Читать книгу Adventures of an Aide-de-Camp (Vol. 1-3) - James Grant - Страница 16

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Of all the nobles of Venice, none enjoyed a more general and deserved popularity than Giulio Count della Torre di Fana. The gayest and most gallant of cavaliers, loved by his friends and respected by his enemies, he was the star of the senate, and idol of the people. His wife was beautiful and virtuous; his estates were among the richest, his palaces the most superb, his stud the most fleet and graceful, his assemblies and gondolas the most elegant, and his galleries the most magnificent in Venice! What more was wanting to make him the happiest man in Italy?

At the age of twenty Count Giulio espoused Diomida, the niece of John di Cornaro the venerable Doge, then in the 84th year of his age; preferring her to an heiress of the powerful house of Strazoldi, to whom he had been in childhood betrothed. Diomida was then in her seventeenth year, and her beauty not less than|her exalted rank, made her the first lady in Venice. Her mind was not inferior to her charms, which were such as man rarely looks on. O Diomida! even at this distant time, when the silent tomb has so long closed over thee—aye, even now, when looking back through the long dark vista of years of horror, I can recall to memory thy lovely sweetness and majestic beauty: true attributes of thy blood and high descent, which made thee the noble glory of Venetians!

For a time after his marriage no man was happier than Count Giulio, and no woman more loving or beloved than Diomida. Proud of each other, their mutual tenderness and devotion appeared to increase every day, and their happiness became a proverb among their friends. If the count returned ruffled in temper by losses at the gaming table, by debates in the senate, by any obstruction opposed to the passage of his gondola on the canal or his train on the steps of the Rialto, the soft voice and gentle smile of Diomida were sure to soothe his fiery spirit; which was easily chafed by trifles into a fury. At the sound of her voice or the pressure of her little hand, the gloom vanished from his haughty brow, and the annoyance was forgotten: Diomida was formed for love and delight, and anger fled from her presence. The count doted on the noble girl whom he had taken to his bosom, and enthroned in his palace: his affection had no equal save her own. His innocent bride was supremely happy; giddy with joys that were too bright to last. She saw not the storm that was gathering in the distance, and which, urged by the power of her evil genius, was so soon to overwhelm her.

The young Count di Strazoldi—who had been serving under Zondodari, Grand Master of Malta, and had gained considerable renown in the war against the Ottoman Porte—arrived in Venice, six months after Giulio, at the altar of Sta. Maria della Salute, had placed on the bright tresses of Diomida that coronet which ought to have adorned the sister of Strazoldi.

Like all the Venetian nobles, the Count di Strazoldi was fierce, haughty, and infatuated with his family rank; and being naturally of a libertine disposition, his residence among the knights of San Giovani—whose loose mode of life is proverbial—did not improve his morals. The wild cavaliers and reckless military spirits with whom he had associated, in the garrisons of La Valetta and Melita, had altogether destroyed the little sense of honour which a Venetian education had left uncorrupted; and he returned, a perfect devil in heart, though assuming the frank air of a soldier, and the graceful manners of an accomplished cavalier. When flushed with wine, however, his features had a stern expression, and his restless eyes a daring look, that quiet men shrunk from; and he then looked more like a debauched and brutal bravo, than a polished Venetian gentleman.

Lucretia, his sister, to whom La Torre had preferred the gentle and timid Diomida, was the most imperious and haughty signora in the duchy; notwithstanding the exquisite softness imparted to her brilliant charms by the Lombardo blood of her race. Fired at the preference of La Torre for the beautiful Cornaro, her love turned to the deadliest hatred; and she demanded of her brother Stefano to challenge La Torre to a duel on the Bialto. But Count Strazoldi was tired of fighting: he had seen enough of it under the banner of Malta, and in the valley of the demons in Sicily, under the Marquiss de Leda, and was not disposed hastily to enter into this feud at the behest of his incensed sister.

"Patience and peace," said he, with a grim smile. "I will anon avenge you more surely and amply."

He had met the Count della Torre at the Dogale palace, at the gaming houses, and other public places, and found him a gay agreeable young man, upon whose generosity and frankness of heart he had little doubt of imposing; and from whose princely revenue he hoped to repay himself for the ducats he had squandered in the Turkish wars, and among his wild companions at Malta and Gozzo. The Count della Torre was in turn pleased with the gay and fashionable manners of the hollow-hearted Stefano Strazoldi; who first gained his esteem by losing some hundred sequins with an air of unconcern, and performing a few pretended acts of friendship. Strazoldi afterwards won the admiration of Della Torre, by relating the battles, sieges, and fierce contests by sea and land in which he had borne a conspicuous part, while serving under Zondodari and the grand cross Antonio Manuel de Vilhena; who, on the death of the former, succeeded him in the office of Grand Master.

