4:08 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



The object of the Proveditore was gained, but he 

 had not well calculated all the consequences of his 

 stratagem. 



" Fiend of hell ! " shouted Dansowich in a voice of 

 thunder, while a sudden light seemed to burst upon 

 him. " Tis thou who art her murderer ! " And 

 bounding forward with a violence that at once freed 

 him from his fetters, which fell clattering on the 

 dungeon floor, he clutched the senator by the throat, 

 and hurled him to the ground before the astonished 

 Venetian had time to make the slightest resistance. 



" Art thou still in being 1 " he muttered, while his 

 teeth gnashed and ground together. " I thought thee 

 long since dead. But, no ! 'twas written thou shouldst 

 die by my hand. Be it done to thee as thou didst to 

 the wife of my bosom," continued he, while kneel- 

 ing on the breast of the Proveditore, and compress- 

 ing his throat in an iron gripe that threatened to 

 prove as efficacious and nearly as speedy in its oper- 

 ation as the bowstring of the Turk. In vain did 

 Marcello struggle violently to free himself from the 

 crushing pressure of the pirate's fingers. Although 

 a very powerful man, and in the full vigour of his 

 strength, the disadvantage at which he had been 

 taken prevented his being a match for the old Uz- 

 coque, whose sinews were braced by a long life of 

 hardship. Fortunately, however, for the Venetian, 

 the furious shout of Dansowich had been overheard 

 by the guards and jailers, who now rushed into 



