k of this, father; hast thou all thy body needs?"

"Air--son, air!--give me of that air, which God has made for the meanest
living thing."

The Bravo rushed towards those fissures in the venerable but polluted
pile he had already striven to open, and with frantic force he
endeavored to widen them with his hands. The material resisted, though
blood flowed from the ends of his fingers in the desperate effort.

"The door, Gelsomina, open wide the door!" he cried, turning away from
the spot, exhausted with his fruitless exertions.

"Nay, I do not suffer now, my child--it is when thou hast left me, and
when I am alone with my own thoughts, when I see thy weeping mother and
neglected sister, that I most feel the want of air--are we not in the
fervid month of August, son?"

"Father, it is not yet June."

"I shall then have more heat to bear! God's will be done, and blessed
Santa Maria, his mother undefiled!--give me strength to endure it."

The eye of Jacopo gleamed with a wildness scarcely less frightful than
the ghastly look of the old man, his chest heaved, his fingers were
clenched, and his breathing was audible.

"No," he said, in a low, but in so determined a voice, as to prove how
fiercely his resolution was set, "thou shalt not await their torments:
arise, father, and go with me. The doors are open, the ways of the
palace are known to me in the darkest night, and the keys are at hand. I
will find means to conceal thee until dark, and we will quit the
accursed Republic for ever."

Hope gleamed in the eye of the old captive, as he listened to this
frantic proposal, but distrust of the means immediately altered its
expression.

"Thou forgettest those up above, son."

"I think only of One truly above, father."

"And this girl--how canst thou hope to deceive her?"

"She will take thy place--she is with us in heart, and will lend
herself to a seeming violence. I do not promise for thee idly, kindest
Gelsomina?"

The frightened girl, who had never before witnessed so plain evidence of
desperation in her companion, had sunk upon an article of furniture,
speechless. The look of the prisoner changed from one to the other, and
he made an effort to rise, but debility caused him to fall backwards,
and not till then did Jacopo perceive the impracticability, on many
accounts, of what, in a moment of excitement, he had proposed. A long
silence followed. The hard breathing of Jacopo gradually subsided, and
the express