But it is the next scene that the author seems to have reserved for putting forth his strongest powers of burlesque and broad humour. _Isabella_ and _Castaldo_ are together; the latter feels a little afraid to murder _Martinuzzi_, but is impelled to the deed by a thousand imaginary torches, which he fears will hurry his "_moth_-like soul" into their "blinding sun-beams," till it (the soul) is scorched "_into_ cinders." _Castaldo_ appears, in truth, a very bad barber of murders; for, as he is rushing out to "Strike the tyrant down--in crimson streams Rend every nerve," _Isabella_ has the shrewdness to discover that he is without a weapon. Important omission! The incipient assassin exclaims-- "Oh! that I had my sword!" but at that moment (clever, dramatic contrivance!) [_Enter_ CZERINA, _with a drawn sword_.] "CZERINA. There's one! Thine own!" Far from being grateful for this opportune supply of ways and means for murder. _Castaldo_ calls the bilbo a "fated aspic," upon the edge of which his "eye-balls crack to look," and makes a raving exit from the stage, to a roaring laugh from the audience. It is quite clear to _Isabella_, from his extreme carelessness about his tools, that _Castaldo_ is not safely to be trusted with a job which requires so much tact and business-like exactitude as the capital offence. She therefore "_shows a phial_," which she intends, "occasion suiting," for "_Martinuzzi's_ bane;" thereby hinting that, if _Castaldo_ fail with his steel medicine, she is ready with a surer potion. The next scene, being the last, was ushered in with acclamations. The stage, as is always in that case made and provided, was full. There is a young gentleman on a throne, and _Czerina_ beside it, having been somehow ungallantly deposed. _Martinuzzi_ expresses a wish to drink somebody's health, and this being the "fitting opportunity" mentioned by the author in the scene preceeding, _Isabella_ empties the phial of her wrath into the beverage, and the _Cardinal_ quenches his thirst with a most intemperate draught. It is now duly announced, that _Castaldo_ is, "with naked sword, approaching." That gentleman appears, and makes a speech long enough for any man who has had such plain warning of what is to happen--even a cardinal encumbered with a spangled dressing-gown--to get a mile out of his way. The speech quite ended, he goes to work, and with "this from King Ferdinand," thrusts at _Martinuzzi_. _Czerina_, however, throws herself, with great skill, on the point of the sword, and dies. Another long harangue from _Castaldo_--which, as he is evidently broken-winded from exertion, is pronounced in tiny snatches--and he dies with a "ha!" for want--like many greater men--of breath. Meanwhile, the poison makes _Martinuzzi_ exceedingly uncomfortable in the stomachic regions. He is quite sure "That hath been done to me which sends me _star_-ward!"