"No! Anger me not, young man! I am slower, much slower to anger than thyself—slower than most of those who still chafe within this mortal covering—yet am I mortal like thyself, and not wholly free from such foolish passions as vex mortality. Chafe me, and I will repulse thee with scorn. Annoy me, and I close upon thee the book of fate, leaving thee to the blind paths which thy passions have ever moved thee to take."
The stranger muttered something apologetically.
"Make me no excuses. I only ask thee to forbear and submit. I said not that Francesca Ziani should be thine! I said only that I beheld her in thy arms."
"And what more do I ask!" was the exulting speech of the stranger, his voice rising into a sort of outburst, which fully declared the ruffian, and the sort of passions by which he was governed.
"If that contents thee, well!" said the woman, coldly, her eye perusing with a seeming calmness the brazen plate upon which the strange characters were inscribed.
"That, then, thou promisest still?" demanded the stranger.
"Thou shalt see for thyself," was the reply. Thus speaking the woman slowly arose and brought forth a small chafing-dish, also of brass or copper, not much larger than a common plate. This she placed over the brazier, the flame of which she quickened by a few smart puffs from a little bellows which lay beside her. As the flame kindled, and the sharp, red jets rose like tongues on either side of the plate, she poured into it something like a gill of a thick tenacious liquid, that looked like, and might have been, honey. Above this she brooded for awhile with her eyes immediately over the vessel; and the keen ear of the stranger, quickened by excited curiosity, could detect the muttering of her lips, though the foreign syllables which she employed were entirely beyond his comprehension. Suddenly, a thick vapor went up from the dish. She withdrew it from the brazier and laid it before her on the table. A few moments sufficed to clear the surface of the vessel, the vapor arising and hanging languidly above her head.
"Look now for thyself and see!" was her command to the visiter; she herself not deigning a glance upon the vessel, seeming thus to be quite sure of what it would present, or quite indifferent to the result. The stranger needed no second summons. He bent instantly over the vessel, and started back with undisguised delight.
"It is she!" he exclaimed. "She droops! whose arm is it that supports her—upon whose breast is it that she lies—who bears her away in triumph?"
"Is it not thyself?" asked the woman, coldly.