Look on this list! See how many among you would have bled this night, had it not been for Abellino, and see where the miscreants stand by whom you would have bled! Read you not in every feature that they are already condemned by heaven and their own conscience? Does a single mouth unclose itself in exculpation? Does a single movement of the head give the lie to my charge? Yet the truth of what I have advanced shall be made still more evident.
He turned himself to the conspirators
“Mark me!” said he, “the first among you who acknowledges the truth shall receive a free pardon. I swear it, I, the bravo Abellino!”
The conspirators remained silent. Suddenly Memmo started forward and threw himself trembling at the Doge’s feet.
“Venetians,” he exclaimed, “Abellino has told you true.”
“’Tis false, ’tis false!” exclaimed the accused altogether.
“Silence!” cried Abellino, in a voice of thunder, while the indignation which flamed in every feature struck terror into his hearers: “Silence, I say, and hear me, or rather hear the ghosts of your victims. Appear, appear!” cried this dreadful man, in a tone still louder: “’Tis time!”
Again he sounded his whistle. The folding doors were thrown open, and there stood the Doge’s much lamented friends—Conari, Lomellino, and Manfrone.
“We are betrayed!” shouted Contarino, who drew out a concealed dagger, and plunged it in his bosom up to the very hilt.
And now what a scene of rapture followed. Tears streamed down the silver beard of Andreas, as he rushed into the arms of his long-lost companions; tears bedewed the cheeks of the venerable triumvirate, as they once more clasped the knees of their prince, their friend, their brother. These excellent men, these heroes, never had Andreas hoped to meet them again till they should meet in heaven; and Andreas blessed heaven for permitting him to meet them once more on earth. These four men, who had valued each other in the first dawn of youth, who had fought by each other’s sides in manhood, were now assembled in age, and valued each other more than ever. The spectators gazed with universal interest on the scene before them, and the good old senators mingled tears of joy with those shed by the re-united companions. In the happy delirium of this moment, nothing but Andreas and his friends were attended to; no one was aware that the conspirators and the self-murderer Contarino were removed by the guards from the saloon; no one but Camilla observed Rosabella, who threw herself sobbing on the bosom of the handsome bravo, and repeated a thousand times, “Abellino, then, is not a murderer!”