The public
voice, faint as it is in the Republic, has finally reached the ears of
thy employers, and they withdraw their protection."
Jacopo regarded the noble, for an instant, with an expression so
ambiguous, as to cause the latter insensibly to raise the point of his
rapier, but when he answered it was with his ordinary quiet.
"Signor Duca," he said, "I have been thought worthy to be retained by
Don Camillo Monforte!"
"I deny it not--and now that thou recallest the occasion, new light
breaks in upon me. Villain, to thy faithlessness I owe the loss of my
bride!"
Though the rapier was at the very throat of Jacopo, he did not flinch.
Gazing at his excited companion, he laughed in a smothered manner, but
bitterly.
"It would seem that the Lord of Sant' Agata wishes to rob me of my
trade," he said. "Arise, ye Israelites, and bear witness, lest men
doubt the fact! A common bravo of the canals is waylaid, among your
despised graves, by the proudest Signor of Calabria! You have chosen
your spot in mercy, Don Camillo, for sooner or later this crumbling and
sea-worn earth is to receive me. Were I to die at the altar itself, with
the most penitent prayer of holy church on my lips, the bigots would
send my body to rest among these hungry Hebrews and accursed heretics.
Yes, I am a man proscribed, and unfit to sleep with the faithful!"
His companion spoke with so strange a mixture of irony and melancholy,
that the purpose of Don Camillo wavered.
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