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+The Project Gutenberg EBook Zicci, Book 2, by Bulwer-Lytton,
+#35 in our series by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
+
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+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
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+
+*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers*****
+
+
+Title: Zicci, Book 2.
+
+Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton
+
+Release Date: March 2005  [EBook #7607]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on January 21, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+
+
+
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ZICCI, BOOK 2, BY LYTTON ***
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by Pat Castevens
+and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                                  ZICCI
+
+                                 A Tale
+
+                          By Edward Bulwer-Lytton
+
+
+
+
+                                 BOOK 2.
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+Merton and the Italians arrived in safety at the spot where they had
+left the mules; and not till they had recovered their own alarm and
+breath did they think of Glyndon.  But then, as the minutes passed and
+he appeared not, Merton--whose heart was as good, at least, as human
+hearts are in general--grew seriously alarmed.  He insisted on returning
+to search for his friend, and by dint of prodigal promises prevailed at
+last on the guide to accompany him.  The lower part of the mountain lay
+calm and white in the starlight; and the guide's practised eye could
+discern all objects on the surface, at a considerable distance.  They
+had not, however, gone very far before they perceived two forms slowly
+approaching towards them.
+
+As they came near, Merton recognized the form of his friend.  "Thank
+Heaven, he is safe!" he cried, turning to the guide.
+
+"Holy angels befriend us!" said the Italian, trembling; "behold the very
+being that crossed me last Sabbath night.  It is he, but his face is
+human now!"
+
+"Signor Inglese," said the voice of Zicci as Glyndon, pale, wan, and
+silent, returned passively the joyous greeting of Merton,--"  Signor
+Inglese, I told your friend we should meet to-night; you see you have
+not foiled my prediction."
+
+"But how, but where?" stammered Merton, in great confusion and surprise.
+
+"I found your friend stretched on the ground, overpowered by the
+mephitic exhalation of the crater.  I bore him to a purer atmosphere;
+and as I know the mountain well, I have conducted him safely to you.
+This is all our history.  You see, sir, that were it not for that
+prophecy which you desired to frustrate, your friend would, ere this
+time, have been a corpse; one minute more, and the vapor had done its
+work.  Adieu! good night and pleasant dreams."
+
+"But, my preserver, you will not leave us," said Glyndon, anxiously, and
+speaking for the first time.  "Will you not return with us?"
+
+Zicci paused, and drew Glyndon aside.  "Young man," said he, gravely,
+"it is necessary that we should again meet to-night.  It is necessary
+that you should, ere the first hour of morning, decide on your fate.
+Will you marry Isabel di Pisani, or lose her forever?  Consult not your
+friend; he is sensible and wise, but not now is his wisdom needed.
+There are times in life when from the imagination, and not the reason,
+should wisdom come,--this for you is one of them.  I ask not your answer
+now.  Collect your thoughts, recover your jaded and scattered spirits.
+It wants two hours of midnight: at midnight I will be with you!"
+
+"Incomprehensible being," replied the Englishman, "I would leave the
+life you have preserved in your own hands.  But since I have known you,
+my whole nature has changed.  A fiercer desire than that of love burns
+in my veins,--the desire, not to resemble, but to surpass my kind; the
+desire to penetrate and to share the secret of your own existence; the
+desire of a preternatural knowledge and unearthly power.  Instruct me,
+school me, make me thine; and I surrender to thee at once, and without a
+murmur, the woman that, till I saw thee, I would have defied a world to
+obtain."
+
+"I ask not the sacrifice, Glyndon," replied Zicci, coldly, yet mildly,
+"yet--shall I own it to thee?--I am touched by the devotion I have
+inspired.  I sicken for human companionship, sympathy, and friendship;
+yet I dread to share them, for bold must be the man who can partake my
+existence and enjoy my confidence.  Once more I say to thee, in
+compassion and in warning, the choice of life is in thy hands,--to-
+morrow it will be too late.  On the one hand, Isabel, a tranquil home, a
+happy and serene life; on the other hand all is darkness, darkness that
+even this eye cannot penetrate."
+
+"But thou hast told me that if I wed Isabel I must be contented to be
+obscure; and if I refuse, that knowledge and power may be mine."
+
+"Vain man! knowledge and power are not happiness."
