How easy for them both to die like this!

I am not sure that I could live as they.

Chiappino. Here they come, crowds! They pass the gate? Yes!-No!

One torch is in the courtyard. Here flock all.

Eulalia. At least Luitolfo has escaped. What cries! Chiappino. If they would drag one to the market-place, One might speak there!

Our saviour! The best man at last as first!

He who first made us feel what chains we wore,
He also strikes the blow that shatters them,
He at last saves us-our best citizen!
-Oh, have you only courage to speak now?
My eldest son was christened a year since
"Cino" to keep Chiappino's name in mind-
Cino, for shortness merely, you observe!
The city's in our hands. The guards are fled.
Do you, the cause of all, come down-come up—
Come out to counsel us, our chief, our king,

Whate'er rewards you! Choose your own reward!

The peril over, its reward begins!

Come and harangue us in the market-place!

Eulalia. Chiappino?

Chiappino.

Yes-I understand your eyes!

You think I should have promptlier disowned
This deed with its strange unforeseen success,
In favour of Luitolfo. But the peril,
So far from ended, hardly seems begun.
To-morrow, rather, when a calm succeeds,
We easily shall make him full amends:
And meantime—if we save them as they pray,
And justify the deed by its effects?

Eulalia. You would, for worlds, you had denied at

once.

Chiappino. I know my own intention, be assured!

All's well. Precede us, fellow-citizens !

ACT II.

SCENE.-The Market-place. LUITOLFO in disguise mingling with the Populace assembled opposite the Provost's Palace.

1st Bystander [to LUITOLFO]. You, a friend of Luitolfo's? Then, your friend is vanished,—in all probability killed on the night that his patron the tyrannical Provost was loyally suppressed here, exactly a month ago, by our illustrious fellow-citizen, thrice-noble saviour, and new Provost that is like to be, this very morning,-Chiappino ! Luitolfo. He the new Provost?

2nd Bystander. Up those steps will he go, and beneath yonder pillar stand, while Ogniben, the Pope's Legate from Ravenna, reads the new dignitary's title to the people, according to established custom: for which reason, there is the assemblage you inquire about.

Luitolfo. Chiappino-the late Provost's successor? Impossible! But tell me of that presently. What I would know first of all is, wherefore Luitolfo must so necessarily have been killed on that memorable night?

3rd Bystander. You were Luitolfo's friend? So was I.

Never, if you will credit me, did there exist so poorspirited a milksop. He, with all the opportunities in the world, furnished by daily converse with our oppressor, would not stir a finger to help us: and, when Chiappino rose in solitary majesty and . . . how does one go on saying?... dealt the godlike blow,-this Luitolfo, not unreasonably fearing the indignation of an aroused and liberated people, fled precipitately. He may have got trodden to death in the press at the south-east gate, when the Provost's guards fled through it to Ravenna, with their wounded master,—if he did not rather hang himself under some hedge.

Luitolfo. Or why not simply have lain perdue in some quiet corner,-such as San Cassiano, where his estate was, receiving daily intelligence from some sure friend, meanwhile, as to the turn matters were taking here-how, for instance, the Provost was not dead, after all, only wounded-or, as to-day's news would seem to prove, how Chiappino was not Brutus the Elder, after all, only the new Provost-and thus Luitolfo be enabled to watch a favourable opportunity for returning? Might it not have been so?

3rd Bystander. Why, he may have taken that care of himself, certainly, for he came of a cautious stock. I'll tell you how his uncle, just such another gingerly treader on tiptoes with finger on lip,-how he met his death in the

great plague-year: dico vobis! Hearing that the seventeenth house in a certain street was infected, he calculates to pass it in safety by taking plentiful breath, say, when he shall arrive at the eleventh house; then scouring by, holding that breath, till he be got so far on the other side as number twenty-three, and thus elude the danger. And so did he begin; but, as he arrived at thirteen, we will say, -thinking to improve on his precaution by putting up a little prayer to St. Nepomucene of Prague, this exhausted so much of his lungs' reserve, that at sixteen it was clean spent, consequently at the fatal seventeen he inhaled with a vigour and persistence enough to suck you any latent venom out of the heart of a stoneHa, ha!

Luitolfo [aside]. (If I had not lent that man the money he wanted last spring, I should fear this bitterness was attributable to me.) Luitolfo is dead then, one may

conclude?

3rd Bystander. Why, he had a house here, and a woman to whom he was affianced; and as they both pass naturally to the new Provost, his friend and heir . . .

Luitolfo. Ah, I suspected you of imposing on me with your pleasantry! I know Chiappino better.

1st Bystander. (Our friend has the bile! After all, I do not dislike finding somebody vary a little this general gape of admiration at Chiappino's glorious qualities.)