"I a robber? Did she wear these diamonds on her wedding day? Did she complain that she had lost them? It is a gift that she gave to me--one of the many with which she bought my silence. I came to her on the evening before her wedding. Kätchen showed me the road through the tower and the subterranean passage, and cleared the way--poor child, it was there, too, that she died the following day in the fireworks, which she let off in honour of the bridal couple. These diamonds are my honestly gained property."
Now Blanden said no more. Groping about blindly he sought an explanation, but all excuses were denied to him. Desperate, he buried his face in his hands, and stamped as if in an impotent rage with his fate.
"He is dying," said the official, pointing at Baluzzi, whose features suddenly became overshadowed.
But he raised himself once more with a powerful effort, and cried in a shrieking half-failing voice--
"Thrust her from you, the adulteress. Where am I? The brand upon her brow, the chains of the galley rattle about me--"
"And if it were so," cried Blanden, "the proofs are wanting. The secret goes with you to the grave. I alone have the right to punish her."
"You are wrong," said Baluzzi, gathering up his strength once more. "Revenge I have vowed to her, I keep my oath, the proofs are not here, not at hand, but they are in safe keeping. The accusation I carried for long, carefully sealed up in my breast pocket. Beate burned the page in the registry in San Giulio, but a legal copy at the See in Milan proves the marriage. And this accusation is my legacy, the lightning that strikes the worthless woman, even before I die."
"This accusation--" cried Blanden, almost breathlessly.
"Bears the address of the nearest court in the district, shows all proofs, and is in the hands of Wild Robert, who fled with me on to the bank in the swamps. The ball hit me--it missed him. He promised me, even if it cost his life, to take the papers there. He knows the way through the morass, and if he had to hew down bush and tree with an axe to make a bridge for himself, the bailiffs have not caught him. Triumph! Chains and fetters for her--she has despised me, I, too, may despise her--thus I die--gladly!" And with these words, which were already interrupted by the rattle of approaching death, he bowed his head and passed away.
As if out of his mind Blanden rushed into the night, ran along lonely roads, sprang over ditches and fences, hurried up and down--he felt as though he must fly from himself.