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From her I learned that her mistress had that moment left the house, after having given birth to a son, the most beautiful that ever had been seen, and whom she had given to one Fabio, my servant. The woman is she whom you see here. Fabio is also in this company; but of Cornelia and her child I can learn nothing.
Fabio and Muzzio saw Valeria for the first time at a magnificent public festival, celebrated at the command of the Archduke of Ferrara, Ercol, son of the celebrated Lucrezia Borgia, in honour of some illustrious grandees who had come from Paris on the invitation of the Archduchess, daughter of the French king, Louis XII. Valeria was sitting beside her mother on an elegant tribune, built after a design of Palladio, in the principal square of Ferrara, for the most honourable ladies in the town.
The pirates sold him to a Saracen lord, who putting him in fetters, sent him afield to till the wheat, which grows very finely in that country. Fabio offered his master to pay a heavy ransom, but the Paynim's daughter, who loved him and was fain to bring him to the end she desired, over-persuaded her father not to let him go at any price.
All that foreign, strange, new element which Muzio had brought with him from those distant lands and which, apparently, had entered into his very flesh and blood, -all those magical processes, songs, strange beverages, that dumb Malay, even the spicy odour which emanated from Muzio's garments, from his hair, his breath, all this inspired in Fabio a feeling akin to distrust, nay, even to timidity.
Signor Andrea D'Arbino, searching vainly through the various rooms in the palace for Count Fabio d'Ascoli, and trying as a last resource, the corridor leading to the ballroom and grand staircase, discovered his friend lying on the floor in a swoon, without any living creature near him. Determining to avoid alarming the guests, if possible, D'Arbino first sought help in the antechamber.
"In God's name," he whispered, thickly, "WHO ARE YOU?" "You know me, Guido!" I answered, steadily. "I am Fabio Romani, whom you once called friend! I am he whose wife you stole! whose name you slandered! whose honor you despised! Ah! look at me well! your own heart tells you who I am!" He uttered a low moan and raised his hand with a feeble gesture. "Fabio? Fabio?" he gasped.
Without a word in answer to his servant, Fabio went out on to the terrace, whence the pavilion could be seen. A few pack-horses were grouped before it; a powerful raven horse, saddled for two riders, was led up to the steps, where servants were standing bare-headed, together with armed attendants.
"There!" he exclaimed. "Like that she exactly resembles her father! It is positively ludicrous! Fabio, all over! She only wants one thing to make the portrait perfect." And approaching her, he snatched one of her long curls and endeavored to twist it over her mouth in the form of a mustache. The child struggled angrily, and hid her face against my coat.
Coming towards him, along the path dazzlingly lighted up by the moon's rays, was Muzzio, he too moving like one moonstruck, his hands held out before him, and his eyes open but unseeing.... Fabio ran up to him, but he, not heeding him, moved on, treading evenly, step by step, and his rigid face smiled in the moonlight like the Malay's.
What steps was he to take? If he had killed Muzzio and remembering how deeply the dagger had gone in, he could have no doubt of it it could not be hidden. He would have to bring it to the knowledge of the archduke, of the judges ... but how explain, how describe such an incomprehensible affair? He, Fabio, had killed in his own house his own kinsman, his dearest friend?
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