Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 12.pdf/677

 636

his heroine was, so the records of the trial inform us, almost identical with that which she actually employed.

OLIMPIO — " Give me the weapon, we must do thy will."

The murder was accomplished, Jael-like, by one of the assassins driving a nail, held by the other, through the eye and brain of Francesco Cenci. The body was then car ried to a small balcony or passageway com municating with the Count's bed-chamber and thrown into an elder tree below, in the branches of which it was caught and held suspended. The fact that there was a closet at the end of the open gallery, would make it appear probable that Francesco had arisen during the night and while walking through the passageway, had slipped and fallen. Among an infinite number of wounds in flicted by the branches, it was thought that the work of the assassins might easily pass unnoticed. Fortune favored the conspirators. The body was discovered the following morning, taken from its resting place amid great lam entation, and given a most imposing though hurried burial. No one questioned the fact that Francesco had met his death in a man ner perfectly explicable. After a short stay at Petrella, the family returned to Rome and no doubt considered themselves secure. BEATRICE— "Miserable slaves I The Neapolitan authorities, on learning of Where, if ye dare not kill a sleep the Count's death, conceived the suspicion that ing man, all was not well and dispatched a commis Found y« the boldness to return to sioner terment to ofPetrella the body withand orders the for arrest theofdisinthe me BEATRICE — "I ask if all is over." OLIMPIO —• " We dare not kill an old and sleep ing man. His thin gray hair, his stern and reverend brow, His veined hands crossed on his heaving breast, And the calm innocent sleep in which he lay. Quelled me. Indeed, Indeed, I cannot do it." MARZIO — " But I was bolder for I chid Olimpio And bade him bear his wrongs to his own grave And leave me the reward. And now my knife Touched the loose wrinkled'throat, when the old man Stirred in his sleep and said : ' God, hear, oh hear, Л father's curse! What art thou not our father? ' And then he laughed. I knew it was the ghost Of my dead father speaking through Andhis could lips, not kill him."

With such a deed undone? Base palterers! Cowards and traitors! Why the very conscience Which ye would sell for gold and Is an forequivocation. revenge

murderers if proven that the deceased had come to an unlawful end. Considerable tes timony was taken but no facts of any im portance were elicited. It was, however, deemed best that the evidence, such as it was, be forwarded to the ' She murdered her own father,' I the matter. Apparently, the proofs were must do it, not considered sufficient, for the family re But him never longdream !" ye shall outlive mained at large until nearly the end of the year. It was during this interval that Paolo OLIMPIO — " Stop for God's, sake!" died, so that of the Cenci there remained MARZIO — " I will go back and kill him."
 * Had'st thou a tongue to say Vatican, though the latter took no steps in