And the marquis called out, as though to his gondoliers, "Are you ready?"
The words were no sooner spoken, than the mask bowed his head, and drew from his cloak a poniard, which he raised and held suspended over the back of Eugene's neck.
Laura uttered a cry and fell back among the cushions, while Strozzi, hanging over her with the air of an enamoured lover, whispered: "The gondola almost touches ours. Make but the smallest sign—lift but a finger, and I swear that I will give the signal for his death!"
"O God! do not kill him!" was all that the wretched girl had strength to say.
The gondolas met. Eugene stood erect on the stern of his boat, his right arm extended toward her whom he loved. But alas! she came not. She did not even turn her head; for Antonio was there, his poniard uplifted, and Eugene's life depended upon her obedience.
"Traitress!" exclaimed the prince, as Strozzi's bucentoro shot ahead, and the red-silk curtains, falling heavily down, shut out the fearful tableau that had been prepared to torture and exasperate him.
Laura had swooned, and her fall had been remarked by the gondoliers.
"Poor thing," said one of them, "she has a paroxysm of insanity."
"How insanity?" asked Conrad.
"Everybody in Venice has heard of the lunacy of the Marchioness de Strozzi," was the reply. "It is for that reason that she never goes out. The marquis perhaps thought she might be trusted to see the regatta; but he was mistaken. You must have remarked how closely he watched her for fear of some catastrophe."