Although La Torre made a constant companion of the dissolute Stefano, and dissipated his patrimony in gay entertainments, he had more prudence than to invite him to his palace. His unhappy countess mourned in loneliness the sad change in the manners of her husband; who, led astray from the path of honour, spent whole days at the gaming house, and nights at the café or the cantina. He associated also with other reckless spirits, to whom Strazoldi introduced him, in visiting those thrifty mothers who had rising families of daughters, and who were anxious to procure them dowries according to the infamous custom of that abandoned city. In short, Count Giulio was no longer the same man he had been, and days passed without his crossing the threshold of his wife's apartment. Poor Diomida! this terrible change sank deeply in her heart. When during the day her husband at times visited the palace, it was only to extort money from his terrified steward; who warned him in vain that the splendid revenue of his estates was miserably impaired. But palled with excesses, jaded in spirit, and morose with losses, such answers only chafed the count into a tempest of rage; and the steward was glad to raise the gold, by having recourse to Isaac the famous Jew-broker on the Rialto.

Seldom now did he look on the pale face of his once loved Diomida, whose silent sorrow—she was too gentle to upbraid—passed unheeded. Her grief was increased to agony when she learned that in the society of her dangerous rival Lucretia, the count now spent the most of his time: the passers-by shrugged their shoulders when they beheld the vast façade of the palazzo della Torre so silent, gloomy, and dark—having the air of a deserted mansion—while the gorgeous palazzi of the Strazoldi, the Cornaro, the Balbi, and other nobles, were blazing with light, and brilliant with festive assemblies.

One evening, full of sad thoughts, Diomida sat in her boudoir alone: alas! she was now seldom otherwise. Her cheek was pale; the slight roseate tinge that once suffused it had fled, and the lustre of her eye had faded. Long weeping and pining in secret were destroying that fresh bloom, which rendered her the most admired of all Venetian beauties, and the pride of the venerable Doge, her uncle. Her books, embroidery, and guitar were all neglected; and she sat moodily in her dimly lighted room, watching in despairing anxiety for the tread of her husband (whom for four days she had not seen), and weeping for the past joys of their early marriage days.

As she listened, step after step rang in the adjacent streets, and heavy spurs jangled beneath the paved arcades: other men were passing to their homes, but the count returned not to his; and the thoroughfares gradually became silent and empty. The clock in the marble cupola of Santa Maria tolled the hour of midnight, and the Countess bowed down her fair head in wretchedness: she knew that her husband would be absent for another night, and she would rather have known that he was dead than in company with her triumphant rival, or damsels of still more doubtful fame. She was about to summon her attendants previous to retiring, when the dash of oars broke the silence of the canal, and a gondola jarred with hollow sound on the steps of Istrian marble leading from the portals of the palace. A flush of hope glowed on the pallid cheek of Diomida, and listening intently, she pressed her hand on her fluttering heart. In breathless expectation she paused, listening to the measured tread of manly footsteps approaching, marked by the ring of silver spurs on the tessellated floor of hall and vestibule, and a sword clattering in unison, as the wearer ascended the lofty stairs by three steps at a time. A hand cased in a long buff glove drew back the ancient hangings of the doorway—

"Giulio! Giulio—beloved one—you have not quite forgotten me!" exclaimed Diomida in piercing accents, as she sprang forward to embrace her truant husband. She was caught in the arms of Stefano Strazoldi!

"Excellent, my beautiful idol!" he exclaimed, pressing the sinking girl to his breast; "you are somewhat free for a Doge's niece, but not the less welcome to a joyous cavalier, tired of the timid Ionian girls and copper-coloured nymphs of Malta, with their cursed Arabic tongues!" and he laughed boisterously. His broad-plumed hat placed on one side of his head, revealed the sinister aspect of his face, now flushed with wine and premeditated insolence; his cloak, doublet, and rich sword-belt were all awry, and Diomida beheld with dismay that he staggered with intoxication.

"I thought you were the Count Giulio, my husband," said Diomida, shrinking back with horror; for she could not look upon Strazoldi, the destroyer of her domestic peace, otherwise than as an accomplished demon.

"Unhand me, my lord!" she added indignantly. "I am a lady of noble birth, and shall not be treated thus with impunity!"

"Nay!" exclaimed Stefano; "do not ruffle your temper, sweet lady: our married dames of Venice heed little when their cheeks are pressed by other lips than those of their liege lords. Why, my beautiful idol! thou art as coy and enchanting as Elmina la Mondana, the fairest priestess of Venus——"

"Infamous!" exclaimed the struggling countess, trembling with terror and indignation. "Darest thou name such in my presence?"

"Aye, in presence of Madonna; and why not to thee?"

