Jacopo regarded the noble, for an instant, with an expression so ambiguous, as to cause the latter insensibly to raise the point of his rapier, but when he answered it was with his ordinary quiet.

“Signor Duca,” he said, “I have been thought worthy to be retained by Don Camillo Monforte!”

“I deny it not—­and now that thou recallest the occasion, new light breaks in upon me.  Villain, to thy faithlessness I owe the loss of my bride!”

Though the rapier was at the very throat of Jacopo, he did not flinch.  Gazing at his excited companion, he laughed in a smothered manner, but bitterly.

“It would seem that the Lord of Sant’ Agata wishes to rob me of my trade,” he said.  “Arise, ye Israelites, and bear witness, lest men doubt the fact!  A common bravo of the canals is waylaid, among your despised graves, by the proudest Signor of Calabria!  You have chosen your spot in mercy, Don Camillo, for sooner or later this crumbling and sea-worn earth is to receive me.  Were I to die at the altar itself, with the most penitent prayer of holy church on my lips, the bigots would send my body to rest among these hungry Hebrews and accursed heretics.  Yes, I am a man proscribed, and unfit to sleep with the faithful!”

His companion spoke with so strange a mixture of irony and melancholy, that the purpose of Don Camillo wavered.  But remembering his loss, he shook the rapier’s point, and continued:—­

“Thy taunts and effrontery will not avail thee, knave,” he cried.  “Thou knowest that I would have engaged thee as the leader of a chosen band, to favor the flight of one dear from Venice.”

“Nothing more true, Signore.”

“And thou didst refuse the service?”

“Noble duke, I did.”

“Not content with this, having learned the particulars of my project, thou sold the secret to the Senate?”

“Don Camillo Monforte, I did not.  My engagements with the council would not permit me to serve you; else, by the brightest star of yonder vault! it would have gladdened my heart to have witnessed the happiness of two young and faithful lovers.  No—­no—­no; they know me not, who think I cannot find pleasure in the joy of another.  I told you that I was the Senate’s, and there the matter ended.”

“And I had the weakness to believe thee, Jacopo, for thou hast a character so strangely compounded of good and evil, and bearest so fair a name for observance of thy faith, that the seeming frankness of the answer lulled me to security.  Fellow, I have been betrayed, and that at the moment when I thought success most sure.”

Jacopo manifested interest, but, as he moved slowly on, accompanied by the vigilant and zealous noble, he smiled coldly, like one who had pity for the other’s credulity.

“In bitterness of soul, I have cursed the whole race for its treachery,” continued the Neapolitan.

“This is rather for the priore of St. Mark, than for the ear of one who carries a public stiletto.”