The Bravo of Venice Part 19

Andreas (in an angry and decided tone).--Abellino dies.

Abellino.--And can you look on with dry eyes while that innocent dove bleeds at your feet? Go, barbarian; you never loved Rosabella as she deserved. Now she is yours no longer. She is mine, she is Abellino's.

He raised her from the ground, and pressed her pale lips against his own.

"Rosabella, thou art mine; death alone can part us. Thou lovest me as I WOULD be loved; I am blest whate'er may happen, and can now set fortune at defiance. To business, then."

He replaced Rosabella, who was almost fainting, on the bosom of Camilla, then advanced into the middle of the chamber, and addressed the a.s.sembly with an undaunted air -

"Venetians, you are determined to deliver me up to the axe of justice; there is for me no hope of mercy. 'Tis well, act as you please; but ere you sit in judgment over ME, signors, I shall take the liberty of pa.s.sing sentence upon some few of YOU. Now mark me, you see in me the murderer of Conari, the murderer of Paolo Manfrone, the murderer of Lomellino. I deny it not. But would you know the ill.u.s.trious persons who paid me for the use of my dagger?"

With these words he put a whistle to his lips, sounded it, and instantly the doors flew open, the guards rushed in, and ere they had time to recollect themselves, the chief conspirators were in custody, and disarmed.

"Guard them well," said Abellino, in a terrible voice to the sentinels; "you have your orders. n.o.ble Venetians, look on these villains; it is to them that you are indebted for the loss of your three citizens. I accuse of those murders one, two, three, four, and my good Lord Cardinal there has the honour to be the fifth."

Motionless and bewildered stood the accused; tale-telling confusion spoke in every feature that the charge was true, and no one was bold enough to contradict Abellino.

"What can all this mean?" asked the senators of each other, in the utmost surprise and confusion.

"This is all a shameful artifice," the Cardinal at length contrived to say; "the villain, perceiving that he has no chance of escaping punishment, is willing, out of mere resentment, to involve us in his destruction."

Contarino (recovering himself ).--In the wickedness of his life he has surpa.s.sed all former miscreants, and now he is trying to surpa.s.s them in the wickedness of his death.

Abellino (with majesty).--Be silent. I know your whole plot, have seen your list of proscriptions, am well informed of your whole arrangement, and at the moment that I speak to you the officers of justice are employed, by my orders, in seizing the gentlemen with the white ribbons round their arms, who this very night intended to overturn Venice. Be silent, for defence were vain.

Andreas (in astonishment)--Abellino, what is the meaning of all this?

Abellino.--Neither more nor less than that Abellino has discovered and defeated a conspiracy against the const.i.tution of Venice and the life of its Doge! The bravo, in return for your kind intention of sending him to destruction in a few hours, has preserved you from it.

Vitalba (to the accused).--n.o.ble Venetians, you are silent under this heavy charge.

Abellino.--They are wise, for no defence can now avail them. Their troops are already disarmed, and lodged in separate dungeons of the State prison; visit them there, and you will learn more. You now understand probably that I did not order the doors of this saloon to be guarded for the purpose of seizing the terrible bravo Abellino, but of taking those heroes into secure custody.

And now, Venetians, compare together YOUR conduct and MINE. At the hazard of my life have I preserved the State from ruin. Disguised as a bravo, I dared to enter the a.s.sembly of those ruthless villains, whose daggers laid Venice waste. I have endured for your sakes storm, and rain, and frost, and heat; I have watched for your safety while you were sleeping. Venice owes to my care her const.i.tution and your lives; and yet are my services deserving of no reward? All this have I done for Rosabella of Corfu, and yet will you withhold from me my promised bride? I have saved you from death, have saved the honour of your wives, and the throats of your innocent children from the knife of the a.s.sa.s.sin. Men! men! and yet will you send me to the scaffold?

Look on this list! See how many among you would have bled this night, had it not been for Abellino, and see where the miscreants stand by whom you would have bled! Read you not in every feature that they are already condemned by heaven and their own conscience?

Does a single mouth unclose itself in exculpation? Does a single movement of the head give the lie to my charge? Yet the truth of what I have advanced shall be made still more evident.