"I am the daughter of Paolo Cornaro, the first of our Venetian cavaliers, before whose galley the bravest ships of the Mussulmen have fled. Alas! were he now alive, I had not been thus at thy mercy! Unhand me, Count Strazoldi! Away, ruffian——"

"The prettiest little chatterbox in Venice!" said the Count gaily. "But enough of this! Know that your loving lord and master has assigned you to me, for the sum of three thousand sequins, fairly won from him an hour ago at cards in the house of the Mondana; therefore art thou mine, signora, as this paper will testify." The swaggering libertine grasped firmer the shrinking girl with one hand, while with the other he displayed a paper, to which she saw with horror Giulio's name attached. A glance served to inform her that the contents were such as her assailant had described them to be. La Torre, intoxicated with wine, and maddened by losses, had staked and lost his beautiful wife for the sum of three thousand sequins, to his reckless companion; who, hurrying away from the side of La Mondana, threw himself into his gondola, and reaching the palace of the Countess, had ascended to her apartment by the private stair: the key to the entrance of which, he had obtained from the depraved husband. Diomida trembled with shame and indignation, and would have swooned; but the revolting expression in the gloating eyes of Strazoldi, inspired her with the courage of desperation: she shrieked wildly, invoking the Madonna to protect her, as Stefano, inflamed by her beauty, and encouraged by her helplessness, was proceeding to greater violence.

"Peace, pretty fool," he exclaimed in a hoarse whisper, "or I will twist this scarf round your throat, as I have done to many a less noisy damsel in the land of the Turk and Greek. Sformato! have I not gained you fairly at Faro from your husband, and offered him my sister Lucretia, in exchange? Silence woman! wouldst thou force me to gag thee with my poniard! Beware, 'tis of Campoforte." The ruffian laughed fiercely, and grasped her with a stern air of determination, while she redoubled her despairing cries for assistance. But, alas! the palace was empty now; and the few attendants sleeping in the basement heard her not. She was about to sink from exhaustion, when steps were heard springing up the private staircase. She exclaimed with passionate joy—

"'Tis the Count! 'tis my husband! O Giulio, save your once-loved Diomida, before she expires at your feet!"

It was not La Torre, but a tall and richly clad cavalier wearing the uniform of the Dalmatian Guards, and having a black velvet mask on his face, as if he had just left a masquerade.

"Draw, Count Stefano! Ungallant ruffian! whose vices in peace obscure all the brilliant feats performed in war. Defend yourself."

Strazoldi drew promptly, while Diomida overcome, sank upon a sofa almost lifeless.

Fierce was the conflict that ensued between the cavaliers, who were both armed with those long narrow bladed and basket-Lilted rapiers, then usually worn by Italian gentlemen. Strazoldi, brave to excess, fought as resolutely in a bad cause, as he could have done in a good one, and the stranger was compelled to put forth his best skill. Both were perfect masters of their weapons; but Strazoldi had youth and agility in his favour. While his antagonist managed his sword with all the stern deliberation and coolness of a practised duellist, the fierce Stefano lunged forward, thrusting furiously, until by a sudden circular parry, his weapon was struck from his hand, and whirled up to the frescoed ceiling. His adversary rushed upon him, beat him to the floor, and placing a foot upon his neck, commanded him to ask pardon or die.

"Of the Countess I ask pardon most assuredly, but not of you!" replied the vanquished libertine, panting with rage. "Strike, whoever you are! Stefano di Strazoldi—who has ridden through the thickest battalions of the Turks, and planted the standard of Manuel de Vilhena on the summit of the Castello Roso—will never ask mercy of mortal man!"

"I esteem you brave among all the nobles of Venice; and, reckless libertine and ruffian as you are, would regret to slay you. Once more, I ask, will Count Stefano of Strazoldi yield?"

"Never!"

"Not to me?"

"No; not were you the Doge himself."

"That shall be proved," replied his conqueror, removing his velvet mask, and revealing the noble features of the venerable John Cornaro; his brow contracted and stern, and his large dark eyes flashing with anger and indignation.

"Oh spare him, spare him, guilty though he be!" exclaimed the Countess.

"You know me, Count Strazoldi; and will not scorn to beg life as a boon at the hand of your Doge?"

"Doge or devil! Di Strazoldi will never submit to any such humiliation," replied the reckless cavalier: startled, but not abashed, on discovering his conqueror to be the illustrious uncle of Diomida. "Strike! illustrissimo, but keep me not in a position so degrading!"

Cornaro raised his hand, yet stayed the impending thrust, and spared his adversary.

"Rise, signor; receive your sword, and learn to use it in a better cause than the defence of guilt and outrage. Rise and begone! John Cornaro can respect bravery even in a ruffian. Away! but remember this affair ends not here. Both with Count Giulio and yourself a stern reckoning must be made. I swear by San Marco! that this right hand, which never suffered insult to pass unrevenged or wrong unpunished, shall, without appeal to council or to senate, redress most amply the outrage offered to the child of my brother. Wretch! save such as you, every man in Venice would have respected the daughter of Paolo Cornaro, the bravest admiral that ever led the fleets of our republic to battle. Begone to the infamous Giulio! You know his haunts, at the house of Signora Elmina, or any other bordello where he wastes his ducats and his days. Let him know of this night's work, and tell him to dread the vengeance of John Cornaro!"

