"And Rizzo—when he had lighted the signal fire on the mountain—thinking perchance, there had been time for the meeting with the Queen which Alicia had promised Tristan—and the galley had come to shore beneath and waited for him,—went on board, nothing doubting, thinking to return to Rhodes—who knoweth?—To Carlotta perchance;—but he found the galley manned with mariners from the arsenal of Venice; and Tristan coming to set sail for Venice, with the Queen's guard, all in full armor, to speed him on his way: and a Venetian General in command, in lieu of the African Captain of the galley who brought him hither. For one may seek in vain to outwit a Venetian; one must admire them for that, though it work us woe!"
"It is thine own tale, verily, Ecciva; thou speakest to mock us!"
"Nay—faith of Sant'Elenà, it is true and sad enough—if there were not sadder to come. For Tristan, the gallant, handsome knight, being in chains, and fearing worse awaited him when he should reach Venice, wrenched the diamond from a ring he wore and kneaded it into the bread they served him for his breakfast, and swallowed it—and so there was an end."
They still looked at her incredulously—"How shouldst thou know this tale of horror more than others—if it were true?"
She shrugged her shoulders indifferently. "If one maketh wise use of opportunity, one need not always wait the telling. But to-morrow the court will be ringing with the tale; it cometh but now from Venice."
"But Rizzo?"
"He is there in Venice in the pozzi; and the end will not be easy like that of Tristan. For he is the greatest traitor of them all—verily a traitor almost sublime. It were not so difficult to admire the nerve of the man!—Rizzo——"
But her further speech was lost in the babel of expostulation and question that broke forth, and which would have lasted long but for the return of Madama di Thénouris and Dama Margherita.