+
+"But they are better than happiness.  Say, if I marry Isabel, wilt thou
+be my master, my guide?  Say this, and I am resolved."
+
+"Never!  It is only the lonely at heart, the restless, the desperate,
+that may be my pupils."
+
+"Then I renounce her!  I renounce love, I renounce happiness.  Welcome
+solitude, welcome despair, if they are the entrances to thy dark and
+sublime secret."
+
+"I will not take thy answer now; at midnight thou shalt give it in one
+word,--ay, or no!  Farewell till then!"
+
+The mystic waved his hand, and descending rapidly, was seen no more.
+
+Glyndon rejoined his impatient and wondering friend; but Merton, gazing
+on his face, saw that a great change had passed there.  The flexile and
+dubious expression of youth was forever gone; the features were locked,
+rigid, and stern; and so faded was the natural bloom that an hour seemed
+to have done the work of years.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER, XI.
+
+
+On returning from Vesuvius or Pompeii you enter Naples through its most
+animated, its most Neapolitan quarter, through that quarter in which
+Modern life most closely resembles the Ancient, and in which, when, on a
+fair day, the thoroughfare swarms alike with Indolence and Trade, you
+are impressed at once with the recollection of that restless, lively
+race from which the population of Naples derives its origin; so that in
+one day you may see at Pompeii the habitations of a remote age, and on
+the Mole at Naples you may imagine you behold the very beings with which
+those habitations had been peopled.  The language of words is dead, but
+the language of gestures remains little impaired.  A fisherman,--
+peasant, of Naples will explain to you the motions, the attitudes, the
+gestures of the figures painted on the antique vases better than the
+most learned antiquary of Gottingen or Leipsic.
+
+But now, as the Englishmen rode slowly through the deserted streets,
+lighted but by the lamps of heaven, all the gayety of the day was hushed
+and breathless.  Here and there, stretched under a portico or a dingy
+booth, were sleeping groups of houseless lazzaroni,--a tribe now happily
+merging this indolent individuality amidst an energetic and active
+population.
+
+The Englishmen rode on in silence, for Glyndon neither appeared to heed
+or hear the questions and comments of Merton, and Merton himself was
+almost as weary as the jaded animal he bestrode.
+
+Suddenly the silence of earth and ocean was broken by the sound of a
+distant clock, that proclaimed the last hour of night.  Glyndon started
+from his revery, and looked anxiously around.  As the final stroke died,
+the noise of hoofs rang on the broad stones of the pavement, and from a
+narrow street to the right emerged the form of a solitary horseman.  He
+neared the Englishmen, and Glyndon recognized the features and mien of
+Zicci.
+
+"What! do we meet again, signor?" said Merton, in a vexed but drowsy
+tone.
+
+"Your friend and I have business together," replied Zicci, as he wheeled
+his powerful and fiery steed to the side of Glyndon; "but it will be
+soon transacted.  Perhaps you, sir, will ride on to your hotel."
+
+"Alone?"
+
+"There is no danger," returned Zicci, with a slight expression of
+disdain in his voice.
+
+"None to me, but to Glyndon?"
+
+"Danger from me?  Ah! perhaps you are right."
+
+"Go on, my dear Merton," said Glyndon.  "I will join you before you
+reach the hotel."
+
+Merton nodded, whistled, and pushed his horse into a kind of amble.
+
+"Now your answer,--quick."
+
+"I have decided: the love of Isabel has vanished from my heart.  The
+pursuit is over."
+
+"You have decided?"
+
+"I have."
+
+"Adieu! join your friend."
+
+Zicci gave the rein to his horse; it sprang forward with a bound; the
+sparks flew from its hoofs, and horse and rider disappeared amidst the
+shadows of the street whence they had emerged.
+
+Merton was surprised to see his friend by his side, a minute after they
+had parted.
+
+"What business can you have with Zicci?  Will you not confide in me?"
+
+"Merton, do not ask me to-night; I am in a dream."
+
+"I do not wonder at it, for even I am in a sleep.  Let us push on."
