“You will murder me!” I groaned, already suffocating under his vice-like grasp, “have mercy, for God’s sake!”
“You showed _her_ none!” he answered hoarsely.
“Oh, God, stop!—you strangle me! I am not fit to die.”
“So much the better. Die—villain, die!” and with a desperate exertion he bore me to the floor. I essayed in vain to release myself from his deadly grasp. A moment more, and death would have rescued me; but the Almighty ordained that I should live to reap the fruits of my crimes. Involuntarily, as the agonies of dissolution came upon me, my hand sought one of those small daggers, with which an Italian is never unprovided. I drew it from my bosom. I raised it to strike. Da Vinci saw his danger; but he was too late. With irresistible strength I plunged it in his side. He uttered no groan; he rolled from my person a dead man. I stooped over the bleeding corpse in mute horror. The eyes were fixed upon me with a glassy gaze. It was a fearful spectacle—one which was well calculated to strike awe into the bosom of a murderer.
I turned a searching eye toward the prostrate form of my daughter. It was inanimate. No sign of life or recognition illumined her ghastly countenance. She had evidently swooned. As if in mockery of the dreadful tragedy which had just transpired, the infant boy slumbered peacefully by her side. The reproach was more than I could bear. Guilt—guilt was whispered in my ear by a thousand voices. I rushed from the blood-stained spot. I hurried to my desolate home. Here new miseries awaited me, I bolted the doors; but they afforded me no security. I drank deeply—but inebriation came not. I endeavored to sleep; but my horrors were increased. This fearful state drove me to desperation. I tried to pray: the Almighty heard me not. My heart was too black—too guilty. Night had come. My sufferings were too intense for human endurance. The lonely and ruinous garret in which I lay, augmented the dreadful vividness with which I created the most revolting phantasmas in every recess and corner; and the hollow moaning of the wind against the roof filled my soul with ominous and harrowing sensations. A strange—an indefinable desire to return to the scene of death, took possession of my mind. It became too absorbing—too interminable to be resisted. The moon had by this time ascended her throne in all her queenliness and majesty. I rushed rapidly through the empty streets to the quay for the night-gondoliers; and aided by the moonlight, soon succeeded in reaching _San Francesco della Vigna_. Hastily dismissing the gondolier, I won my way to the abode of the dead. An ominous silence reigned around it. I shuddered—I turned pale; but I did not hesitate. Up the tottering stairs I rushed; the door of the death-room was open; and my eyes at once fell upon a picture which is indelibly engraved on my memory.