“Here is a case containing trinkets of value,” added Balthazar.  “The condemned man said they were taken through ignorance, and he was accustomed to suffer the child to amuse himself with them in the prison.”

“These were my first offerings to my wife, in return for the gift she had made me of the precious babe,” said the Doge, in such a smothered voice as we are apt to use when examining objects that recall the presence of the dead—­“Blessed Angiolina! these jewels are so many tokens of thy pale but happy countenance; thou felt a mother’s joy at that sacred moment, and could even smile on me!”

“And here is a talisman in sapphire, with many Eastern characters; I was told it had been an heirloom in the family of the child, and was put about his neck at the birth, by the hands of his own father.”

“I ask no more—­I ask no more!  God be praised for this, the last and best of all his mercies!” cried the Prince, clasping his hands with devotion.  “This jewel was worn by myself in infancy, and I placed it around the neck of the babe with my own hands, as thou sayest—­I ask no more.”

“And Bartolo Contini!” uttered Il Maledetto.

“Maso!” exclaimed a voice, which until then had been mute in the chapel.  It was Adelheid who had spoken.  Her hair had fallen in wild profusion over her shoulders, as she still knelt over the articles on the pavement, and her hands were clasped entreatingly, as if she deprecated the rude interruptions which had so often dashed the cup from their lips, as they were about to yield to the delight of believing Sigismund to be the child of the Prince of Genoa.

“Thou art another of a fond and weak sex, to swell the list of confiding spirits that have been betrayed by the selfishness and falsehood of men,” answered the mocking mariner.  “Go to, girl!—­make thyself a nun; thy Sigismund is an impostor.”

Adelheid, by a quick but decided interposition of her hand, prevented an impetuous movement of the young soldier, who would have struck his audacious rival to his feet.  Without changing her kneeling attitude, she then spoke, modestly but with a firmness which generous sentiments enable women to assume even more readily than the stronger sex, when extraordinary occasions call for the sacrifice of that reserve in which her feebleness is ordinarily intrenched.

“I know not, Maso, in what manner thou hast learned the tie which connects me with Sigismund,” she said; “but I have no longer any wish to conceal it.  Be he the son of Balthazar, or be he the son of a prince, he has received my troth with the consent of my honored father, and our fortunes will shortly be one.  There might be forwardness in a maiden thus openly avowing her preference for a youth; but here, with none to own him, oppressed with his long-endured wrongs, and assailed in his most sacred affections, Sigismund has a right to my voice.  Let him belong to whom else he may, I speak by my venerable father’s authority, when I say he belongs to us.”