us,--so extraordinary that a Sicilian (the Sicilians are all
ill-bred, bad-tempered fellows) grew angry and insolent. 'Sir,' said he,
turning to my new friend, 'you have no business to stand so near to
the table. I do not understand this; you have not acted fairly.' The
spectator replied, with great composure, that he had done nothing
against the rules; that he was very sorry that one man could not win
without another man losing; and that he could not act unfairly even
if disposed to do so. The Sicilian took the stranger's mildness for
apprehension,--blustered more loudly, and at length fairly challenged
him. 'I never seek a quarrel, and I never shun a danger,' returned
my partner; and six or seven of us adjourned to the garden behind the
house. I was of course my partner's second. He took me aside. 'This man
will die,' said he; 'see that he is buried privately in the church of
St. Januario, by the side of his father.'

"'Did you know his family?' I asked with great surprise. He made no
answer, but drew his sword and walked deliberately to the spot we had
selected. The Sicilian was a renowned swordsman; nevertheless, in the
third pass he was run through the body. I went up to him; he could
scarcely speak. 'Have you any request to make,--any affairs to settle?'
He shook his head. 'Where would you wish to be interred?' He pointed
towards the Sicilian coast. 'What!' said I, in surprise, 'not by the
side of your father?' As I spoke, his face altered terribly, he uttered
a piercing shriek; the blood gushed from his mouth, and he fell dead.
The most strange part of the story is to come. We buried him in the
church of St. Januario. In doing so, we took up his father's coffin; the
lid came off in moving it, and the skeleton was visible. In the hollow
of the skull we found a very slender wire of sharp steel; this caused
great surprise and inquiry. The father, who was rich and a miser, had
died suddenly and been buried in haste, owing, it was said, to the heat
of the weather. Suspicion once awakened, the examination became minute.
The old man's servant was questioned, and at last confessed that the son
had murdered the sire. The contrivance was ingenious; the wire was so
slender that it pierced to the brain and drew but one drop of blood,
which the gray hairs concealed. The accomplice was executed."

"And this stranger, did he give evidence? Did he account for--"

"No," interrupted the count, "he declared that he had by accident