+
+In the retirement of his chamber, Glyndon sought to recollect his
+thoughts.  He sat down on the foot of his bed and pressed his hands
+tightly to his throbbing temples.  The events of the last few hours, the
+apparition of the gigantic and shadowy Companion of the Mystic amidst
+the fires and clouds of Vesuvius, the strange encounter with Zicci
+himself on a spot in which he could never have calculated on finding
+Glyndon, filled his mind with emotions, in which terror and awe the
+least prevailed.  A fire, the train of which had long been laid, was
+lighted at his heart,--the asbestos fire that, once lit, is never to be
+quenched.  All his early aspiration, his young ambition, his longings
+for the laurel, were mingled in one passionate yearning to overpass the
+bounds of the common knowledge of man, and reach that solemn spot,
+between two worlds, on which the mysterious stranger appeared to have
+fixed his home.
+
+Far from recalling with renewed affright the remembrance of the
+apparition that had so appalled him, the recollection only served to
+kindle and concentrate his curiosity into a burning focus.  He had said
+aright,--love had vanished from his heart; there was no longer a serene
+space amidst its disordered elements for human affection to move and
+breathe.  The enthusiast was rapt from this earth; and he would have
+surrendered all that beauty ever promised, that mortal hope ever
+whispered, for one hour with Zicci beyond the portals of the visible
+world.
+
+He rose, oppressed and fevered with the new thoughts that raged within
+him, and threw open his casement for air.  The ocean lay suffused in the
+starry light, and the stillness of the heavens never more eloquently
+preached the morality of repose to the madness of earthly passions.  But
+such was Glyndon's mood that their very hush only served to deepen the
+wild desires that preyed upon his soul.  And the solemn stars, that are
+mysteries in themselves, seemed by a kindred sympathy to agitate the
+wings of the spirit no longer contented with its cage.  As he gazed, a
+star shot from its brethren and vanished from the depth of space!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+The sleep of Glyndon that night was unusually profound, and the sun
+streamed full upon his eyes as he opened them to the day.  He rose
+refreshed, and with a strange sentiment of calmness, that seemed more
+the result of resolution than exhaustion.  The incidents and emotions of
+the past night had settled into distinct and clear impressions.  He
+thought of them but slightly,--he thought rather of the future.  He was
+as one of the Initiated in the old Egyptian Mysteries, who have crossed
+the Gate only to look more ardently for the Penetralia.
+
+He dressed himself, and was relieved to find that Merton had joined a
+party of his countrymen on an excursion to Ischia.  He spent the heat of
+noon in thoughtful solitude, and gradually the image of Isabel returned
+to his heart.  It was a holy--for it was a human--image; he had resigned
+her, and he repented.  The light of day served, if not to dissipate, at
+least to sober, the turbulence and fervor of the preceding night.  But
+was it indeed too late to retract his resolve?  "Too late!" terrible
+words!  Of what do we not repent, when the Ghost of the Deed returns to
+us to say, "Thou hast no recall?"
+
+He started impatiently from his seat, seized his hat and sword, and
+strode with rapid steps to the humble abode of the actress.
+
+The distance was considerable, and the air oppressive.  Glyndon arrived
+at the door breathless and heated.  he knocked, no answer came; he
+lifted the latch and entered.  No sound, no sight of life, met his ear
+and eye.  In the front chamber, on a table, lay the guitar of the
+actress and some manuscript parts in plays.  He paused, and summoning
+courage, tapped at the door which seemed to lead into the inner
+apartment.  The door was ajar; and hearing no sound within, he pushed it
+open.  It was the sleeping chamber of the young actress,--that holiest
+ground to a lover.  And well did the place become the presiding deity:
+none of the tawdry finery of the Profession was visible on the one hand,
+none of the slovenly disorder common to the humbler classes of the South
+on the other.  All was pure and simple; even the ornaments were those of
+an innocent refinement,--a few books placed carefully on shelves, a few
+half-faded flowers in an earthen vase which was modelled and painted in
+the Etruscan fashion.  The sunlight streamed over the snowy draperies of
+the bed, and a few articles of clothing, neatly folded, on the chair
+beside it.  Isabel was not there; and Glyndon, as he gazed around,
+observed that the casement which opened to the ground was wrenched and
+broken, and several fragments of the shattered glass lay below.  The
+light flashed at once upon Glyndon's mind,--the ravisher had borne away
+his prize.  The ominous words of Zicci were fulfilled: it was too late!
