always fixed on that lamp. I have a
belief that nothing could shake, which is that on the day that light goes
out my sister's soul will have taken flight to heaven."

"Well," cried Bastiano in an abrupt tone that betrayed the emotion of his
heart, "if you prefer to stay, I will go alone."

"Farewell," said Gabriel, without turning aside his eyes from the window
towards which he felt himself drawn by a fascination for which he could
not account. Bastiano disappeared, and Nisida's brother, assisted by the
waves, was drawing nearer and nearer to the shore, when, at all once, he
uttered a terrible cry which sounded above the noise of the tempest.

The star had just been extinguished; the lamp had been blown out.

"My sister is dead!" cried Gabriel and, leaping into the sea, he cleft
the waves with the rapidity of lightning.

The storm had redoubled its intensity; long lines of lightning, rending
the sides of the clouds, bathed everything in their tawny and
intermittent light. The fisherman perceived a ladder leaning against the
front of his home, seized it with a convulsive hand, and in three bounds
flung himself into the room. The prince felt himself strangely moved on
making his way into this pure and silent retreat. The calm and gentle
gaze of the Virgin who seemed to be protecting the rest of the sleeping
girl, that perfume of innocence shed around the maidenly couch, that
lamp, open-eyed amid the shadows, like a soul in prayer, had inspired the
seducer with an unknown distress. Irritated by what he called an absurd
cowardice, he had extinguished the obtrusive light, and was advancing
towards the bed, and addressing unspoken reproaches to himself, when
Gabriel swooped upon him with a wounded tiger's fierce gnashing of the
teeth.

Brancaleone, by a bold and rapid movement that showed no common degree of
skill and bravery, while struggling in the grasp of his powerful
adversary, drew forth in his right hand a long dagger with a fine barbed
blade. Gabriel smiled scornfully, snatched the weapon from him, and even
as he stooped to break it across his knee, gave the prince a furious blow
with his head that made him stagger and sent him rolling on the floor,
three paces away; then, leaning over his poor sister and gazing on her
with hungry eyes, by the passing gleam of a flash, "Dead!" he repeated,
wringing his arms in despair,--"dead!"

In the fearful paroxysm that compressed his throat he could find no other
wor