y to cover the cries of his
victim, had, after prolonged hesitation, resolved to commit his
crime, and having fired two shots at the unfortunate young man without
succeeding in wounding him, had put an end to him by blows of the axe;
lastly, at the moment when, with Solomon's assistance, he was about to
throw the body into the sea, the prince's servants having appeared, they
had gone up to the girl's room, and, inventing their absurd tale, had
cast themselves on their knees before the Virgin, in order to mislead
the authorities. All the circumstances that poor Solomon cited in his
son's favour turned against him: the ladder at Nisida's window belonged
to the fisherman; the dagger which young Brancaleone always carried upon
him to defend himself had evidently been taken from him after his death,
and Gabriel had hastened to break it, so as to destroy, to the best of
his power, the traces of his crime. Bastiano's evidence did not receive
a minute's consideration: he, to destroy the idea of premeditation,
declared that the young fisherman had left him only at the moment when
the storm broke over the island; but, in the first place, the young
diver was known to be Gabriel's most devoted friend and his sister's
warmest admirer, and, in the second, he had been seen to land at Torre
during the same hour in which he had affirmed that he was near to
Nisida. As for the prince's passion for the poor peasant girl, the
magistrates simply shrugged their shoulders at the ridiculous assertion
of that, and especially at the young girl's alleged resistance and the
extreme measures to which the prince was supposed to have resorted to
conquer the virtue of Nisida. Eligi of Brancaleone was so young, so
handsome, so seductive, and at the same time so cool amid his successes,
that he had never been suspected of violence, except in getting rid
of his mistresses. Finally, an overwhelming and unanswerable proof
overthrew all the arguments for the defence: under the fisherman's bed
had been found a purse with the Brancaleone arms, full of gold, the
purse which, if our readers remember, the prince had flung as a last
insult at Gabriel's feet.

The old man did not lose heart at this fabric of lies; after the
pleadings of the advocates whose ruinous eloquence he had bought with
heavy gold, he defended his son himself, and put so much truth, so much
passion, and so many tears into his speech, that the whole audience was
moved, and three of the judges