from the carriage, and rushed up-stairs.

Danvers followed.

Heated, wrought-up, furious, Ernest Maltravers burst into a small and
squalid chamber; from the closed doors of which, through many chinks,
had gleamed the light that told him Cesarini was within. And Cesarini's
eyes, blazing with horrible fire, were the first object that met his
gaze. Maltravers stood still, as if frozen into stone.

"Ha! ha!" laughed a shrill and shrieking voice, which contrasted dreadly
with the accents of the soft Tuscan, in which the wild words were
strung--"who comes here with garments dyed in blood? You cannot accuse
me--for my blow drew no blood, it went straight to the heart--it tore no
flesh by the way; we Italians poison our victims! Where art thou--where
art thou, Maltravers? I am ready. Coward, you do not come! Oh, yes,
yes, here you are; the pistols--I will not fight so. I am a wild beast.
Let us rend each other with our teeth and talons!"

Huddled up like a heap of confused and jointless limbs in the furthest
corner of the room, lay the wretch, a raving maniac;--two men keeping
their firm gripe on him, which, ever and anon, with the mighty strength
of madness, he shook off, to fall back senseless and exhausted; his
strained and bloodshot eyes starting from their sockets, the slaver
gathering round his lips, his raven hair standing on end, his delicate
and symmetrical features distorted into a hideous and Gorgon aspect. It
was, indeed, an appalling and sublime spectacle, full of an awful moral,
the meeting of the foes! Here stood Maltravers, strong beyond the
common strength of men, in health, power, conscious superiority,
premeditated vengeance--wise, gifted; all his faculties ripe, developed,