Strazoldi retired covered with confusion. The tall and imposing form of the venerable Doge, whose breast swelled with anger and whose eyes kindled with indignation, made him quail. Fierce and profligate as he was, Stefano knew that he was wrong; and his natural effrontery failed him before the virtuous wrath of the incensed Doge, whose generosity added a sting to this stern rebuke. Leaving Diomida, who had swooned, to the care of her women, Cornaro departed; resolving to call the Count della Torre, and his unworthy cousin Strazoldi, to a severe account at a future time. But the Doge returned to his palace only to sicken and to die; the excitement of that night's conflict caused a relapse of a dangerous illness, which ultimately carried him to the grave. Of that more anon.

From that time the dissolute husband of Diomida gave himself up to the most licentious excesses; setting no bounds to his desires and outrages: his days were consumed in ennui and gloom, the nights were spent in carousal and riot. When he promenaded the streets, or his swift gondola shot through the canals, all women of modesty shrunk from his gaze, and drew down their veils; while noble cavaliers pitied the wild young profligate who was rushing headlong to ruin, dissipating a princely patrimony and blighting the ancestral honours of a noble name.

Giulio now shunned entirely the presence of the heart-broken Diomida, though often his palace resounded with the noise and tumult of reckless companions, the principal of whom was his evil genius Count Strazoldi.

It was rumoured in Venice that the beautiful but vicious Lucretia had too readily favoured the addresses of Count Giulio, and that her brother had been rendered both blind and dumb by a present of many thousand sequins. Their amours were the common topic of the day, and ribald improvisitori of the lowest class sang of their intrigues to the rabble on the Bialto, the Piazza of St. Mark, and all the public places of the city. Poor Diomida clasped her hands, and prayed to Heaven for succour when she heard of these things: she was sinking fast, yet still fondly hoped that Giulio might see the error of his ways, and learn to love her as of old.

Could the wretched count have beheld his pale and suffering wife during one of her many dreary hours of silent and lonely anguish, his heart, unless lost to every sense of honour, must have been wrung within him: he would have been struck with remorse to behold the misery he had wrought for one so young and so beautiful—so loving and so patient; an angel of heaven, compared with the demon of wickedness to which he had transformed himself.

But the count never saw her now. With his cousin the abandoned Lucretia and her equally abandoned brother, or with Elmina la Mandona the most beautiful courtezan in Venice, he lived a life of debauchery and extravagance, till his coffers were drained, his retinue dismissed, his horses sold, and his estates, pictures, libraries, jewels, and plate had all melted away like snow in the sunshine. The grass grew in the stable court, where the stall collars of sixty steeds had rattled in his father's days; weeds and flowers flourished on the palace-walls without, and spiders spun their webs undisturbed on the gilded columns and gorgeous frescoes within: even the once gay gondola, that bore the crest of his house on its prow, lay unused and rotting in the grand canal. His exhausted finances would not now admit of his giving splendid entertainments to gay beauties at their own houses, or musical fêtes on the moonlit water: he no longer reclined in glittering gondolas, gorgeous with rich hangings, redolent with the perfume of flowers, and ringing with laughter the music of lutes and the voices of Elmina and her companions, as they glided along the winding canals of Venice after every other sound in the city was hushed.

After an absence of some months from his home, the count one night returned: but how accompanied? He brought with him Elmina and a troop of her companions, who again filled the once desolate palace with riot and disorder, and penetrating even to the private apartments of the unhappy countess, insulted her so grossly that she rushed out in sorrow and terror into the streets.

"O Girolamo, my brother, hadst thou been here, instead of sleeping on the field of Francavilla, thy unfortunate sister had not been brought to this!" was the exclamation of the poor wanderer, as she abandoned her once happy home at midnight, and, accompanied only by one aged domestic, set out for Nuovale, the last of their country villas which the spendthrift had left unsold.

She might have complained of her wrongs to the good Doge her uncle; but he was bowed down with sickness, age, and infirmities, brought on by his wounds received in the wars of the Republic, and increased by troubles arising from the intrigues of proud and plotting Venetian nobles. She wished not to add to his distress by a recapitulation of her own; but hoped that, by suffering in silence, time would bring about a change: for she yet cherished the idea that her still-loved Giulio might again return her affection. But, alas for Diomida! time brought no change to happiness for her.

Forgotten and forsaken, she lived in the utmost seclusion and retirement; while her husband continued his career of riot, gaiety, and dissipation at Venice, with his cousin Lucretia. That most beautiful but abandoned woman, seemed to rejoice in thus openly triumphing over her married and virtuous rival: but her wicked ends were not yet accomplished. She had long resolved that Diomida should be destroyed and that the count should become her own: a terrible climax was fast approaching.

