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His generous enemy allowed him time to recover from the fatigue of disentangling himself, and then approached him. "Barozzo!" said he, "last night I shot thy cowardly assassin. In dying penitence he called himself thy agent in the murder of my noble parent, and bade me shun the daggers of thy savage Cretans.
Raising the slouched hat which concealed his face, I immediately recognised a handsome Greek, attached to the retinue of Barozzo. I had occasionally seen this man in a tavern at Peschiera.
The artist fixed upon the haughty governor that firm gaze of his dark and piercing eye, and proceeded to pencil the outlines of his stern and massive features. After the lapse of a few minutes, he remarked to Barozzo, that he had never seen a countenance, the character of which he found so difficult to trace to its primitive elements.
He then darted upon me a keen look of inquiry and suspicion; before, however, he had time to speak, Colonna was upon him. Rapidly advancing, he seized the bridle of his horse, and thus addressed him: "Barozzo! the measure of thy crimes is full, and retribution is at hand! Colonna the painter is no more, but the son of Montalto has escaped thy dagger, and demands atonement for his father's blood.
The noble and generous Colonna, pursuing his just revenge, and trusting, like the kingly animal, to native strength and courage, sought no unfair advantage; while the crafty Barozzo, huge in body, tortuous in mind, and scaled with impenetrable steel, well personified the reptile of Colonna's vision.
Casting a hasty glance at the imperfect sketch, she remarked that it did not at all realise her expectations. The painter replied, that he should have succeeded better if he had enjoyed the honour of a longer acquaintance with the governor. "It is immaterial," exclaimed Barozzo, who had fully regained his self-possession.
Deeply as I lamented his approaching departure, I felt too much interested in his success to withhold my active co-operation, and I pledged myself to promote his views as far as I could, without openly compromising myself with the Foscari family; but I entreated him to relinquish his design of painting the portraits of Laura and Barozzo, from an apprehension that a lover so fervent and demonstrative would, in some unguarded moment, excite suspicion, and frustrate the accomplishment of his ultimate views.
Know, Ercole Barozzo! that Foscari's daughter was wooed and won by me plighted her troth to me long ere she saw thy truculent and yellow visage. Nay, more, she would ere this have fled with me from Lombardy, had not higher duties staid our mutual purpose."
Colonna, however, with admirable self-possession, preserved the unassuming deportment of a young artist, ambitious of patronage; spoke of the extreme difficulty of attaining excellence in his profession, and gravely complimented Barozzo upon the accuracy of his judgment.
Colonna seized his pencil, and proceeded to sketch the outline of the governor's figure, during which process I observed in his looks nothing beyond the earnest gaze of a portrait-painter. For some time Barozzo avoided the encounter; but at length, as if controlled by some secret and irresistible fascination, his eyes again met those of the young artist.
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