Belcastro, lolling back in his chair, laughed and hallooed in a manner so unusual, that a number of his household crowded about the hall door, and were seen peering fearfully upon our dismal carousal. He showed all the symptoms of sudden intoxication: but the disease that was then spreading through every vein took a new and unexpected turn. Bella-donna often produces idiotcy or folly; and Belcastro became quite insane. The white froth of madness hung from his livid lips and black mustachios, and his eyes, while sparkling with all the fury of a tiger’s, were glazing fast with the ghastly glare of death. He laughed boisterously: but such laughter! Regarding him more as a wild beast than a man, I thought only of what my fate _might_ have been, and loosened my sabre in its sheath, ready to draw it the instant his fit took a dangerous turn. Castelermo clenched the hilt of his poniard, and the assembled servants shrank behind our chairs for protection. "Ha, ha! ho, ho! the wine!—’t is like the flames of hell! O Apostoli! the signora of Belcastro—look well about ye, ye vagabonds! She would have been a capitanessa if she could; but I slashed the gay uniform of her beardless capitano! The traitress, Piozzi! poisoned, per Baccho!" and his head settled down on his breast. The white saliva ran from his mouth over his chin and white ruffled shirt; while his eyes, which were fixed on the face of the cavaliere Marco, flashed like those of a fiend rather than a mortal man. From their position, and the slanting manner in which the light fell on them, they seemed absolutely to shoot forth a blue glare from beneath his beetling brows. His visage was pale as death: all, save the scar, which was still of a dark purple hue. "Villain!" cried he, pointing to it, and starting up in a new frenzy, "have you forgotten that your poniard disfigured me thus? Have you forgotten that night in the Strada di Toledo, at Naples?" Marco laughed sternly, and the insane man, quailing before his firm glance, again sank down in his seat: for a time he became silent and still. "Come hither, Baptistello, and you, Signor Claude," said Castelermo; "aid me to disarm him, or he may turn on us, and with some concealed weapon be the death of us all." We advanced simultaneously towards him; but with a yell so loud and shrill, that (as Varro afterwards protested) it brought forth an echo from each of the twelve figures of Campanini marble, he leaped from his chair, and rushed towards the windows; through which the bright moonlight streamed, as if vying with the illuminated girandoles of the hall. Impelled by madness, or some strange terror, he dashed headlong through the casement, sending the fragments flying in every direction, and sprang out upon the massive stone balcony. There he tossed his arms wildly, while his domestics, overcome with terror, held aloft their crucifixes, and muttered Aves.