It was soon whispered abroad by the scandalous tale-bearers of the city, that for most imperative reasons, the Signora Strazoldi had retired to a solitary villa on the Brenta, accompanied by her mother the old countess; who in her younger days had been equally infamous for her intrigues and dissipated life. Meanwhile Count Stefano, to preserve appearances, challenged Della Torre to a duel in the Piazza of St. Mark at noon. But other means were to be taken, and the cavaliers never came to the encounter.

Bewitched by the beauty of the artful Lucretia, tormented by her tears and reproaches, and stung by the taunts of her mother and the threats of the boisterous and fierce Stefano, Count Giulio thirsted with all the avarice of a miser to replenish his exhausted exchequer with the yet unimpaired fortune of his cousin. Yielding to all these baneful impulses, he concerted the destruction of the unhappy Diomida; sinking his soul yet deeper in misery and crime. The honour of the Signora Lucretia was to be fully restored on her public espousal by the Count Della Torre. Descended from one of the most ancient of the twelve electoral families, he now found himself obliged to wed a daughter of his uncle by marriage; who ranked only in the third class of the Venetian nobility, and whose name had been enrolled in the "Golden Book" for a few thousand sequins required in some of the pressing emergencies of the Republic.

It was arranged that the young countess should be murdered while her uncle John Cornaro, laid on a couch of pain and sickness, was unable to avert or avenge her fate. Elmina la Mondana was employed by Count Giulio to be the assassin, and she departed from Venice with ample bribes and instructions from Lucretia and her mother. Accompanied by Count Stefano, she reached Nuovale in disguise, and was introduced alone into the sleeping apartment of Diomida, when the latter was preparing to retire to bed. The aspect of this fair, young girl—perishing under the lingering agony of a breaking heart and a wounded spirit tortured by the reflection of a life lost and a love misplaced—raised no pity in the bosom of the cruel Mondana; who marked with heartless exultation, that the roundness of the stately form of the wronged wife was gone, her cheek pallid as death, and her eyes glassy and colourless.

"Pity me, gracious countess!" whined the treacherous Mondana grasping a concealed pistol, while she bowed humbly before her victim; "I am a poor woman whose husband was a trooper and served under the brave Girolamo Cornaro, in the wars of the Count di Merci, and was slain in battle by his side on that unhappy day in the Val di demona.

"Poor woman!" said the Countess, touched by her tears; "and what would you with me?"

"Charity, if it please you, gracious lady. I have heard that none sue a boon in vain of the beautiful Diomida, whose heart is so compassionate."

"I have had more than my own share of woe in this bad and bitter world, even though I have barely seen my eighteenth year," replied the poor girl, sighing deeply, with an air of pity and dejection that would have touched the heart of any one not wholly depraved. "All who have served with my beloved Girolamo, on that fatal field, are welcome to me. And so you say your husband was a trooper, poor woman?"

"A soldier who did good service against the enemy, as this letter from the Colonello Cornaro to the Count di Merci can sufficiently prove."

"For my brother's sake, I will cherish the memory of this poor Italian soldier, and befriend thee as his widow. Rest this night at the villa Nuovale, and to-morrow you shall be properly provided for. Meanwhile, I would fain look on the letter of my brother Girolamo." Throwing on her laced night robe, and confining within a gauze caul the luxuriant tresses of her golden hair, the unsuspecting girl drew near a lamp to peruse the pretended letter; when Elmina, taking advantage of the moment, levelled a pistol at the gentle head of Diomida, and fired. But the muzzle dropped, and the ball passed through the body of the Countess, who sank at the feet of her murderess with a shriek, while her life blood flowed in a crimson current, deluging the beautiful bosom, whiter than marble of Paros.

Struck with horror the moment she committed this frightful act, Elmina fled to her guilty paramour, Count Stefano, who had been watching impatiently beneath the window of the apartment. On learning that Diomida was only wounded, he rushed up stairs to complete her destruction; and, in a transport of infuriated malignity, stabbed her with his poniard, until her bosom became a shapeless mass, so horribly was it mangled.

Masked like a bravo, with his broad hat flapping over his eyes, Stefano cut his way through those whom the uproar had assembled, and who, though disposed to bar his passage, shrank from his bloody hand and formidable figure. He rejoined Elmina, whom he also destroyed by a blow of his poniard, to prevent her betrayal of him; and after flinging her body into the Brenta, which flowed past the walls of Nuovale, he was conveyed back to Venice in a gondola. To Giulio and his accomplices at the palace of Strazoldi, he displayed his bloody poniard, and the marriage ring of Diomida, as tokens that she was now no more. Then, for the first time, was the conscience of Count Giulio touched with compunction at the sight of that little golden symbol: his mind reverted in agony to the hour of his espousals before the altar of Santa Maria, when he had placed this ring on the finger of Diomida, his loving and beloved bride. How had he fulfilled the solemn vow of those nuptials?