+Wretch that he was, perhaps he might have saved her!  But the nurse,--
+was she gone also?  He made the house resound with the name of Gionetta,
+but there was not even an echo to reply.  He resolved to repair at once
+to the abode of Zicci.  On arriving at the palace of the Corsican, he
+was informed that the signor was gone to the banquet of the Prince di --,
+and would not return until late.  He turned in dismay from the door,
+and perceived the heavy carriage of the Count Cetoxa rolling along the
+narrow street.  Cetoxa recognized him and stopped the carriage.
+
+"Ah my dear Signor Glyndon," said he, leaning out of the window, "and
+how goes your health?  You heard the news?"
+
+"What news?" asked Glyndon, mechanically.
+
+"Why, the beautiful actress,--the wonder of Naples!  I always thought
+she would have good luck."
+
+"Well, well, what of her?"
+
+"The Prince di-- has taken a prodigious fancy to her, and has carried
+her to his own palace.  The Court is a little scandalized."
+
+"The villain! by force?"
+
+"Force!  Ha! ha! my dear signor, what need of force to persuade an
+actress to accept the splendid protection of one of the wealthiest
+noblemen in Italy?  Oh, no! you may be sure she went willingly enough.
+I only just heard the news: the prince himself proclaimed his triumph
+this morning, and the accommodating Mascari has been permitted to
+circulate it.  I hope the connection will not last long, or we shall
+lose our best singer.  Addio!"
+
+Glyndon stood mute and motionless.  He knew not what to think, to
+believe, or how to act.  Even Merton was not at hand to advise him.  His
+conscience smote him bitterly; and half in despair, half in the
+courageous wrath of jealousy, he resolved to repair to the palace of the
+prince himself, and demand his captive in the face of his assembled
+guests.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+We must go back to the preceding night.  The actress and her nurse had
+returned from the theatre; and Isabel, fatigued and exhausted, had
+thrown herself on a sofa, while Gionetta busied herself with the long
+tresses which, released from the fillet that bound them, half concealed
+the form of the actress, like a veil of threads of gold; and while she
+smoothed the luxuriant locks, the old nurse ran gossiping on about the
+little events of the night,--the scandal and politics of the scenes and
+the tire-room.
+
+The clock sounded the hour of midnight, and still Isabel detained the
+nurse; for a vague and foreboding fear, she could not account for, made
+her seek to protract the time of solitude and rest.
+
+At length Gionetta's voice was swallowed up in successive yawns.  She
+took her lamp and departed to her own room, which was placed in the
+upper story of the house.  Isabel was alone.  The half-hour after
+midnight sounded dull and distant, all was still, and she was about to
+enter her sleeping-room, when she heard the hoofs of a horse at full
+speed.  The sound ceased; there was a knock at the door.  Her heart beat
+violently; but fear gave way to another sentiment when she heard a
+voice, too well known, calling on her name.  She went to the door.
+
+"Open, Isabel,--it is Zicci," said the voice again.
+
+And why did the actress feel fear no more, and why did that virgin hand
+unbar the door to admit, without a scruple or, a doubt, at that late
+hour, the visit of the fairest cavalier of Naples?  I know not; but
+Zicci had become her destiny, and she obeyed the voice of her preserver
+as if it were the command of Fate.
+
+Zicci entered with a light and hasty step.  His horseman's
+cloak fitted tightly to his noble form, and the raven plumes of his
+broad hat threw a gloomy shade over his commanding features.
+
+The girl followed him into the room, trembling and blushing deeply, and
+stood before him with the lamp she held shining upward on her cheek, and
+the long hair that fell like a shower of light over the bare shoulders
+and heaving bust.
+
+"Isabel," said Zicci, in a voice that spoke deep emotion, "I am by thy
+side once more to save thee.  Not a moment is to be lost.  Thou must fly
+with me, or remain the victim of the Prince di --.  I would have made
+the charge I now undertake another's,--thou knowest I would, thou
+knowest it; but he is not worthy of thee, the cold Englishman!  I throw
+myself at thy feet; have trust in me, and fly."
+
+He grasped her hand passionately as he dropped on his knee, and looked
+up into her face with his bright, beseeching eyes.
+
+"Fly with thee!" said Isabel, tenderly.
+
+"Thou knowest the penalty,--name, fame, honor, all will be sacrificed if
+thou dost not."
