Another stride, and he reached the beaufet. He seized the goblet of gold, and held it aloft.
“Behold,” he cried, “behold the instrument of his murder!”
“God save me now,” shrieked the Countess.—“There has been foul work here—Adrian—oh, Adrian, thy sire hath been poisoned!”
“This is some new mysterie, Sir Scholar,” exclaimed Adrian, with a look of scorn.
The Lady fell insensible, and the goblet rung with a clanging sound upon the marble floor, while from its depths there rolled a small compact substance, encrusted in some chemical compound, white as snow in hue.
The Duke of Florence stooped hurriedly to the very floor, and seized both the goblet and the encrusted substance, with an eager grasp.
“Ha! There is a white sediment deposited at the bottom of this goblet. Albertine, advance; thou art skilled in such mysteries. Tell me, Sir Monk, the nature of this white powder.”
The Monk Albertine, whose dark eyes had for a moment been gleaming over the shoulders of the bystanders, now advanced with a slow and measured footstep, and confronted the Signor Aldarin, with a look full of meaning and thought. Aldarin returned the look, with a keen and searching glance, and their eyes then mingled in one long and ardent gaze, as though each man wished to read the heart of his fellow.
With a look of calmness and perfect self-possession, Albertine turned to the Duke and took the goblet from his hand.
He gazed at its depths for a moment; he was about to speak, when the heart of every man in the Red Chamber was thrilled by a wild and terrific howl, more fearful even than the yell of the dying, which proceeded from among the curtains of the death-couch, and echoed around the apartment.