He turned himself to the conspirators

"Mark me!" said he, "the first among you who acknowledges the truth shall receive a free pardon. I swear it, I, the bravo Abellino!"

The conspirators remained silent. Suddenly Memmo started forward and threw himself trembling at the Doge's feet.

"Venetians," he exclaimed, "Abellino has told you true."

"'Tis false, 'tis false!" exclaimed the accused altogether.

"Silence!" cried Abellino, in a voice of thunder, while the indignation which flamed in every feature struck terror into his hearers: "Silence, I say, and hear me, or rather hear the ghosts of your victims. Appear, appear!" cried this dreadful man, in a tone still louder: "'Tis time!"

Again he sounded his whistle. The folding doors were thrown open, and there stood the Doge's much lamented friends--Conari, Lomellino, and Manfrone.

"We are betrayed!" shouted Contarino, who drew out a concealed dagger, and plunged it in his bosom up to the very hilt.

And now what a scene of rapture followed. Tears streamed down the silver beard of Andreas, as he rushed into the arms of his long-lost companions; tears bedewed the cheeks of the venerable triumvirate, as they once more clasped the knees of their prince, their friend, their brother. These excellent men, these heroes, never had Andreas hoped to meet them again till they should meet in heaven; and Andreas blessed heaven for permitting him to meet them once more on earth. These four men, who had valued each other in the first dawn of YOUTH, who had fought by each other's sides in MANHOOD, were now a.s.sembled in AGE, and valued each other more than ever. The spectators gazed with universal interest on the scene before them, and the good old senators mingled tears of joy with those shed by the re-united companions. In the happy delirium of this moment, nothing but Andreas and his friends were attended to; no one was aware that the conspirators and the self-murderer Contarino were removed by the guards from the saloon; no one but Camilla observed Rosabella, who threw herself sobbing on the bosom of the handsome bravo, and repeated a thousand times, "Abellino, then, is not a murderer!"

At length they began to recollect themselves they looked round them- -and the first words which broke from every lip were--"Hail, saviour of Venice!"--The roof rung with the name of Abellino, and unnumbered blessings accompanied the name.

That very Abellino, who not an hour before had been doomed to the scaffold by the whole a.s.sembly, now stood calm and dignified as a G.o.d before the adoring spectators; and now he viewed with complacency the men whose lives he had saved, and now his eye dwelt with rapture on the woman whose love was the reward of all his dangers.

"Abellino!" said Andreas advancing to the bravo, and extending his hand towards him.

"I am not Abellino," replied he, smiling, while he pressed the Doge's hand respectfully to his lips "neither am I Flodoardo of Florence. I am by birth a Neapolitan, and by name Rosalvo. The death of my inveterate enemy the Prince of Monaldeschi makes it no longer necessary to conceal who I really am."

"Monaldeschi?" repeated Andreas, with a look of anxiety.

"Fear not," continued Rosalvo; "Monaldeschi, it is true, fell by my hand, but fell in honourable combat. The blood which stained his sword flowed from my veins, and in his last moments conscience a.s.serted her empire in his bosom. He died not till he had written in his tablets the most positive declaration of my innocence as to the crimes with which his hatred had contrived to blacken me; and he also instructed me by what means I might obtain at Naples the restoration of my forfeited estates and the re-establishment of my injured honour. Those means have been already efficacious, and all Naples is by this time informed of the arts by which Monaldeschi procured my banishment, and of the many plots which he laid for my destruction; plots, which made it necessary for me to drop my own character, and never to appear but in disguise. After various wanderings chance led me to Venice. My appearance was so much altered, that I dreaded not discovery, but I dreaded (and with reason) peris.h.i.+ng in your streets with hunger. In this situation accident brought me acquainted with the banditti, by whom Venice was then infested. I willingly united myself to their society, partly with a view of purifying the Republic from the presence of these wretches, and partly in the hope of discovering through them the more ill.u.s.trious villains by whom their daggers were employed. I was successful. I delivered the banditti up to justice, and stabbed their captain in Rosabella's sight. I was now the only bravo in Venice. Every scoundrel was obliged to have recourse to me. I discovered the plans of the conspirators, and now you know them also. I found that the deaths of the Doge's three friends had been determined on; and in order to obtain full confidence with the confederates, it was necessary to persuade them that these men had fallen beneath my dagger. No sooner had my plan been formed than I imparted it to Lomellino. He, and he only, was my confidant in this business. He presented me to the Doge as the son of a deceased friend; he a.s.sisted me with his advice; he furnished me with keys to those doors to the public gardens, which none were permitted to pa.s.s through except Andreas and his particular friends, and which frequently enabled me to elude pursuit; he showed me several private pa.s.sages in the palace by which I could penetrate un.o.bserved even into the Doge's very bed-chamber. When the time for his disappearance arrived, he not only readily consented to lie concealed in a retreat known only to ourselves, but was also the means of inducing Manfrone and Conari to join him in his retirement, till the fortunate issue of this day's adventure permitted me to set them once more at liberty. The banditti exist no longer; the conspirators are in chains; my plans are accomplished; and now, Venetians, if you still think him deserving of it, here stands the bravo Abellino, and you may lead him to the scaffold when you will."

