rd Aoste. Nettuno was at his heels. It was evident that he
endeavored to outstrip Pippo and Conrad, who were trudging ahead by the
more beaten road. In a few minutes he turned the brow of a beetling rock,
and was lost to view.

This was the last that was known of Il Maledetto. At Genoa, the Doge
secretly received the confirmation of all that he had heard, and Sigismund
was legally placed in possession of his birth-right. The latter made many
generous but useless efforts to discover and to reclaim his brother. With
a delicacy that could hardly be expected, the outlaw had withdrawn from a
scene which he now felt to be unsuited to his habits, and he never
permitted the veil to be withdrawn from the place of his retreat.

The only consolation that his relatives ever obtained, arose from an event
which brought Pippo under the condemnation of the law. Before his
execution, the buffoon confessed that Jacques Colis fell by the hands of
Conrad and himself, and that, ignorant of Maso's expedient on his own
account, they had made use of Nettuno to convey the plundered jewelry
undetected across the frontiers of Piedmont.

The End.

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