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he begged Count Ammiani to abstain from fighting; yea, to strike him and
disable him, and fly, rather--than provoke the skill of his right hand.
Carlo demanded his cousin's freedom. It was denied to him, and Carlo
claimed his privilege. The witnesses of the duel were Jenna and another
young subaltern: both declared it fair according to the laws of honour,
when their stupefaction on beholding the proud swordsman of the army
stretched lifeless on the brown leaves of the past year left them with
power to speak. Thus did Carlo slay his old enemy who would have served
as his friend. A shout of rescue was heard before Carlo had yielded up
his weapon. Four haggard and desperate men, headed by Barto Rizzo, burst
from an ambush on the guard encircling Angelo. There, with one thought
of saving his doomed cousin and comrade, Carlo rushed, and not one
Italian survived the fight.

An unarmed spectator upon the meadow-borders, Beppo, had but obscure
glimpses of scenes shifting like a sky in advance of hurricane winds.

Merthyr delivered the burden of death to Vittoria. Her soul had crossed
the darkness of the river of death in that quiet agony preceding the
revelation of her Maker's will, and she drew her dead husband to her
bosom and kissed him on the eyes and the forehead, not as one who had
quite gone away from her, but as one who lay upon another shore whither
she would come. The manful friend, ever by her side, saved her by his
absolute trust in her fortitude to bear the burden of the great sorrow
undeceived, and to walk with it to its last resting-place on earth
unobstructed. Clear knowledge of her, the issue of reverent love,
enabled him to read her unequalled strength of nature, and to rely
on her fidelity to her highest mortal duty in a conflict with extreme
despair. She lived through it as her Italy had lived through the hours
which brought her face to face with her dearest in death; and she also
on the day, ten years later, when an Emperor and a King stood beneath
the vault of the grand Duomo, and the organ and a peal of voices
rendered thanks to heaven for liberty, could show the fruit of her
devotion in the dark-eyed boy, Carlo Merthyr Ammiani, standing between
Merthyr and her, with old blind Agostino's hands upon his head. And then
once more, and but for once, her voice was heard in Milan.

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

A common age once, when he married her; now she had grown old
A fortress face; st