"Eh! I astonish you, Hugo. Well, I admit I treated you rather badly, my friend; but then at the time I did not know whom you were. Dame! I cannot see in the dark like Madame Gatta." The Marchese then was the man who held the key to this enigma, and, far from being offended at his rough treatment of me on that fatal night, I was only too delighted at discovering the unknown person who, in this strange repetition of the old legend, had played the part of Count Mastino Morone. "I have rather startled you, I fancy, Hugo?" said Beltrami with an ironical laugh. "I would be a fool to deny it; but now that your dramatic surprise has come off so excellently, perhaps you will tell me what it all means." "Without doubt; confidence for confidence! Besides, I want your help to carry this comedy to its legitimate conclusion." "Comedy, you call it? To my mind it is more like a tragedy." "There you are wrong, mon ami. In a tragedy there must be a death." "Well! You forget Pallanza?" "Not at all, Hugo; that is the whole point. Pallanza is not dead." I stared at the Marchese in astonishment. "Pallanza not dead! Impossible! I saw him die on that night." "Dame! You saw him fall insensible at the feet of the Contessa Morone, but insensibility is not death." "Then he is alive?" "Naturally! One must either be alive or dead. And as this devil of a tenor is not the latter, he must therefore be the former." "Then where is he?" "Eh! that is part of the story." This epigrammatic fencing on the part of Beltrami annoyed me greatly, as it piqued my curiosity without satisfying it, and I threw my half-smoked cigarette away with an outburst of bad temper. "My dear Luigi, you have promised to tell me the story of this mystery, and instead of doing so you fire off epigrammatic squibs like Pasquin during the Carnival. The story, the story! I beg of you." "Eh! certainly! Then take another cigarette, and I will tell you this 'Thousand and Second Night' romance." CHAPTER XII. DEATH IN LIFE. "It is such a long story, Hugo," said Beltrami, a trifle maliciously, "that we must really have some wine." "I do not want wine; I want 'The Thousand and Second Night.'" "Bene! you shall have both." The Marchese arose and summoned his servant, who brought up a bottle of Barbera, that rough-tasting wine which is so pleasant and cool in hot weather. For the sake of companionship I took some with Beltrami, and haying thus attended to the duties of hospitality, he signed to his servant to withdraw, and without further preamble began his tale.