respects to your ladyship. I suppose I must let
him in. We shall have the devil to pay in the
street else!"

"Oh! let the Signor Bartolommeo come in by
all means!" cried both the gentlemen. "He will
go to the pothouse and tell all sorts of tales else.
Better let him come in, and keep him in good
humour."

"You are sure he is alone, Nina?" asked
Caterina.

"Oh! for that, my lady, yes! I looked up
the street and down the street. There's not a
soul stirring."

"Well! I suppose you must let him come in,
then," returned her mistress.

And Nina went to open the door.

"We will keep him quiet, this terrible son-in-
law; never fear. And we will see him safe out
before we go, cara mia!" said Carlini.

"But how would it be," said Serselli, "if he
were to take it into his drunken head to come
here when .... we know who .... is here?"

"The duke!" replied Caterina, blushing slightly,
and with a little toss of her pretty head. "He
knows better, I think, than to interfere with
Jacopo Salviati. It would be as much as his
ears are worth!"

Nina had, as she said, looked up and down the
street, as she stood speaking with Bartolommeo
at the window, and she had seen no one but him
standing out in the street, and barely visible,
even so, in the unlighted darkness of the winter
night. Even had she thought of turning her
eyes down to the foot of the wall, she would have
been unable to distinguish two figures on either
side of the door wholly muffled in cloaks of dark
colour, and standing close with their backs
against the wall, in the additional darkness
caused by the wide overhanging eaves of the
roof.

Poor Nina! Signor Vincenzo Carlini had
said she was "invaluable;" that he had placed
her in her present position for the sake of those
precious talents of hers. She exercised them,
it is to be supposed to the best of her lights, or
rather, as best she might, in the utter absence of
any glimmer of light! And now her little part in
the great drama was done, and her uses over.
Her patron, Signor Vincenzo, was reserved for an
old age of reformation, respectability, and
reverend authority. Did he ever think, it may be
wondered, in those after years, of the fate of the
poor girl, whose "bohême" existence came to so
different a termination from his own!

Nina proceeded to open the door cautiously, as
we have seen her do it on a former occasion.
But no sooner was the bolt withdrawn than the
door was violently pushed against her, and four
men, hurling Bartolommeo headforemost in
before them, rushed in behind him. The shock of
the surprise was so great as to take from her the
power of crying out for an instant. And in that
instant the lamp she carried was knocked out,
a cloak was suddenly thrown over her head, and
a stiletto stab was dealt her in the bosom by so
practised a hand that it reached the heart, and
ended her life without a struggle or a groan.

While one of the four ruffians was thus
engaged, two others seized Bartolommeo, and,
holding their daggers to his throat, signed to him
to be silent as he cared for his life; the fourth
carefully closed the open door. All this was done
so quickly, deftly, and without confusion, that
it was clear the whole action had been clearly
arranged beforehand, and each actor appointed
to his special part.

The next step was to proceed as noiselessly as
possible to the room where Caterina was
entertaining her guests. But in their total ignorance
of the house, and in the darkness, the assassins
did not succeed in accomplishing this. Bartolommeo
seems to have been completely paralysed
by terror, and to have taken no part whatever in
the scene which followed. The bravoes, in
endeavouring to find their way in the darkness,
made some noise in the passage, which caused
Carlini and Serselli to come to the door of the
supper-room, surprised that Nina did not return
with Bartolommeo, and imagining that the delay
and the noise were occasioned by some incivility,
or civility, offered by the latter to the pretty
waiting-woman.

As soon as the door of the room in which they
had been sitting was opened, the light streamed
into the passage, which opened on the opposite
side of a sort of inner hall or lobby. The two
cavaliers and the intruders, therefore, saw each
other at the same moment, and the latter rushed
forward towards the lighted room. But the
stairs leading to the upper part of the house
opened on the lobby close to the door of this
chamber, and were thus between Caterina's
guests and the strangers. A means of escape
was thus offered to these gallant gentlemen, of
which both instantly availed themselves. Leaving
the unprotected Caterina to her fate, whatever
it might be, at the hands of the ruffians,
they rushed up the stairs, gained the roof, and
thence reached that of the next house, into which
they obtained admission. But not even then
does it appear that they took any steps to obtain
assistance, or to interfere in any way with what
might be passing in the house they had just left;
they simply established themselves at the window,
and watched to see what might follow.

There were left, therefore, in Casa Canacci,
old Ser Giustino, waked up from his sleep by the
unwonted noise, and feebly calling from his bed
to know what was the matter; Bartolommeo,
almost paralysed by terror and as helpless as his
father; the dead body of the murdered girl lying
in the entry; Caterina, in presence of Pippo
Carrarrese and his three followers.

The first thought of the terrified woman was
that the object of the attack on the house was
simply robbery.

"Do me no harm, my friends," she said; "I
will make no resistance. We are not rich people,
and there is little of value in the house. Take
what you will."