allowed him time to recover from the
fatigue of disentangling himself, and then approached him. "Barozzo!"
said he, "last night I shot thy cowardly assassin. In dying penitence
he called himself _thy_ agent in the murder of my noble parent, and
bade me shun the daggers of thy savage Cretans. But Montalto's son
would risk a thousand lives to gain his just revenge, and again he
warns thee to defend thy life. Pisani shall be umpire of the combat,
and his time-honoured name is pledge enough that no foul play is meant
thee."

The governor, who had now recovered breath and self-possession, folded
his arms, and met the stern defiance of his youthful foe with a look
of contemptuous indifference. Not deigning a reply, he addressed
himself to me in tones of angry expostulation, and expressed his
indignant surprise that a son of the Senator Pisani should thus lend
himself to the designs of a young vagrant, who was destined to grace
the benches of a galley. My reply was anticipated by the fiery
Colonna, whose sword flashed with lightning quickness from the
scabbard, while his haughty lip curled up with unutterable scorn.

"Remorseless villain!" he shouted, in a voice of appalling wrath, "I
know a venom yet shall sting thy recreant spirit into action. Know,
Ercole Barozzo! that Foscari's daughter was wooed and won by
_me_--plighted her troth to _me_--long ere she saw thy truculent and
yellow visage. Nay, more, she would ere this have fled with me from
Lombardy, had not higher duties staid our mutual purpose."

The governor, although a renowned and fearless soldier in earlier
life, had betrayed a terror on the first view of Colonna, and a
reluctance to engage with him in single-handed conflict, which I had
referred to the depressing action of a diseased conscience, or to the
increased love of life generated by his prosperous condition; but a
taunt like this was beyond all human endurance; it stung him to the
very soul, and roused his lazy valour into life and fury. His sinews
stiffened with rage, and his widely-opened eyes glared upon Colonna
like those of a tigress at bay, while his teeth remained firmly
clenched, and inaudible maledictions quivered on his working lips.
Tearing his formidable sword from its sheath, he rushed like one
delirious upon his adversary, and their blades met with a clash which
told the deadly rancour of the combatants.

I now witnessed a conflict unparalleled for intense and eager
thirst of blood. It w