Mortadello

OR, THE ANGEL OF VENICE 43 Now. Hear that dreadful bell ! Its fierce alarums toll Count Mortadello’s knell, the passing of his soul. MORTADELLO. Fiend ! I will nail you up like vermin to a board— Murderer of women ! ORLANDO. I’ll atone dagger with sword. Here’s your false throat, you croaking frog of hell. THE DOGE. [At the door.] Help, friends ! There’s a mad murderer in the church. ORLANDO. And so it ends. [He stabs MORTADELLO, who falls, dragging the sword with him. ORLANDO flees behind the altar and escapes, as nobles, sword in hand, re-enter and pursue him. The bell ceases to toll. THE DOGE. Is Mortadello slain, slain too ? O then let me Pass with the hapless ones into Eternity ? [He falls dead upon the corpse of MAGDALENA. MORTADELLO. [Rising on one elbow.] No, help me, loving friends, I live. Is the day won ? A NOBLE. Ay ! we lash home the fogs of revolution Are you sore hurt ? MORTADELLO. Hurt, ay ! but I shall live to flood These two-and-seventy isles with their children’s blood. Tend me, I faint. She-wolf ! O putrid period ! [He falls again. They support him and carry him in the chair of MAGDALENA. Was’t thou the Saint of Christ, the virgin vowed to God ? Tigress and snake ! Black-hearted whore ! God, let me strip Skin from flesh, alike my drouth in gore, those bowels rip From that false belly. God ! I gasp ! Loosen my throat ! Some one calls. Hell ! Death ! O sharp asp !