The McCook tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 1886-1936, 1885-06-11
n KEY OF DEATH.
A Marvel of Mechanical Ingenuity Ehas
Excited Terror in Venice.
From Public Opinion.

From Public Opinion.
In the collection of curiosities pre-
! served in the arsenal of Venice, there
is a key of which the following singular
tradition is related: about the year
1900 one of those dangerous men, in
whom extraordinary talent is only the
fearful source of crime and wickedness
beyond that of ordinary men, came to
establish himself as a merchant or trad
er in Venice. The stranger, whose
name was Tebaldo, became enamoured
of the daughter of an ancient house,
already atfianced to another. He
demanded 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 weap-
on 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 it disclosed a spring,
which, on pressure, launched from the
other end a needle or lancet of such
subtitle fineness that it entered INTO the
flesh and buried itself there without
leaving external trace. Tebaldo wait
ed in disguise at the door of the church
in which the maiden whom he loved
was about to receive the nuptial bene-
diction. The assassin sent the slender
steel unperceived into the breast of the
bridegroom. The wounded MAI had no
suspicion of injury, but seized with a sud-
den and sharp pain in the midst of the
ceremony, he tainted, and was carried to
his house, amid the lamentations of the
bridal party. Vain was all the skill of
the physicians, who could not devise
the cause of this strange illness; andi in
a few days he died. Tebaldo again de-
manded the hand of the maiden from
her parents, and received a second re-
fusal. They, too, persisted miserably
In a few days. The alarm which these
deaths-which appeared almost mirac-
ulous-occasioned, excited the utmost
vigilance of the magistrates; and when,
on close examination 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 cruely orphaned had
passed the first months of her mourning
in O convent, when Tebaldo, hoping to
bend her to his will, entreated t o speak
with her at the CRATE. TIE face of the
foreigner had been ever displeasing to
her, but since the death of all those
most dear to her it had become odious
(as thougd she had a presumption of his
and her reply was most decisive
in the negative. Tebaldo, beyond him
self with rage, attempted to wound her
through the CRATE, and succeeded; the
obscurity of the place prevented his
movement being observed. On her
return to her room, the maiden felt
a pain in her breast, and uncoy-
1t, she found it spotted with a
drop of blood. The pain in
creased, the surgeons who fastened to
her assistance-taught by the past
no time in conjecture, but, cut
deep into the wounded part, ex-
the needle before any mortal
mischief had commenced, and saved the
life Of the lady. The State inquisition
used every means to discover the hand
which dealt these insidious and irresist-
ible blows. The visit of Tebaldo to the
caused suspicion to fall heavily
upon him. His house was carefully
searched. the Infamous invention dis
covered, and he persisted on the gibbet.