“Thyself! The boy, who was’t—the boy?”
“Listen; hear the sequel of this dark story. There, there, concealed by a column of that lofty portico, listening to the words of love that broke murmuringly from the lips of the Ladye, gazing upon the face of her bright-eyed boy, all smiles and laughter, there, unknown and unsuspected, stood the Fiend and the Destroyer. Guiseppo—pass thy hand over my brow—see, see, even after the lapse of twenty years, the cold, beaded drops, like death-sweat, stand out from my forehead at the memory.”
“I am breathless, my father—the Destroyer who stood listening—he was—”
“Guiseppo, Guiseppo, let me whisper a world of horror to thine ear in a single word. The light of the setting sun, fell over thy—thy mother’s face, proud, peerless and beautiful—her child prattling on her knee, her lover by her side—the first beams of the morrow’s sun beheld her form, her form of grace and loveliness, flung prostrate over the marble floor of her chamber—outraged, bleeding, dead.”
“Oh, God! my brain whirls! And the Destroyer?”
“Was a knight, a leader among the Princes of the Christian Host who won Jerusalem from the Paynim legions. He had been scorned, rejected, despised by the Ladye—thy mother—and behold,—oh fiend of hell—behold his vengeance!”
“His name? Who—who—swept this devil from the earth?”
“He lives!”
“Lives? and thou couldst wield a dagger!”
“Boy, wouldst thou wreak full and terrible vengeance on the ravisher of thy mother?”