Whilst he was uttering all this between his clenched teeth, he caught a sword off the wall, and two pistols; the latter he cocked,--they were ready loaded; he looked at the flints--for percussion had not got to Italy yet--they were dry, so was the priming; holding one in each hand, he placed the sword across the coffin in easy reach, and stood prepared for any odds. His bold spirits rose with the danger; the blood mounted to his cheeks; his eye brightened; he felt his heart beat full,--not with fear, but eager excitement,--the high resolve to die like a hero! It was a perfect picture! With one foot advanced, he stood ready, a pistol in either hand, with their tubes pointed to the ground, the sword within reach, unsheathed. He waited in this attitude nearly two minutes,--the voices had ceased, all was silent. "He seems determined to try my patience," he thought; "he will have the warmer reception; for, now I think of it, I will have a knife for close work; they at least give one weapons enough for defence." He stretched to secure a stiletto off the wall, still keeping his gaze on the doorway; he reached one down, and placed it on the pall beside the sword; but in taking it from the nail on which it hung, he accidentally pulled down a couple of cutlasses immediately above; they fell with a loud clanging on the rocky flooring. At the same moment he heard a footstep approaching,--the heavy tramp rang through the arched passage. "Now for it," he said; "shall I shoot the villain directly he enters, or hear what the scoundrel has to say? The last is best; it is but a single fellow, and, at the worst, I will show him two can play at this game." The step came nearer, and sounded louder and louder. The Earl waited in breathless expectation; the curtain moved,--it was pushed aside, and a figure entered. A look of surprise passed over the Earl's face: he had expected to see a fine, showily-dressed brigand,--probably Luigi Vardarelli himself; instead of that, he saw in the figure before him an old weather-beaten tar, not in the picturesque garb of the banditti, but in a fisherman's costume. The man had a hangdog look; his features were coarse and repulsive; a ghastly scar seamed his brow; his lank hair was grizzled and matted; his beard and whiskers tangled more grizzly still, and besprinkled with snuff; he wore a rough pilot jacket, and heavy fisherman's boots, which reached up to his hips; his figure short, but broad as a bear; his expression at once gloomy and fierce. His grotesque dress, in such a den,--a man so wholly unexpected, so out of place--was so ridiculous, that the Earl could resist no longer, and throwing his pistols down right and left, regardless of the danger of their exploding, he burst into a merry fit of laughter. The old man,--none other than Bill Stacy, as the reader must have guessed,--regarded this outburst of jocularity with savage scorn; and when the Earl seemed to have regained his composure,