At that moment the deep tones of the great bell at the Duomo chimed midnight. The Chevalier drew his boat shoreward, and cast off the fastening which confined it.
“Sleep not, Jacopo, I charge you!” were his last words. “Look to our horses carefully. It is three hours yet to daylight; and within two, at farthest, expect my return.”
A long low neigh from the black horse Bayard followed the skiff as it pushed off from the shore. Silently, yet swiftly, as it cut through the glassy water, the fish were scared that fed or sported at the bottom. Plunging from sedge and shallow, they turned their broad sides to the moonlight, as they shot along; and showed, exaggerated in the liquid medium as by a lens, to twenty times their real bulk.
Still the oars touched the stream lightly; there was no plash, no rolling in the thowls; they scarcely broke the water as they dipped. Jacopo marked his master’s progress steadfastly till the boat gained the centre of the stream. A small islet, planted with willow and acacia, here broke the view across; the little skiff shot round it like a swallow on the wing, but then could be discerned no farther.
“Be quiet, knave!” exclaimed the valet, checking a second neigh of anxiety from the black horse, as the bark disappeared. “I doubt I had better make thee fast yet, or thou’lt be off into the river after our master, and leave me here behind.” He unbitted both the horses, loosened the girths of their heavy saddles, and clothing them as well as he might with the spare mantello and their own housings, fed them copiously with meal that had been brought along. Then, first feeling for the rosary within the breast of his garment, he drew his good broadsword from its scabbard, gave a last glance to see that his beasts were in safety, and seated himself, with his face to the river, at the foot of the most convenient tree he could select. And in this position, well on the alert to guard against surprise, and recommending himself especially to the protection of St Jago, with his weapon in one hand, and his wine-flask in the other, in silence he expected the event.
It was a chamber for luxury to dwell in, that in which the Countess Arestino lay, suited to tastes which knew no limit but their will, and decked for climates to which winter was a stranger. The walls were hung with draperies of pale-blue silk; richly wrought carpets—the treasures of the East—were spread at intervals upon the floor of shining marble. Oil from the Tuscan olive, mixed with frankincense and myrrh, burned in silver lamps, whose pale flames lighted the lofty chamber without sullying its delicious coolness. And in every window, flowers disposed in vases of alabaster, each carved with the work of half an artist’s life, loaded the light breeze which whispered through the lattice with the richest odours of the season.
The painting of the roof—alone a masterpiece!—was executed by such hands as already, if not noble, claimed little less than noble’s deference, and showed more even than noble’s pride. The mattressed couches, ranged around the chamber, suiting in colour with its pale-blue tapestry, were of a satin, rich, and quaintly patterned, and bordered with embroidery of flowering silver. And those couches, with their pillows of down and velvet—light and elastic as they bounded to the touch—were harsh and rude compared with the bed on which the Countess lay—but she slept not.
“Giuletta! Giuletta! The twelfth hour is passed, and still comes he not? Camilla—Girl, canst thou hear nothing—is Camilla surely at the gate?”
“What, nothing! why then the messenger——? Yet he had not failed; it was impossible!”