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He was again silent; he bit his lips in fury, raised one emaciated hand to heaven, and struck his forehead violently with the other. "An assassin, the slave of cowards and rascals, the ally of the greatest villains that the Venetian sun ever shines upon, such is now the great Rosalvo. Fie, ah, fie on't; and yet to this wretched lot hath fatality condemned me."
"Yet will I bear it I will submit to my destiny. I will traverse every path and go through every degree of human wretchedness; and whate'er may be my fate, I will still be myself; and whate'er may be my fate, I will still act greatly! Away, then, with the Count Rosalvo, whom all Naples idolised; now now, I am the beggar Abellino.
When, happy in the performance of some good deed, I returned home, and saw Valeria hasten to receive me with open arms, and when, while she clasped me to her bosom I heard her whisper 'Oh, who could forbear to love the great Rosalvo? God! oh, God! Away, away, glorious visions of the past. To look on you drives me mad!"
"Abellino!" said Andreas advancing to the bravo, and extending his hand towards him. "I am not Abellino," replied he, smiling, while he pressed the Doge's hand respectfully to his lips "neither am I Flodoardo of Florence. I am by birth a Neapolitan, and by name Rosalvo. The death of my inveterate enemy the Prince of Monaldeschi makes it no longer necessary to conceal who I really am."
And now it would not be at all amiss to make Count Rosalvo sit down quietly between the good old Doge and his lovely niece; and then cause him to relate the motive of Monaldeschi's hatred, in what manner he lost Valeria, what crimes were imputed to him, and how he escaped from the assassins sent in pursuit of him by his enemy; how he had long wandered from place to place, and how he had at length learned, during his abode in Bohemia with a gang of gipsies, such means of disguising his features as enabled him to defy the keenest penetration to discover in the beggar Abellino the once admired Count Rosalvo; how in this disguise he had returned to Italy; and how Lomellino, having ascertained that he was universally believed at Naples to have long since perished by shipwreck, and therefore that neither the officers of the Inquisition, nor the assassins of his enemies were likely to trouble themselves any more about him, he had ventured to resume, with some slight alterations, his own appearance at Venice; how the arrival of Monaldeschi had obliged him to conceal himself, till an opportunity offered of presenting himself to the Prince when unattended, and of demanding satisfaction for his injuries; how he had been himself wounded in several places by his antagonist, though the combat finally terminated in his favour; how he had resolved to make use of Monaldeschi's death to terrify Andreas still further, and of Parozzi's conspiracy to obtain Rosabella's hand of the Doge; how he had trembled lest the heart of his mistress should have been only captivated by the romantic appearance of the adventurer Flodoardo, and have rejected him when known to be the bravo Abellino; how he had resolved to make use of the terror inspired by the assassin to put her love to the severest trial; and how, had she failed in that trial, he had determined to renounce the inconstant maid for ever; with many other HOWS, WHYS, and WHEREFORES, which, not being explained, will, I doubt, leave much of this tale involved in mystery: but before I begin Rosalvo's history, I must ask two questions First do my readers like the manner in which I relate adventures?
Salvator Rosa was fond of splendor and ostentatious display. He courted admiration from whatever source it could be obtained, and even sought it by means to which the frivolous and the vain are supposed alone to resort. He is described, therefore, as returning to Rome, from which he had made so perilous and furtive an escape, in a showy and pompous equipage, with "servants in rich liveries, armed with silver hafted swords, and otherwise well accoutred." The beautiful Lucrezia, as "sua Governante," accompanied him, and the little Rosalvo gave no scandal in a society where the instructions of religion substitute license for legitimate indulgence. Immediately on his arrival in Rome, Salvator fixed upon one of the loveliest of her hills for his residence, and purchased a handsome house upon the Monte Pincio, on the Piazza della Trinit
Suddenly he sprang from the ground after a long silence; his eyes sparkled, his countenance was changed; he drew his breath easier. "Yes, by Heaven, yes. Great as Count Rosalvo, that can I be no longer; but from being great as a Venetian bravo, what prevents me?
Oh, where are they flown, the golden hopes and plans of glory which smiled upon me in the happy days of my youth? I am a bravo: to be a beggar were to be something better." "When my good old father, in the enthusiasm of paternal vanity, so oft threw his arms around my neck, and cried, 'My boy, thou wilt render the name of Rosalvo glorious! God, as I listened, how was my blood on fire?
When my preceptors praised and admired me, and, carried away by the warmth of their feelings, clapped my shoulder, and exclaimed, 'Count, thou wilt immortalise the ancient race of Rosalvo! Ha, in those blessed moments of sweet delirium, how bright and beauteous stood futurity before me!
"Fate," he at length exclaimed in a paroxysm of despair, "Fate has condemned me to be either the wildest of adventurers, or one at the relation of whose crimes the world must shudder. To astonish is my destiny. Rosalvo can know no medium; Rosalvo can never act like common men. Is it not the hand of fate which has led me hither?
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