But the deed was done, and the wedding ring of Diomida glittered in the hand of her relentless rival; who regarded it with eyes which, bright and beautiful though they were, sparkled with triumphant malice and revengeful joy.

"The ring is here, and we want but the priest to mumble Latin and so finish the night with a proper bridal," said the ruffian Stefano, in tones husky with fatigue, as he quaffed a sparkling draught of wine. Giulio felt a stifling sensation in his throat, and his heart beat wildly.

"Think you, I will be wed with the ring of Diomida Cornaro?" exclaimed Lucretia, scornfully. "Perish the bauble with the hand that wore it!" and thus saying, she cast the trinket into the canal that flowed dark and silently beneath the windows of the palace. The fair image of his gentle wife arose vividly before Count Giulio at this moment, and he shrank with loathing from the side of Lucretia; regarding her brother with a horror which he could scarcely repress as his hand involuntarily sought the hilt of his poniard.

Strazoldi noted his agitation, but knowing that taunts or threats would only be fuel to the fire that was smouldering in his heart, he called for wine; and Giulio drank deeply to drown remembrance. The juice of the grape, and the caresses of the fascinating Lucretia, soon made him forget for a time; and the night was given to revelry, and the formation of plans to cast the guilt of Diomida's murder on the banditti of the hills or the bravoes of Venice. But they were miserably deceived.

Morning came, and with it horror, dread, and doubt—to the unhappy Giulio at least: his cousin and adviser, Count Stephano, was a villain too hardened to feel compunction at having murdered a woman whose life was an obstacle to the accomplishment of any purpose of his. Morning came, and rumour with her thousand venomed tongues had poisoned the ears of all Venice with the hideous tidings. The church Della Salute was hung with black, the bells of San Marco tolled a knell, and the banner bearing the winged lion of the Republic hung half hoisted on the ramparts of the ducal palace.

That night a gondola cleft the bright waters of the Canal di Giudeca, conveying the terrified and guilty fugitives from Venice: gold strengthened anew the arms of the sturdy gondolieri, as they tore on through the foaming sea. Meanwhile, an enraged mob had given the palaces of Counts Della Torre and Strazoldi to the flames; a lurid light from these blazing piles shone on the domes and spires of Venice, on the long lines of magnificent edifices, and the canals that wind between them. As the hum of the multitude died away on the night wind and the fugitives saw the city grow dim and vanish behind the northern islets of the Lagune, their guilty hearts beat less fearfully. Liomazar received them, and the heads of their fleet Barbary horses were turned towards the Austrian frontier: that day they rode sixty miles without drawing bridle. They forced their horses to swim the Piove and Livenza, even though the deep broad currents of these rivers were unusually swollen by floods rushing down from the mountains of the Tyrol, laden with shattered pines and terrible with rolling stones and falling rocks. But on—on! was the cry; for fierce pursuers were behind. Fifty cavaliers, the flower of the young nobles, with a squadron of the Dalmatian guard, followed them with headlong speed.

Belgrade and Latisana opened their gates to these guilty ones; but they were still forced to fly, goading on their sinking steeds with spur and poniard. Lucretia and the countess her mother were faint with fatigue; the horses were failing fast, and the mountains of Carinthia were yet far distant; while the passing breeze brought to their ears the blast of a trumpet: its sound was their knell, for their pursuers kept on their track like Calabrian bloodhounds.

[Transcriber's note: this page (186) is referenced in Volume 3.]

Finding it impossible to cross the frontier, they threw themselves into the tower of Fana, a baronial hold of Count Giulio, near Gradiska, one of the strongest garrison towns in Austrian Friuli. On this impregnable castle, perched on a rock overhanging the fertile valley watered by the Isonza, Giulio hoisted his standard; but his half Sclavonian, half German vassals mustered unwillingly beneath it, when they found a siege was to be endured: the cavaliers from Venice, having invested it on every side, resolved to exterminate this infamous family.

Empowered by letters from the Doge, the Venetians obtained the assistance of the Count di Lanthiri, grand bailiff of Friuli, who raised all his military followers in arms, together with the vassals of the duchy. In addition to these, a regiment of Austrian infantry was brought from Gradiska by its deputy-governor, the brave Baron di Fina, knight of Carinthia and the Golden Stole—an order which none but the noblest Venetians wear.

The castle was encircled and a trench thrown up to cut off all communication with the surrounding country, while a strong force of Austrians guarded the opposite bank of the Isonza, to prevent escape: a needless precaution, as the rock on which the fortress stood descended sheer down to the river many hundred feet below, where, foaming over in a white cascade, the stream rushed in boiling eddies round crags and promontories, as it hurried on to hide its waters in the Gulf of Trieste.

