The eyes of all were turned with wonder in the direction from which the voice proceeded. No one present appeared to know the stranger.
The intruder gazed around unrebuked by the inquiring looks that were bent upon him, and as his eye met the speaker’s, he repeated the ominous word which had startled the assembled group.
He was a youth of fine appearance; slight in form, but of a lofty bearing, with a handsome countenance, and full, large, searching, dark eyes. His dress was of sable velvet. Upon his head he wore a cap, surmounted with two black plumes, and at his side there hung a sombre-cased rapier, the hilt of which glittered with diamonds.
“Death!” he repeated, as he glanced deliberately from one individual to another, “death should be the doom of him who, traitorous to love and false to honor, pays back the affection of a betrothed wife with withering scorn, and upon the dignity of a noble house tramples with profane and sacrilegious tread!”
Jacopa Amedi advanced from the position he had occupied, and confronted the new comer.
“Whoe’er thou art, sir stranger,” he said, “thou hast mistaken the place for thy reception. This is a meeting only of the relatives of our house—thou canst not claim kindred with the Amedi.”
“I am,” the youth replied, “of noble birth—a Ghibelline—a friend to thy family and cause, and an enemy—a deadly enemy—to Buondlemonte and the Donati. Thy wrongs are the wrongs of all who hate the Guelphs, and affect every noble in the land. Me they have united to thee by an indissoluble bond, and I proclaim again that death—death unannounced—should be the fate launched at the treacherous Buondlemonte!”
There was a wild energy in the stranger’s voice, and as he spoke, his dark eyes gleamed with demoniacal fire.
“For thy noble sympathy thou art entitled to our thanks, and hast them,” Jacopa Amedi observed, in reply; “but still we must entreat thy absence; a stranger may not be admitted to our counsels.”
“Not though he tenders thy honor as dearly as though he were himself an Amedi?” the young man asked hurriedly.