"Long exhaustion caused a deep slumber to sink upon his eyelids, and he heard not the clang of hoofs and the clash of steel ringing in the wide quadrangle, announcing that Santugo had returned, flushed with victory and triumph; his sword reeking with the blood of the revolters. Theodelinde rushed forth to meet her husband, and their meeting was one of joy: her tears of happiness fell on the steel corslet of the stern visconte, and he too rejoiced; for the Spanish king had promised to bestow upon him all the possessions of Amadeo, if before the festival of the Annunciation, which was but three days distant, he placed the Wolf’s head on the high altar of St. Eufemio. "The gentle viscontessa knew not of this bloody compact; but presuming on the joy and tenderness displayed by her husband, and shrinking from aught that resembled duplicity, she led him to the chamber of Amadeo. He was reposing on a stately couch, and fitfully the beams of the night-lamp fell on his pale forehead and noble features. He started, awoke, and saw—what? Theodelinde by his bed-side, with her stern husband clad in complete armour. Santugo, his barred visor up, regarded him with a lowering visage; while he grasped a heavy zagaglia, such as our estradiots used of old, and which glittered deadly like the eyes of him who held it. Then Theodelinde knew, by the glare of that terrible eye, that Amadeo was lost, and she sank upon her knees. "’Oh, pity him and spare him for my sake: spare him if you love me, my husband.’ "But the ruthless Alfieri heard her not—saw her not: he beheld only the aggrandisement of his power, and hearkened only to the whisperings of avarice and enmity. Amadeo leaped up; but his foe was too swift for him. Hurled with equal force and dexterity, the zagaglia flew hissing from Santugo’s hand, and its broad barbed head cleft the skull, and lay quivering in the brain of Amadeo. Theodelinde sank down on the floor in horror; while the visconte cut off the head with his poniard, and knitting the locks to his baldrick, galloped to the church of St. Eufemio, where he flung the gory trophy on the altar. The ghastly skull remained there on a carved stone bracket, for half a century; until the cathedral of St. Eufemio was destroyed, on the anniversary of the deed, by the earthquake of 1638. Those who viewed its fall beheld a spectacle which was beyond description terrible! The earth yawned, and the stately church with its three tall taper spires; its pinnacles, rich with gothic carving; its windows, sparkling with light and gorgeous with tracery; its massive battlements and echoing aisles, sank slowly into the flaming abyss,—down, down, until the gilded cross on the tallest pinnacle vanished. Convents, stately palaces, and streets sank down with it, and where St. Eufemio stood, there lay a vast black fetid lake, rolling its dark sulphurous waves in the light of the summer moon. Ho! ho! what a tomb for the skull of the Wolf!