Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1885-05-16
TIE KEY OF DEATH.
One OF the Terrible Legends of Ancient
Venice.

One OF the Terrible Legends of Ancient
Venice.
In the collection of curiosities preserved
in the arsenal of Venice, there is q key of
which the following singular tradition is
related:
About the year 1900 one Of those danger
Gus men, in whom extraordinary talent IS
only the fearful source of crime and wick
edness beyond that of ordinary men, came
to establish himself as a merchant or
trader in Venice. The stranger, whose
name was Tebaldo, became enanored
OF the daughter of an ancient house. al
ready afianced to another. He demand
ed her hand in marriage, and was, of
course, rejected. Enraged at this, he
studied how to be revenged. Profoundly
skilled in the mechanical arts, he allowed
himself no rest until he had invented the
most formidable weapon which could be
imagined. This was a key of large size,
the handle Of which was so constructed
that it could be turned round with little
difficulty: when turned ii discovered q
spring, which on pressure launched from
the other end a needle or lancet of such
subtle tineness that it entered into the flesh
and buried itself there without leaving eI-
teTnal trace.
Trebaldo waited in disguise at the door
Of the church in which the maiden whom
he loved was about TO receive the nuptial
benediCtiOn. The assassin sent the
slender steel unperceiyed into the
breast of the bridegroom. The wounded
man had no suspicion of injury,
but seized with sudden and
sharp pain in the midst of the cere-
mony, he tainted. and was carried to
his home, amid the lamentations of the
bridal party. Vain was all the skill of
the physicians, who could not divine
the cause of this strange illness; and
in few days he died Tebaldo again de-
manded the hand of the maiden from her
parents, and received Q second refusal
They, too, persisted miserably in a few
days The alarm which these deaths
which appeared almost miraculous-oCca-
stoned excited the utmost vigilance of the
magistrates and when, on close examina-
ton Of the bodies, the small instrument
was found in the gangrened flesh, terror
was universal; every one feared for his
own life.
The maiden thus cruelty orphaned had
passed the first months of her mourning in
a convent, when Tebaldo. hoping to bend
her to his will, entTeatcd to speak with her
at the CRATE. The face Of the foreigner had
ever been displeasing to her, but since the
death Of all those most dear to her il had
become odious as though she had pre-
sumption Of his guilt and her reply was
most decisive in the negative. TebaldO,
beyond himself with rage, attempted to
wound her through the CRATE and sue
ceeded the obscurity of the place pre-
vented his movement being OBJ
served. On her return to her room,
the maiden felt a pain in her
breast, and uncovering it, she found it
spotted with & single drop of blood. The
pain increased, the surgeons who FASTENED
to her assistance-taught by the past
wasted no time in conjecture, but,
cutting deep into the wounded part
extracted the needle before any mortal
mischief had commenced, and saved
the life the lady. The State in
QUESTION used every means to dis
cover the hand which dealt these in
sidious and irresistible blows. The visit Of
Tebaldo to the convent caused suspicion to
fall heavily upon him. His house was
carefully searched, the infamous invention
discovered, and he perished on the gihbet,
Public Opinion