He uttered a dull roar, bit the sand and gave up the ghost.
I took the two swords and started to find the gondola; but as I crossed the island I was seized with a thousand unfamiliar emotions. My strength suddenly failed me; I sat down upon one of those Hebraic tombs, half covered by the grass, which are ceaselessly beaten by the sharp salt winds from the Adriatic. The morn was beginning to come forth from the mist, and the white stones of that vast cemetery stood out against the dark verdure of the Lido. I reflected upon what I had done, and my revenge, from which I had anticipated so much joy, appeared to me in a most distressing light; I felt something like remorse, and yet I had thought that it was a legitimate and blessed act to purge the earth of that fiend incarnate and deliver Juliette from him. But I had not expected to find him a coward. I had hoped to meet a bold swordsman, and in attacking him I had thought that I was sacrificing my life. I was disturbed and almost appalled to have taken his life so easily. I did not find that my hatred was satisfied by vengeance, but I did feel that it was extinguished by contempt.—"When I found what a coward he was," I thought, "I should have spared him; I should have forgotten my resentment against him and my love for a woman capable of preferring such a man to me."
Thereupon confused, painful, agitated thoughts rushed into my brain. The cold, the darkness, the sight of those tombs calmed me at intervals; they plunged me into a dreamy stupor from which I awoke with a violent and painful shock when I suddenly remembered my situation, Juliette's despair, which would burst forth on the morrow, and the aspect of that corpse lying on the blood-stained sand not far away.
"Perhaps he is not dead," I thought.
I had a vague desire to go to see. I would almost have been glad to restore him to life. The first rays of dawn surprised me in this irresolute frame of mind, and I reflected that prudence required me to leave that spot.
I went and found Cristofano, who was sound asleep in his gondola, and whom I had much difficulty in waking. The sight of that placid slumber aroused my envy. Like Macbeth, I had taken leave of it for a long time to come.
I returned, gently rocked by the waves which the approach of the sun had already tipped with pink. I passed quite near the steamboat which runs from Venice to Trieste. It was its hour for starting; the wheels were already beating the water into foam, and red sparks flew upward from the funnel, with columns of black smoke. Several boats brought belated passengers. A gondola grated against ours and made fast to the packet. A man and woman left that gondola and ran lightly up the gangway. They were no sooner on the deck than the steamer started at full speed. The couple leaned over the rail to watch the wake. I recognized Juliette and Leoni. I thought that I was dreaming; I passed my hand over my eyes and called to Cristofano:
"Is that Baron Leone de Leoni starting for Trieste with a lady?"
"Yes, signor," he replied.
I uttered a horrible oath; then recalling the gondolier, I asked him: