But if discovered;--" and Savelli, who, fortunately for his foes, had not nerves equal to his will, covered his face and shuddered;--"I think I hear a noise!--no--is it the wind ?--tush, it must be old Vico de Scotto, turning in his shell of mail!--silent--I like not that silence! No cry--no sound! Can the ruffian have played us false?
or could he not scale the casement?
It is but a child's effort;--or did the sentry spy him ?" Time passed on: the first ray of daylight slowly gleamed, when he thought he heard the door of the church close.

Savelli's suspense became intolerable: he stole from the chapel, and came in sight of the Tribune's bed--all was silent.
"Perhaps the silence of death," said Savelli, as he crept back.
Meanwhile the Tribune, vainly endeavouring to close his eyes, was rendered yet more watchful by the uneasy position he was obliged to assume--for the part of the bed towards the pillow having given way, while the rest remained solid, he had inverted the legitimate order of lying, and drawn himself up as he might best accommodate his limbs, towards the foot of the bed.

The light of the lamp, though shaded by the draperies, was thus opposite to him.

Impatient of his wakefulness, he at last thought it was this dull and flickering light which scared away the slumber, and was about to rise, to remove it further from him, when he saw the curtain at the other end of the bed gently lifted: he remained quiet and alarmed;--ere he could draw a second breath, a dark figure interposed between the light and the bed; and he felt that a stroke was aimed against that part of the couch, which, but for the accident that had seemed to him ominous, would have given his breast to the knife.
Rienzi waited not a second and better-directed blow; as the assassin yet stooped, groping in the uncertain light, he threw on him all the weight and power of his large and muscular frame, wrenched the stiletto from the bravo's hand, and dashing him on the bed, placed his knee on his breast .-- The stiletto rose--gleamed--descended--the murtherer swerved aside, and it pierced only his right arm.

The Tribune raised, for a deadlier blow, the revengeful blade.
The assassin thus foiled was a man used to all form and shape of danger, and he did not now lose his presence of mind.
"Hold!" said he; "if you kill me, you will die yourself.