teach you in future to make a better return for the hospitality you receive!” With these words she retired, followed by the marchese.
Imprecating all the spirits of hell to aid his revenge, and loading the countess with the most opprobrious epithets, Camillo, after he had bound up his wound, ran from the palace, with his helmet in his hand, through the lonely streets to the Rialto, with the intention of immediately quitting the detested Venice. His soliloquy was an uninterrupted series of execrations against the lewd courtesan, when, turning sharply round a corner, he felt himself detained. On looking about, it appeared that his long scarf, which hung down behind, had been caught by one of the iron lions’ heads, which projected from the wall. “Ha!” cried he, with malignant exultation, “such an opportunity will not speedily occur again.” Hastily drawing forth his pocket-book from beneath his armour, he wrote a few words upon a slip of paper, doubled it up, and threw it into the lion’s mouth. “At any rate you shall not escape without a proper fright, my coy beauty!”
Thus did a man, who, when not hurried away by his passions, could be brave, generous, nay, tender-hearted, perpetrate a deed, than which a blacker could not have been devised by the most vindictive villain. To disgrace was added guilt, and crime to crime, by one who, had it
