The shades gathered darker and darker round; the stillness seemed to deepen; the moon was gone; and, save from the struggling ray of the lamp beside Rienzi, the blackness of night closed over the solemn and ghostly scene.

In one of the side chapels, as I have before said, which, in the many alterations the church has undergone, is probably long since destroyed, were Savelli and the few attendants retained by the Tribune.  Savelli alone slept not; he remained sitting erect, breathless and listening, while the tall lights in the chapel rendered yet more impressive the rapid changes of his countenance.

“Now pray Heaven,” said he, “the knave miscarry not!  Such an occasion may never again occur!  He has a strong arm and a dexterous hand, doubtless; but the other is a powerful man.  The deed once done, I care not whether the doer escape or not; if not, why we must stab him!  Dead men tell no tales.  At the worst, who can avenge Rienzi?  There is no other Rienzi!  Ourselves and the Frangipani seize the Aventine, the Colonna and the Orsini the other quarters of the city; and without the master-spirit, we may laugh at the mad populace.  But if discovered;—­” and Savelli, who, fortunately for his foes, had not nerves equal to his will, covered his face and shuddered;—­“I think I hear a noise!—­no—­is it the wind?—­tush, it must be old Vico de Scotto, turning in his shell of mail!—­silent—­I like not that silence!  No cry—­no sound!  Can the ruffian have played us false? or could he not scale the casement?  It is but a child’s effort;—­or did the sentry spy him?”

Time passed on:  the first ray of daylight slowly gleamed, when he thought he heard the door of the church close.  Savelli’s suspense became intolerable:  he stole from the chapel, and came in sight of the Tribune’s bed—­all was silent.

“Perhaps the silence of death,” said Savelli, as he crept back.

Meanwhile the Tribune, vainly endeavouring to close his eyes, was rendered yet more watchful by the uneasy position he was obliged to assume—­for the part of the bed towards the pillow having given way, while the rest remained solid, he had inverted the legitimate order of lying, and drawn himself up as he might best accommodate his limbs, towards the foot of the bed.  The light of the lamp, though shaded by the draperies, was thus opposite to him.  Impatient of his wakefulness, he at last thought it was this dull and flickering light which scared away the slumber, and was about to rise, to remove it further from him, when he saw the curtain at the other end of the bed gently lifted:  he remained quiet and alarmed;—­ere he could draw a second breath, a dark figure interposed between the light and the bed; and he felt that a stroke was aimed against that part of the couch, which, but for the accident that had seemed to him ominous, would have given his breast to the knife.  Rienzi waited not a second and better-directed blow; as the assassin yet stooped, groping in the uncertain light, he threw on him all the weight and power of his large and muscular frame, wrenched the stiletto from the bravo’s hand, and dashing him on the bed, placed his knee on his breast.—­The stiletto rose—­gleamed—­descended—­the murtherer swerved aside, and it pierced only his right arm.  The Tribune raised, for a deadlier blow, the revengeful blade.