ms, instead of the troubadour's.

"Traitress!" Manrico cried.

"Manrico, the light blinded me," she implored, throwing herself at the
troubadour's feet.

For thee alone the words were meant,
If those words to him were spoken,

she sang.

"I believe thee," Manrico answered; while the Count, enraged in his
turn, cried:

"You shall fight with me, Sir Knight!"

"Aye, behold me!" Manrico answered, lifting his visor and standing in
the bright light of the moon. At the sight of him di Luna started
back:

"Manrico! The brigand! Thou darest----"

"To fight thee? Aye, have at it!" and Manrico stood _en garde_.
Leonora implored them not to fight, but too late. They would fight to
the death.

"Follow me," di Luna called, drawing his sword, which he had half
sheathed when he had seen that his antagonist was not of noble birth
like himself. "Follow me," and he hurried off among the trees,
followed by Manrico.

"I follow, and I shall kill thee," the handsome troubadour cried, as
he too rushed off after the Count. Whereupon the Countess Leonora fell
senseless.

ACT II

This opera of shadows and darkness began again in a ghostly ruin in
the mountains of Biscay. A forge fire blazed through a yawning doorway
of tumbled-down stones. It was not yet day, but very soon it would be;
and Manrico, the handsome knight, brigand, troubadour, lover of
Leonora, lay wounded upon a low couch near the forge fire. Azucena,
his gipsy mother, sat beside him, tenderly watching. Many months had
passed since the night of the duel in the palace garden, when Manrico
had had di Luna at his mercy, but had spared him. Since that time
there had been war between the factions of Arragon and Biscay, and
Manrico had been sorely wounded in his prince's service. Here he had
lain ever since, in the gipsy rendezvous, cared for by his mother.

All night the gipsy band had been at work, forging weapons with which
to fight, and just before the early dawn they were discovered singing
a fine chorus, which they accompanied by a rhythmic pounding upon
their anvils.

There, beside him, through the long nights, Azucena had sat, conjuring
back memories of her fierce past, and soon she broke into a wild song
describing the death of her mother, years before, when Manrico was a
baby. She sang how that old mother had been burned at the stake by the
di Lunas--by the father of the living Count.

"Di Luna, mother?" Manrico questioned.

"Aye, it was di