He was occasionally occupied in thrumming a guitar, and seemed ennuye to the very death, as at intervals he gave directions for the recovery of his child. Stupified and aghast, I had myself no power to move from the upright position I had assumed upon first hearing the shriek, and must have presented to the eyes of the agitated group a spectral and ominous appearance, as with pale countenance and rigid limbs, I floated down among them in that funereal gondola.
All efforts proved in vain. Many of the most energetic in the search were relaxing their exertions, and yielding to a gloomy sorrow. There seemed but little hope for the child ; (how much less than for the mother ! ) but now, from the interior of that dark niche which has been already mentioned as forming a part of the Old Republican prison, and as fronting the lattice of the Marchesa, a figure muffled in a cloak, stepped out within reach of the light, and, pausing a moment upon the verge of the giddy descent, plunged headlong into the canal. As, in an instant afterwards, he stood with the still living and breathing child within his grasp, upon the marble flagstones by the side of the Marchesa, his cloak, heavy with the drenching water, became unfastened, and, falling in folds about his feet, discovered to the wonder-stricken spectators the graceful person of a very young man, with the sound of whose name the greater part of Europe was then ringing.
No word spoke the deliverer. But the Marchesa ! She will now receive her child - she will press it to her heart - she will cling to its little form, and smother it with her caresses. Alas ! another's arms have taken it from the stranger - another's arms have taken it away, and borne it afar off, unnoticed, into the palace ! And the Marchesa ! Her lip - her beautiful lip trembles : tears are gathering in her eyes - those eyes which, like Pliny's acanthus, are "soft and almost liquid." Yes ! tears are gathering in those eyes - and see ! the entire woman thrills throughout the soul, and the statue has started into life ! The pallor of the marble countenance, the swelling of the marble bosom, the very purity of the marble feet, we behold suddenly flushed over with a tide of ungovernable crimson ; and a slight shudder quivers about her delicate frame, as a gentle air at Napoli about the rich silver lilies in the grass.
Why should that lady blush ! To this demand there is no answer - except that, having left, in the eager haste and terror of a mother's heart, the privacy of her own boudoir, she has neglected to enthral her tiny feet in their slippers, and utterly forgotten to throw over her Venetian shoulders that drapery which is their due. What other possible reason could there have been for her so blushing ? - for the glance of those wild appealing eyes ? for the unusual tumult of that throbbing bosom ? - for the convulsive pressure of that trembling hand ? - that hand which fell, as Mentoni turned into the palace, accidentally, upon the hand of the stranger. What reason could there have been for the low - the singularly low tone of those unmeaning words which the lady uttered hurriedly in bidding him adieu ? "Thou hast conquered," she said, or the murmurs of the water deceived me ; "thou hast conquered - one hour after sunrise - we shall meet - so let it be !"
* * * * * * *
The tumult had subsided, the lights had died away within the palace, and the stranger, whom I now recognized, stood alone upon the flags. He shook with inconceivable agitation, and his eye glanced around in search of a gondola. I could not do less than offer him the service of my own ; and he accepted the civility. Having obtained an oar at the water-gate, we proceeded together to his residence, while he rapidly recovered his self-possession, and spoke of our former slight acquaintance in terms of great apparent cordiality.
There are some subjects upon which I take pleasure in being minute. The person of the stranger - let me call him by this title, who to all the world was still a stranger - the person of the stranger is one of these subjects. In height he might have been below rather than above the medium size : although there were moments of intense passion when his frame actually expanded and belied the assertion. The light, almost slender symmetry of his figure, promised more of that ready activity which he evinced at the Bridge of Sighs, than of that Herculean strength which he has been known to wield without an effort, upon occasions of more dangerous emergency. With the mouth and chin of a deity - singular, wild, full, liquid eyes, whose shadows varied from pure hazel to intense and brilliant jet - and a profusion of curling, black hair, from which a forehead of unusual breadth gleamed forth at intervals all light and ivory - his were features than which I have seen none more classically regular, except, perhaps, the marble ones of the Emperor Commodus. Yet his countenance was, nevertheless, one of those which all men have seen at some period of their lives, and have never afterwards seen again.