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 voted for an acquittal; but the majority
was against it, and the fatal verdict was pronounced.

The news at once spread throughout the little island, and caused the
deepest dejection there. The fishers who, at the first irruption of
force, had risen as one man to defend their comrade's cause, bowed their
heads without a murmur before the unquestioned authority of a legal
judgment. Solomon received unflinchingly the stab that pierced his
heart. No sigh escaped his breast; no tear came to his eyes; his wound
did not bleed. Since his son's arrest he had sold all he possessed in
the world, even the little silver cross left by his wife at her death,
even the pearl necklace that flattered his fatherly pride by losing its
whiteness against his dear Nisida's throat; the pieces of gold gained by
the sale of these things he had sewn into his coarse woollen cap, and had
established himself in the city. He ate nothing but the bread thrown to
him by the pity of passers-by, and slept on the steps of churches or at
the magistrates' door.

To estimate at its full value the heroic courage of this unhappy father,
one must take a general view of the whole extent of his misfortune.
Overwhelmed by age and grief, he looked forward with solemn calmness to
the terrible moment which would bear his son, a few days before him, to
the grave. His sharpest agony was the thought of the shame that would
envelop his family. The first scaffold erected in that gently mannered
island would arise for Gabriel,