
Here were gold and silver, pearls and diamonds, ready and portable; the precious fruit dropping, ripened, from the bough.

Was it to be tolerated that base, pacific burghers should monopolize the treasure by which a band of heroes might be enriched?
A sense of coming evil diffused itself through the atmosphere.

The air seemed lurid with the impending storm, for the situation was one of peculiar horror.

The wealthiest city in Christendom lay at the mercy of the strongest fastness in the world; a castle which had been built to curb, not to protect, the town.