It is quite clear to _Isabella_, from his extreme carelessness about his
tools, that _Castaldo_ is not safely to be trusted with a job which
requires so much tact and business-like exactitude as the capital offence.
She therefore "_shows a phial_," which she intends, "occasion suiting,"
for "_Martinuzzi's_ bane;" thereby hinting that, if _Castaldo_ fail with
his steel medicine, she is ready with a surer potion.
The next scene, being the last, was ushered in with acclamations. The
stage, as is always in that case made and provided, was full. There is a
young gentleman on a throne, and _Czerina_ beside it, having been somehow
ungallantly deposed. _Martinuzzi_ expresses a wish to drink somebody's
health, and this being the "fitting opportunity" mentioned by the author
in the scene preceeding, _Isabella_ empties the phial of her wrath into
the beverage, and the _Cardinal_ quenches his thirst with a most
intemperate draught. It is now duly announced, that _Castaldo_ is, "with
naked sword, approaching." That gentleman appears, and makes a speech long
enough for any man who has had such plain warning of what is to
happen--even a cardinal encumbered with a spangled dressing-gown--to get a
mile out of his way.
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