+
+"Then, then," said the wild girl, falteringly, and turning aside her
+face, "then I am not indifferent to thee.  Thou wouldest not give me to
+another; thou lovest me?"
+
+Zicci was silent; but his breast heaved, his cheeks flushed, his eyes
+darted dark but impassioned fire.
+
+"Speak!" exclaimed Isabel, in jealous suspicion of his silence.  "Speak,
+if thou lovest me."
+
+"I dare not tell thee so; I will not yet say I love thee."
+
+"Then what matter my fate?" said Isabel, turning pale and shrinking from
+his side.  "Leave me; I fear no danger.  My life, and therefore my
+honor, is in mine own hands."
+
+"Be not so mad!" said Zicci.  "Hark! do you hear the neigh of my steed?
+It is an alarm that warns us of the approaching peril.  Haste, or you
+are lost."
+
+"Why do you care for me?" said the girl, bitterly.  "Thou hast read my
+heart; thou knowest that I would fly with thee to the end of the world,
+if I were but sure of thy love; that all sacrifice of womanhood's repute
+were sweet to me, if regarded as the proof and seal of affection.  But
+to be bound beneath the weight of a cold obligation; to be the beggar on
+the eyes of Indifference; to throw myself on one who loves me not,--that
+were indeed the vilest sin of my sex.  Ah! Zicci, rather let me die."
+
+She had thrown back her clustering hair from her face as she spoke; and
+as she now stood, with her arms drooping mournfully, and her hands
+clasped together with the proud bitterness of her wayward spirit, giving
+new zest and charm to her singular beauty, it was impossible to conceive
+a sight more irresistible to the senses and the heart.
+
+"Tempt me not to thine own danger, perhaps destruction," exclaimed
+Zicci, in faltering accents; "thou canst not dream of what thou wouldest
+demand.  Come," and, advancing, he wound his arm round her waist, "come,
+Isabel!  Believe at least in my friendship, my protection--"
+
+"And not thy love," said the Italian, turning on him her hurried and
+reproachful eyes.  Those eyes met his, and he could not withdraw from
+the charm of their gaze.  He felt her heart throbbing beneath his own;
+her breath came warm upon his cheek.  He trembled,--he, the lofty, the
+mysterious Zicci,--who seemed to stand aloof from his race.  With a deep
+and burning sigh he murmured, "Isabel, I love thee!"  That beautiful
+face, bathed in blushes, drooped upon his bosom; and.  as he bent down,
+his lips sought the rosy mouth,--a long and burning kiss.  Danger, life,
+the world were forgotten!  Suddenly Zicci tore himself from her.
+
+"Oh! what have I said?  It is gone,--my power to preserve thee, to guard
+thee, to foresee the storm in thy skies, is gone forever.  No matter!
+Haste, haste; and may love supply the loss of prophecy and power!"
+
+Isabel hesitated no more.  She threw her mantle over her shoulders and
+gathered up her dishevelled hair; a moment, and she was prepared,--when
+a sudden crash was heard in the inner room.
+
+"Too late!--fool that I was--too late!" cried Zicci, in a sharp tone of
+agony as he hurried to the outer door.  He opened it, only to be borne
+back by the press of armed men.
+
+Behind, before, escape was cut off.  The room literally swarmed with the
+followers of the ravisher, masked, mailed, armed to the teeth.
+
+Isabel was already in the grasp of two of the myrmidons; her shriek
+smote the ear of Zicci.  He sprang forward, and Isabel heard his wild
+cry in a foreign tongue,--the gleam, the clash of swords.  She lost her
+senses; and when she recovered, she found herself gagged, and in a
+carriage that was driven rapidly, by the side of a masked and motionless
+figure.  The carriage stopped at the portals of a gloomy mansion.  The
+gates opened noiselessly, a broad flight of steps, brilliantly
+illumined, was before her,--she was in the palace of the Prince di --.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+The young actress was led to and left alone in a chamber adorned with
+all the luxurious and half-Eastern taste that at one time characterized
+the palaces of the great seigneurs of Italy.  Her first thought was for
+Zicci,--was he yet living?  Had he escaped unscathed the blades of the
+foe,--her new treasure, the new light of her life, her lord, at last her
+lover?