"To the scaffold!" exclaimed at once the Doge, the senators, and the whole crowd of n.o.bility; and every one burst into enthusiastic praises of the dauntless Neapolitan.

"Oh, Abellino," exclaimed Andreas, while he wiped away a tear, "I would gladly give my ducal bonnet to be such a bravo as thou hast been. 'Doge,' did thou once say to me, 'thou and I are the two greatest men in Venice,' but oh, how much greater is the bravo than the Doge! Rosabella is that jewel, than which I have nothing in the world more precious; Rosabella is dearer to me than an emperor's crown; Rosabella is thine."

"Abellino," said Rosabella, and extended her hand to the handsome Bravo.

"Triumph!" cried he, "Rosabella is the Bravo's Bride," and he clasped the blus.h.i.+ng maid to his bosom.

CHAPTER VII.--CONCLUSION.

And now it would not be at all amiss to make Count Rosalvo sit down quietly between the good old Doge and his lovely niece; and then cause him to relate the motive of Monaldeschi's hatred, in what manner he lost Valeria, what crimes were imputed to him, and how he escaped from the a.s.sa.s.sins sent in pursuit of him by his enemy; how he had long wandered from place to place, and how he had at length learned, during his abode in Bohemia with a gang of gipsies, such means of disguising his features as enabled him to defy the keenest penetration to discover in the beggar Abellino the once admired Count Rosalvo; how in this disguise he had returned to Italy; and how Lomellino, having ascertained that he was universally believed at Naples to have long since perished by s.h.i.+pwreck, and therefore that neither the officers of the Inquisition, nor the a.s.sa.s.sins of his enemies were likely to trouble themselves any more about him, he had ventured to resume, with some slight alterations, his own appearance at Venice; how the arrival of Monaldeschi had obliged him to conceal himself, till an opportunity offered of presenting himself to the Prince when unattended, and of demanding satisfaction for his injuries; how he had been himself wounded in several places by his antagonist, though the combat finally terminated in his favour; how he had resolved to make use of Monaldeschi's death to terrify Andreas still further, and of Parozzi's conspiracy to obtain Rosabella's hand of the Doge; how he had trembled lest the heart of his mistress should have been only captivated by the romantic appearance of the adventurer Flodoardo, and have rejected him when known to be the bravo Abellino; how he had resolved to make use of the terror inspired by the a.s.sa.s.sin to put her love to the severest trial; and how, had she failed in that trial, he had determined to renounce the inconstant maid for ever; with many other HOWS, WHYS, and WHEREFORES, which, not being explained, will, I doubt, leave much of this tale involved in mystery: but before I begin Rosalvo's history, I must ask two questions--First--do my readers like the manner in which I relate adventures?

Secondly--If my readers DO like my manner of relating adventures, can I employ my time better than in relating them?

When these questions are answered, I may probably resume my pen. In the meanwhile, gentlemen and ladies, good-night, and pleasant dreams attend you.