Stefano di Strazoldi was roused to the utmost pitch of ferocity of which the peculiarly excitable temperament of an Italian is susceptible, when he beheld the fortress environed: he resolved on a vigorous defence, and resorted to all those military tactics which he had acquired when serving under the grand-master Zondodari. The unhappy Giulio, finding that no alternative was left but to die bravely sword in hand, or perish ignominiously on the scaffold, gathered a fierce courage from despair, and assisted in the defence of the walls with an energy which drew forth many a boisterous encomium from Stefano, who seemed quite in his element when the castle rocked to its base with the discharge and recoil of its artillery: he swaggered from place to place, blustering and swearing, dividing the time between draining deep flagons in the hall and urging the defence of the garrison. The sturdy Sclavonian vassals of Fana, though terrified at beholding the displayed standard of the grand bailiff, and seeing that the assailants wore his livery and the Austrian uniform, fought, nevertheless, with the most resolute valour: as their lord and feudal superior, they deemed the count a greater man than Lanthiri, and with unflinching spirit toiled at the castle guns for four-and-twenty hours. The vassals of the duchy, repulsed and disheartened, were about to abandon their trenches and retreat; but just then the Baron di Fina brought an Italian brigade of artillery against them, and the flagging conflict was renewed with redoubled vigour.

From its rocky base to its frowning battlements, the whole castle was involved in fire and rolling smoke, and the inhabitants of Friuli and Gradiska crowded to the adjacent hills to behold the unusual scene. Clad in his rich state uniform, a white feather in his hat and the star of St. George of Carinthia sparkling on his breast, Count Lanthiri led the assailants, and directed their operations. He was mounted on a spotless black horse, and formed a perpetual mark for the cannon and musketry of the besieged. For twelve hours, de Fina's cannon poured their iron hail against the outer wall till it was breached, and an enormous mass fell with a thundering crash into the Isonza. The Sclavonians then retired with precipitation to the keep; where they fired from loophole, bartizan, and barricade, with unyielding resolution. The breach being effected, Lanthiri sent forward a trumpeter, who summoned the garrison to surrender; but, contrary to the usage of war, and regardless of the banner of the duchy which was displayed from the trumpet, Count Strazoldi shot the bearer dead. A tumultuous shout of rage burst from the assailants on beholding the cruel deed.

"Forward the grenadiers of Gradiska!—Revenge!" exclaimed the grand bailiff, spurring his black horse up the outer breach. "On! on!—Close up, and fall on! No quarter! Follow me with bayonet and sabre!"

Regardless of the fire to which they were exposed, and which was strewing the outer court with ghastly piles of killed and wounded, the vassals of the duchy pressed on. The brave old Baron de Fina blew open the gate of the keep with a petard, which he hooked to it and fired with his own hand. With a triumphant "viva!" the soldiers rushed through the opening, where Lanthiri was encountered hand to hand by Count Giulio; who, forgetting his crimes, gave way to that inborn thirst for blood and conflict which for ages had distinguished his family. The combat was brief. He was borne backwards before the charged bayonets of the Austrians; while his guilty companion, Stefano, was beaten to the earth, and lost his right hand by a stroke from the Baron de Fina's long Italian sword, which was wielded with both hands, and did terrible execution among the Sclavonian vassals of Fana. These infatuated men were appalled by the fall of Strazoldi; whose activity and presence of mind had conspired, more perhaps than the Count's authority, to animate them during their desperate and rebellious resistance. They were compelled to yield before the headlong rush of their infuriated assailants; and in ten minutes the banner of Count Giulio was pulled down, torn to shreds, and given to the winds: he himself was heavily ironed, and despatched, with his mutilated associate in crime, under an Austrian escort, to the strong citadel of Gradiska; while his castle, lands, and followers, were given up to pillage and devastation by Lanthiri.

During the fury of the siege, the miserable Lucretia, overcome with terror and remorse, and the fatigue of her rapid flight, was prematurely delivered of a son. The fierce Lanthiri, regardless of the tears, sighs, and agony of the desolate mother, ordered the child to be cast into the Isonza; but the more humane de Fina, a veteran of the Count di Merci's wars, directed that the infant should be placed in the monastery of San Baldassare in Friuli, where there was a lantern for the reception of foundlings.

On finding himself a fettered captive in the gloomy dungeons of Gradiska, Strazoldi became furious with rage and almost insane, through the conflicting emotions of love for his sister, sorrow for her dishonour, and shame for the dark blot which crime had cast for ever on their family name. Cursing Lucretia and her amours, his mother and himself, he tore the bandages from his wounds, and bled to death. Count Giulio, who was confined in the same vault, beheld with stern composure the life-blood of his companion ebbing away, without offering aid. Thus, in a fearful paroxysm of mental and bodily agony, the soul of the fierce Stefano passed into eternity.

