Agnes Vol. 2 — page 54: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AGNES; OR, BEAUTY AND PLEASURE, " sincerest aud most devoted love!” oxclaimed the Marchioness, again lavishing the tonderest and most voluptuous caresses upon tho Minister. “ But remember — this must be accomplished without noiso or disturbance ” ‘ With the utmost silence, and in the dead of night,” interjected Ramorino. “ There are gags for tongues as well as chains for limbs |” Yous, yes,” said the Marchioness, agitated with .a fevorish joy, mingling with a certain apprelen- sion lest everything should fail at the very moment when success seemed to be promised: “there must indeed be silence on the part of those wretches — —for if they were allowed to raise their voices in the presence of your guards and sbirri, they might tell tales which, alas! I should blush to have re- peated 7 “Fear maugkt upon this head,” interrupted Jiumorino. siluncing the tongues of those wretches, a more effectual method shall bo tried :” — the Count pausod for a few moments ; then looking steadily at the Marchioness, be added, ‘Their brains shall | puint, bo blown out,” . “ My friend! my benefactor! my lover! my be- loved!” cried the Marchioness, in accents of on- thusiasm. “Ob, I do indeed love you! But when ‘“Ty-morrow night,” responded Rafhorino, “ | will give the requisite orders to the most trust- worthy and discrect of my followers; and you, dearest Lucrezia, must indicate tho best mode by which the transaction is to be carried out ” * Let me not seem to bo a party to it!” intor- rupted the Marchioness; “or elso the domestics will wonder they will think that Ciprina had got deep into certain secrets which I did not choose to have known 7 “Can you not give to tho affair such a com- ploxiun,” asked tho Count of Ramorino, “that it may seem as if Ciprina and her paramour had fled of their own accord P Jor rest assured, dearest Lucrezia, that if you oMy indicate the moans of iugress and egress with regard to your mansion— the means, I would say, which are the most secret and private—TI will undertake that tho sbirri shall do their duty so well, that not an unusual sound shall ruffle the slumber of cven the very lightest sleeper beneath your roof.” “The means aro casy,” responded the Mar- chioness, “ Look, my dear Count,” she continued, indicating the figured carpet with the point of her exquisitely-shupod foot, and by the movement dis- playing the ankle up to the vory swell of the leg, —“ suppose that this portion of the pattern re- presouts the inner stable-yard of my town-man- Blon — “Tho stable-yard where your own boautiful pteod is kept P’’ said the Count. “Tv be sure! 1 have aecn it there havo I not P” “ Yes—you have seen it there,” continued tho Marchiuness. “ But perhaps you may not have noticed ———indeed it can searcely bo probable— that on ono side of this stable-yard there is a little low door, deeply set in the solid ma- sunry ” “I have noticed that door,” interrupted the Count of Ramorino, with a peculiar smilo; “ and I can now conjecture the nature of tho statement yowWare about to make, and which correborates a “If my men find nv oasier means of 4$ certain written tradition preserved amongst tho archives of my department of the Govornment.” “Indeed P” ejaculated the Marchioncss, with a look of the most uofeignod surpriso, “ A written tradition P”’ “Yes,” rejoined Ramorino,—“a tradition of the existence of some secret passage in tho Mi- rano mansion: but there is a note appended to the entry in the police-books, to the effuct that it remains a matter of doubt whother the Marquis of Mirano, your deceased husband, preserved that secret passage whea renovating hia palatial dwell- ing—or whether he condemned if alturether, I may here parenthetically observe, my dear Lu- crezia, thatif L had been Minister of Police at the time when those repairs ani improve:nents wero in progress, I should have mado it my busi- ucss to ascertain the poiut I have just reprosented as having hitherto remained dohbtful,—becauss it is my idoa that a Minister of Police ought tu be acquainted with everything.” —_ “And how would you have ascertained such a my dear Count?” inquired the Mar. vhiuness, with a smile, which however veiled a certain degree of uneasiness, cyon In respect to her new lover: for shrowd and penetrating though she had bitherto known him to be, she could not holp now fancying—and almost feuring—that he wis more cunning In that shrewduecss and more keen in that penetration thdén she had even antici- pated; so that perhaps her own dark secrets and sinister purposes might not remain for ever cun- ceuled from his knowlodze. “ trow could I have ascertained the point ?” re- peated Ramorino, almost with a fFansitory smile of pity fcr her ignorauce, until the sensation was in a moment absorbed in tho long and impassioned caress which he bestowed upon her ere ho went on speaking; fur that woman exhaled as it were the very perfume of voluptuougness, s0 that the brain, usually so clear, of the Minister of Police was more than fhalf intoxicated in his delicious contact with her form. ‘ Were there not brick- layors, and masons, aud carpenters who could have been questioned P” “There wero only two bricklayors and two oar- penoters,” interjected the Marcheunoss, “ who wero specially engaged in the renovation of thuse parts uf the building wherewith the secret is connecied ; and they worked at nightetime, unknown to their comrades,” “Tf there bad basen only one,” rejoined tha Minister, “I would have extracted the secret from him !”’ “But supposo that he was woll paid for his sverecy P” “‘Lhore are grados and degrees in all things: ona bribe is heavier than another; and the heaviest bribe carries the day.” “But what if the workman,” continued tho Marchioness, “had beon sent off to some distant part of the country—or into another State—tho moment his labour was accomplished P” ‘“ Ho would have been intercepted on his do- parture from Viorence,” rejoined Ramorino, with a smile, which was this time of a complacent self- sufliciency: “and his secret would have been ob- tained fram him. Bolieve me, my dear Lucrezia, whatover I desire to know I will assuredly pere- trate and fathum; and if there be now and thon AOC ( i@i co SS (C@