"No, no!" said Otmar, checking his own first impulse, and catching the old man's arm. "He is a traitor and a spy! It is not for me to punish; it is for the country's laws. She bids me seek to discover him. Providence has thrown him into my hands, and enabled me to obey her behest. She would condemn me were I to take vengeance into my own hands."
"What!" cried Farkas, violently. "My lord has his enemy face to face, and hesitates to defy him to the death!"
"Peace, old man!" exclaimed Otmar; "you know not what you say. Ah! I see it all now," he continued. "He is the agent of her enemies, and is in collusion with our doctor landlord. It is here their villainous schemes are hatched."
"True! It was he—it must have been he," said Farkas in his turn, "who sat with the rascally old thief, when I entered his room the night before the last."
"Hear me, Farkas," continued the young noble. "I must away to the castle. Maria Theresa may still be there. All shall be revealed. Watch you, at some distance, in the street, that he leave not the house or escape us."
"Better split the cowardly villain's skull at once, teremtette!" cried the old man once more, indignantly.
"Peace, I say!" said Otmar. "Follow me, and stealthily." And with these words he left the room, followed down the stairs by his grumbling attendant, who still muttered many an angry "teremtette!" between his lips, unable to comprehend the hesitation of his young master, when so good an opportunity was before him of taking revenge upon "such a villainous scoundrel" as the spy.
Scarcely had they quitted the apartment, when an angle of the wainscoting, forming the door of a partially concealed closet, opened; and the form of the Jew money-lender—pale, trembling, and with haggard eyes—staggered into the room.
"Jehovah! We are lost—irretreviably lost!" he exclaimed with a choked husky voice. "Cavaliere! Cavaliere!" and he hastened, as fast as his trembling limbs would carry him, to the door. But, in spite of his agony and his alarm, his usual habits of caution, and perhaps of self-appropriation also, did not forsake him, and with the words, "That paper the young fellow wrote may tell us more!" he turned back, shuffled to the table, snatched up the letter, which Otmar had forgotten in his hurry, and then gained his room, where, seated, with gloomy and discontented brow, the Italian spy waited him.
"Diavolo! Where have you been hiding, Bandini? I need your aid," exclaimed the cavaliere, as he entered. "All is ruined, if still stronger measures be not taken. My grand expedition of last night, which might have secured all at a blow, has utterly failed, through the interference of a rash young fool, who has twice crossed my path to baffle me. I myself am wounded,"—and he pointed to a bandage, partly concealed by a scarf thrown over his shoulder—"still confused, from a blow dealt upon my head by some meddling ruffian. The curses of hell blight their arms, one and all! Those traitors, too, the Hungarians, have broken every promise, to shout Vivat! to that woman; because she shed before them a few maudlin tears. Weak fools! weak fools! and that they call enthusiasm! They promise her supplies of men and money. My schemes are ruined—my services all naught—your hopes of reward utterly gone, Master Bandini—utterly gone, do you hear?—if some great coup-de-main be not yet tried. There! look not so pale and frightened, man, with that ugly wo-begone face of yours. There are yet means that may be used."