+
+She had short time for reflection.  She heard steps approaching the
+chamber; she drew back.  She placed her hand on the dagger that at all
+hours she wore concealed in her bosom.  Living or dead, she would be
+faithful still to Zicci There was a new motive to the preservation of
+honor.  The door opened, and the Prince entered, in a dress that
+sparkled with jewels.
+
+"Fair and cruel one," said he, advancing, with a half-sneer upon his
+lip, "thou wilt not too harshly blame the violence of love."  He
+attempted to take her hand as he spoke.
+
+"Nay," said he, as she recoiled, "reflect that thou art now in the power
+of one that never faltered in the pursuit of an object less dear to him
+than thou art.  Thy lover, presumptuous though he be, is not by to save
+thee.  Mine thou art; but instead of thy master, suffer me to be thy
+slave."
+
+"My lord," said Isabel, with a stern gravity which perhaps the Stage had
+conspired with Nature, to bestow upon her, "your boast is in vain.  Your
+power,--I am not in your power!  Life and death are in my own hands.  I
+will not defy, but I do not fear you.  I feel--and in some feelings,"
+added Isabel, with a, solemnity almost thrilling, "there is all the
+strength and all the divinity of knowledge--I feel that I am safe even
+here; but you, you, Prince di --, have brought danger to your home and
+hearth!"
+
+The Neapolitan seemed startled by an earnestness and a boldness he was
+but little prepared for.  He was not, however, a man easily intimidated
+or deterred from any purpose he had formed; and approaching Isabel, he
+was about to reply with much warmth, real or affected, when a, knock was
+heard at the door of the chamber.  The sound was repeated, and the
+Prince, chafed at the interruption, opened the door and demanded
+impatiently who had ventured to disobey his orders and invade his
+leisure.  Mascari presented himself, pale and agitated.  "My lord," said
+he, in a whisper, "pardon me, but a stranger is below who insists on
+seeing you; and from some words he let fall, I judged it advisable even
+to infringe your commands."
+
+"A stranger, and at this hour!  What business can he pretend?  Why was
+he even admitted?"
+
+"He asserts that your life is in imminent danger.  The source whence it
+proceeds he will relate to your Excellency alone."
+
+The Prince frowned, but his color changed.  He mused a moment, and then,
+re-entering the chamber and advancing towards Isabel, he said,--
+
+"Believe me, fair creature, I have no wish to take advantage of my
+power.  I would fain trust alone to the gentler authorities of
+affection.  Hold yourself queen within these walls more absolutely than
+you have ever enacted that part on the stage.  To-night, farewell!  May
+your sleep becalm, and your dreams propitious to my hopes!"
+
+With these words he retired, and in a few moments Isabel was surrounded
+by officious attendants, whom she at length, with some difficulty,
+dismissed; and refusing to retire to rest, she spent the night in
+examining the chamber, which she found was secured, and in thoughts of
+Zicci, in whose power she felt an almost preternatural confidence.
+
+Meanwhile the Prince descended the stairs, and sought the room into
+which the stranger had been shown.
+
+He found him wrapped from head to foot in a long robe,--half gown, half
+mantle,--such as was sometimes worn by ecclesiastics.  The face of this
+stranger was remarkable; so sunburnt and swarthy were his hues that he
+must, apparently, have derived his origin amongst the races of the
+farthest East.  His--forehead was lofty, and his eyes so penetrating,
+yet so calm, in their gaze that the Prince shrank from them as we shrink
+from a questioner who is drawing forth the guiltiest secrets of our
+hearts.
+
+"What would you with me?" asked the Prince, motioning his visitor to a
+seat.
+
+"Prince di --," said the stranger, in a voice deep and sweet, but
+foreign in its accent, "son of the most energetic and masculine race
+that ever applied godlike genius to the service of the Human Will, with
+its winding wickedness and its stubborn grandeur; descendant of the
+great Visconti, in whose chronicles lies the History of Italy in her
+palmy day, and in whose rise was the development of the mightiest
+intellect ripened by the most relentless ambition,--I come to gaze upon
+the last star in a darkening firmament.  By this hour to-morrow space
+shall know it not.  Man, thy days are cumbered!"
+
+"What means this jargon?" said the Prince, in visible astonishment and
+secret awe.  "Comest thou to menace me in my own halls, or wouldest thou
+warn me of a danger?  Art thou some itinerant mountebank, or some
+unguessed of friend?  Speak out, and plainly.  What danger threatens
+me?"
