A TALE OF HORROR. 201 



The father and his child were thus discovered by two 

 mariners, sent by the master of the galley to summon his 

 expected passengers, and assist in taking on board their 

 luggage. 



Whilst one of the seamen remained with old Jacopo, who 

 would neither move from the body of his daughter, nor allow 

 it to be touched, the other hastened to the palazzo, with tidings 

 of the tragic event which had occurred. His tale of horror 

 was related first to the domestics ; but he must see, he said, 

 the Marchese or his son. The former, he was told by the 

 servants, could not be disturbed so early ; but their young 

 master, the Count Marco, had been up, they added, by times, 

 if, indeed, he had gone to bed at all on the conclusion, at 

 no very early hour of the morning, of the last night's enter- 

 tainment. One of the servants was about to apprize him of 

 the mariner's business, when Marco himself appeared. 



The terror-stricken faces of the seaman's late auditors pre- 

 pared him for some correspondent recital ; but not for the 

 trembling, agonizing surmises which followed on the man's 

 brief relation ; and when, in a private interview, particulars 

 were detailed which left no doubts, as far at least as concerned 

 the person of the victim, it is difficult to say how the young 

 noble was able (if he did so) to disguise the fearful intensity of 

 his individual interest in that which had befallen. 



It is more material to our narrative to notice that the sea- 

 man's chief motive for desiring to speak with the masters of 

 the palazzo was to put into their hands a splendid jewel a 

 bracelet which he had picked up, he said, lying close beside 

 the murdered maiden. None of hers (he suspected) could be 

 an ornament so unsuited to her rank and her attire, and it 

 might point to the hand by which she had fallen. 



Marco, forcing himself to say something in praise of the 

 mariner's honesty and sagacity, put a gold piece into his hand, 

 as he received into his own the glittering bauble, on which 

 hung, perhaps, its owner's life; and who that owner was 



