"My Lord," said he, "the person you saw last night, left this cloak in the chamber where he waited for you. He told me to bring it to Your Excellency in the morning."
Ripperda's eye fell upon the mantle,—it was discoloured a dark red in many places, he nodded his head, and the man withdrew. Ripperda then took it from the table, supposing a name or a direction might be affixed to it; but on the ample folds disengaging themselves, he started with a shudder.—He had seen it before!—It was marked with the keys of Saint Peter!—It was embroidered on the shoulder with the arms of Giovenozzo!—It was stained with the blood of Duke Wharton!
Ripperda dropped it from his hand.
"Accursed Wharton!" exclaimed he, now recollecting, in the disguised tones of the stranger's voice, some notes of the Duke's, "this insult shall not be pardoned! I am not to be cajoled nor menaced into peace with you, my most detested, most insolently triumphing enemy. We have once measured swords!" and his eye glanced on the blood-stained scarf; "when they next meet, the blow may be surer!"
Wharton's graces of mind, body, and political management, formed the only character which had ever peered with that of his haughty rival. He was the only man who had ever foiled Ripperda by secret machination. He had made him feel that he had an equal, that he might have a superior. He had discovered that the all-glorious boast of Spain was not exempt from the infirmities of common men. He had wrought him to commit an injury, and he had stood between him and the world's cognizance. To be so humbled in the knowledge of any living being, was the vultures of Prometheus to the proud heart of Ripperda. Wharton, by the present action, had declared his triumph,—had presumed to promise, or to threat! and the hatred of his enemy was now wound up to a height that could know no declension, till its cause was laid low in the silence of death.
A wood-fire burnt on the hearth of the room Ripperda occupied. He thrust the Cardinal's mantle into it, and stood over the smouldering cloth, till the whole was consumed to ashes.
Comprehending that Wharton must have set his emissaries to way-lay the Spanish dispatches, merely to afford him the opportunity he had boasted, of conferring an obligation on his rival, Ripperda assuaged his enraged thoughts by devising schemes of revenge as he rapidly pursued his journey towards the seat of his power.
He met with no accident nor obstacle, till on the night of the 25th of July. The tops of the hills were laden with thunder-clouds, and the turbid atmosphere laboured with the stifling Sirocco. His long train of attendants had dispersed themselves amongst the narrow and shelving roads, which traverse that line of the Appenines, which form the mural diadem of the gulph of Genoa. Ripperda's equipage wound down a long and twisting defile between two precipitous rocks. The intricacies and abrupt turns in the road separated him from his immediate followers. It was the darkest hour of twilight, when there was just enough of gleam from the lurid sky, to shew the outline of objects.
As the Duke's carriage turned a jutting cliff, he found it suddenly stop, and then heard a volley of oaths from his drivers, mingled with more direful imprecations from strange voices. While he was letting down the glass to enquire the cause, the lash of whips accompanied the mutual swearing, and he felt the struggle of his horses to force their way forward. The next moment a pistol was fired at their head, and a deep groan shewed it had taken too true an aim. As the window dropped, Ripperda saw the wounded postilion fall on the neck of his horse. But he saw no more. The carriage door was instantly opened, and before he could snatch a pistol from his own belt, he was dragged from the seat by the collected strength of several arms. Having thrown him upon the flinty way, one man of colossal bulk, cast himself upon the prostrate and struggling Duke, and kneeling upon his body, with both his knees, coolly and determinately put a pistol close to the temple of his victim. Ripperda had now grasped his own weapon, and with one hand, striking aside the arm of his antagonist, the pistol went off; where that ball fell he knew not, but with his other hand, at the same moment he lodged the contents of his own pistol in the heart of the ruffian. The wretch tumbled aside, with a convulsive recoil, and was no more.
His comrades, deeming the Duke's destruction sure, were rifling the carriage, while others were posted at the entrance of the defile, to prevent a rescue from his attendants. One of them turning round at the double report of the pistols, and seeing his coadjutor thrown motionless off the body of Ripperda, who sprang on his legs, alarmed his fellows, and rushed towards their prey. The Duke saw he must sell his life dearly, for he was determined never to yield it to such base assailants, and drawing his sword, set his back against the precipice, and held them at bay. But the strength of his arm, and the bravery of his heart could not have defended him long against their determined attack.