Lucretia and her equally wicked mother were placed in a Calabrian convent. Della Torre was ordered by the senate to be brought to Venice, where his name was erased from the pages of the "Golden Book," which contains the arms and names of all the nobles of the state. His participation in the assassination of John Cornaro's niece, and his rebellion against the bailiff of Frinli were the climax to all his other excesses; which his enemies now exaggerated until they were regarded as of tenfold enormity. The people once more rising in a mob, demolished such ruins of his palace as the fire had left; and tearing the very foundations from the earth, set up instead a column of infamy, to mark the spot to all succeeding ages.

In custody of the common headsman—a black-browed ruffian, with naked arms, blood-red garb, and glittering axe—Della Torre entered Venice; only three days after the venerable Cornaro, weighed down with the cares of state, with age, infirmity, and sorrow, departed in peace at the palace of Saint Mark. His body was embalmed, and laid for the allotted time on a bed of state covered with cloth of gold; his sword girt on the wrong side, and his spurs having the rowels pointed towards the toes: such being the usual manner of arraying the Doges, when after death their bodies are laid out to be viewed by the knights and nobles of the Republic.

Forgetful of the illustrious dead, all Venice rang with the shouts of

"Hail to the new Doge Alviso Mocenigo!" Proveditor General at sea, and commander in Dalmatia, whom the Great Chancellor was conveying to his coronation. The mass del Spirito Santo was sung in the cathedral of the patron saint, Marco. Its vast dome, upheld by nearly three hundred columns of marble and porphyry, towering like an eastern pagoda, and brilliant with alabaster and emeralds, the spoil of rifled Constantinople, reverberated to the holy anthem within, and the joyous bursts of loyalty without. Amidst the clangour of bells and the shouts of the people, the new Doge embarked in a magnificent gondola, covered with a canopy of velvet and gold and decorated with the banners of the knights of the Golden Stole and St. Mark the Glorious. Onward it moved, amid beating of drums, braying of trumpets, the booming of artillery and the acclamations of the people, towards the Palazzo di San Marco, followed by two hundred gondolas bearing the standards of noble families; and surrounded by the gleaming bayonets and halberds of the Dalmatians, the Sclavonians, and other battalions of the Venetian capelletti.

The two great pillars, surmounted by gigantic lions, which formerly stood on the Piræus of Athens, and now erected in the arsenal of Venice, were enveloped in garlands of flowers and floating streamers; two hundred cannon thundered forth a salute from the banks of the grand canal, while the ships and galleys replied by broadsides in honour of Alviso. The nobles were escorting the new Doge to that lordly dome from which but an hour before the superb catafalco bearing the remains of his aged predecessor had departed. Scattering gold among the people, the Doge Alviso ascended the Giant's Staircase; on the summit of which he was invested with the ducal robe and bonnet studded with precious stones. After which, the most noble Angelo Maria Malipierro, senior of the forty-one electors, made an oration to Alviso and his people.

Amid this scene of joy and splendour—to which the bright meridian sun of a glorious summer day lent additional charms, spire and tower gleaming in its golden light, and the long vistas of the sinuous canals (where not shadowed by the gigantic palaces) shining like mirrors of polished gold—Giulio della Torre, who never again could partake of these festivities, stood an outcast felon, fettered and in rags, by the column of infamy that marked the site of his detested palace. Never did he feel the bitter agony of merited humiliation so much as at that moment, when the Doge's splendid train, glittering with all the pomp of wealth and nobility, swept through the marble arch of the Rialto.

There is no crime, however foul, for which gold will not procure a pardon, both from church and state, in Italy; but Count Giulio was a beggar, without even one quattrino. Those who now possessed his villas and castles—having either purchased them in the days of his mad extravagance, or holding them from Mocenigo on his forfeiture—were loudest in his condemnation; although his hands were yet unstained by blood, and he had been the dupe of a beautiful but vicious woman and the unwitting tool of a desperate debauchee. In the solitude of the horrible piombi, he had ample time to reflect on the insanity of his career, and to repent: he wept for Diomida, and beat his head against his dungeon walls in the extremity of his agony. He endured all the pangs of remorse and self-reproach; and looking back to that proud eminence on which he had so lately stood, admired, honoured and beloved,—a position to which the talents of his high-born ancestors had raised him, and his then virtues entitled him,—Diomida, the gentle, the suffering, and beautiful, arose vividly before him, gashed by the dagger of Strazoldi. Then his reason tottered, and he longed for death to relieve him of his misery.

The new Doge Alviso Mocenigo, remembering an old grudge he bore Count Giulio, shewed now, in the plenitude of his power, the true Venetian spirit of revenge: he cast him into one of those dreadful cells under the roof of the palace of St. Mark—the worst of the piombi or leaden dungeons—where the wretched prisoners, stripped to the skin, are chained to the pavement, and exposed to the burning rays of a hot Italian sun concentrated in a focus, until their brains boil and they become raving maniacs.