Abellino smiled, or rather grinned, and murmured hoarsely--"I am
starving."
"Answer, fellow! Dost thou mean honestly by us?"
"That must the event decide."
"Mark me, knave; the first suspicion of treachery costs you your
life. Take shelter in the Doge's palace, and girdle yourself round
with all the power of the Republic--though clasped in the Doge's
arms, and protected by a hundred cannons, still would we murder you!
Fly to the high altar; press the crucifix to your bosom, and even at
mid-day, still would we murder you. Think on this well, fellow, and
forget not we are banditti!"
"You need not tell me that. But give me some food, and then I'll
prate with you as long as you please. At present I am starving.
Four-and-twenty hours have elapsed since I last tasted nourishment."
Cinthia now covered a small table with her best provisions, and
filled several silver goblets with delicious wine.
"If one could but look at him without disgust," murmured Cinthia;
"if he had but the appearance of something human! Satan must
certainly have appeared to his mother, and thence came her child
into the world with such a frightful countenance. Ugh! it's an
absolute mask, only that I never saw a mask so hideous."
Abellino heeded her not; he placed himself at the table, and ate and
drank as if he would have satisfied himself for the next six months.
The banditti eyed him with looks of satisfaction, and congratulated
each other on such a valuable acquisition.
If the reader is curious to know what this same Abellino was like,
he must picture to himself a young, stout fellow, whose limbs
perhaps might have been thought not ill-formed, had not the most
horrible countenance that ever was invented by a caricaturist, or
that Milton could have adapted to the ugliest of his fallen angels,
entirely marred the advantages of his person. Black and shining,
but long and straight, his hair flew wildly about his brown neck and
yellow face. His mouth so wide, that his gums and discoloured teeth
were visible, and a kind of convulsive twist, which scarcely ever
was at rest, had formed its expression into an internal grin. His
eye, for he had but one, was sunk deep into his head, and little
more than the white of it was visible, and even that little was
overshadowed by the protrusion of his dark and bushy eyebrow. In
the union of his features were found collected in one hideous
assemblage all the most coarse and uncouth traits which had ever
been exhibited singly in wooden cuts, and the observer was left in
doubt whether this repulsive physiognomy expressed stupidity of
intellect, or maliciousness of heart, or whether it implied them
both together.