"Who'll not carouse at our behest, your steel shall smite him in the breast." Brighella approaching with a company of the watch, to disperse the motley gathering, the revellers are about to put their murderous projects into execution; but Luzio bids them scatter for the present, and ambush in the neighbourhood, as he here must first await the actual leader of their movement: for this is the place that Isabella had tauntingly divulged to him as her rendezvous with the State-holder. For the latter Luzio lies in wait: he soon detects him in a stealthy masker, whose path he bars, and as Friedrich tears himself away he is about to follow him with shouts and drawn rapier, when by direction of Isabella, concealed among the bushes, he himself is stopped and led astray. Isabella comes forth, rejoicing in the thought of having restored Marianne to her faithless mate at this very moment, and in the possession of what she believes to be the stipulated patent of her brother's pardon; she is on the point of renouncing all further revenge when, breaking open the seal by the light of a torch, she is horrified at discovering an aggravation of the order of execution, which chance and bribery of the gaoler had delivered into her hands through her wish to defer her brother's knowledge of his ransom. After a hard battle with the devouring flames of love, and recognising his powerlessness against this enemy of his peace, Friedrich has resolved that, however criminal his fall, it yet shall be as a man of honour. One hour on Isabella's bosom, and then his death—by the selfsame law to whose severity the life of Claudio still shall stand irrevocably forfeit. Isabella, who perceives in this action but an additional villainy of the hypocrite, once more bursts out in frenzy of despairing grief. At her call to instant revolt against the odious tyrant the whole populace assembles, in wildest turmoil: Luzio, arriving on the scene at this juncture, sardonically adjures the throng to pay no heed to the ravings of a woman who, as she has deceived himself, assuredly will dupe them all; for he still believes in her shameless dishonour. Fresh confusion, climax of Isabella's despair: suddenly from the back is heard Brighella's burlesque cry for help; himself entangled in the coils of jealousy, he has seized the disguised State-holder by mistake, and thus