+
+"Zicci!" replied the stranger.
+
+"Ha! ha!" said the Prince, laughing scornfully; "I half suspected thee
+from the first.  Thou art, then, the accomplice or the tool of that most
+dexterous, but, at present, defeated charlatan.  And I suppose thou wilt
+tell me that if I were to release a certain captive I have made, the
+danger would vanish and the hand of the dial would be put back?"
+
+"Judge of me as thou wilt, Prince di --.  I confess my knowledge of
+Zicci,--a knowledge shared but by a few, who--But this touches thee not.
+I would save, therefore I warn thee.  Dost thou ask me why?  I will tell
+thee.  Canst thou remember to have heard wild tales of thy grandsire,--
+of his desire for a knowledge that passes that of the schools and
+cloisters; of a strange man from the East, who was his familiar and
+master in lore, against which the Vatican has from age to age launched
+its mimic thunder?  Dost thou call to mind the fortunes of thy
+ancestor,--how he succeeded in youth to little but a name; how, after a
+career wild and dissolute as thine, he disappeared from Milan, a pauper
+and a self-exile; how, after years spent none knew in what climes or in
+what pursuits, he again revisited the city where his progenitors had
+reigned; how with him came this wise man of the East, the mystic
+Mejnour; how they who beheld him, beheld with amaze and fear that time
+had ploughed no furrow on his brow,--that youth seemed fixed as by a
+spell upon his face and form?  Dost thou know that from that hour his
+fortunes rose?  Kinsmen the most remote died, estate upon estate fell
+into the hands of the ruined noble.  He allied himself with the royalty
+of Austria, he became the guide of princes, the first magnate of Italy.
+He founded anew the house of which thou art the last lineal upholder,
+and transferred its splendor from Milan to the Sicilian realms.  Visions
+of high ambition were then present with him nightly and daily.  Had he
+lived, Italy would have known a new dynasty, and the Visconti would have
+reigned over Magna Graecia.  He was a man such as the world rarely sees;
+he was worthy to be of us, worthy to be the pupil of Mejnour,--whom you
+now see before you."
+
+The Prince, who had listened with deep and breathless attention to the
+words of his singular guest, started from his seat at his last words.
+"Impostor!" he cried, "can you dare thus to play with my credulity?
+Sixty years have passed since my grandsire died; and you, a man younger
+apparently than myself, have the assurance to pretend to have been his contemporary!  But you have imperfectly learned your tale.  You know not,
+it seems, that my grandsire--wise and illustrious, indeed, in all save
+his faith in a charlatan--was found dead in his bed in the very hour
+when his colossal plans were ripe for execution, and that Mejnour was
+guilty of his murder?"
+
+"Alas!" answered the stranger, in a voice of great sadness, had he but
+listened to Mejnour, had he delayed the last and most perilous ordeal of
+daring wisdom until the requisite training and initiation had been
+completed, your ancestor would have stood with me upon an eminence which
+the waters of Death itself wash everlastingly, but cannot overflow.
+Your grandsire resisted my fervent prayers, disobeyed my most absolute
+commands, and in the sublime rashness of a soul that panted for the last
+secrets, perished,--the victim of his own frenzy."
+
+"He was poisoned, and Mejnour fled."
+
+"Mejnour fled not," answered the stranger, quickly and proudly.
+
+"Mejnour could not fly from danger, for to him danger is a thing long
+left behind.  It was the day before the duke took the fatal draught
+which he believed was to confer on the mortal the immortal boon that,
+finding my power over him was gone, I abandoned him to his doom.
+
+"On the night on which your grandsire breathed his last, I was
+standing alone at moonlight on the ruins of Persepolis,--for my
+wanderings, space hath no obstacle.  But a truce with this: I loved your
+grandsire; I would save the last of his race.  Oppose not thyself to
+Zicci.  Oppose not thyself to thine evil passions.  Draw back from the
+precipice while there is yet time.  In thy front and in thine eyes I
+detect some of that diviner glory which belonged to thy race.  Thou hast
+in thee some germs of their hereditary genius, but they are choked up by
+worse than thy hereditary vices.  Recollect, by genius thy house rose,--
+by vice it ever failed to perpetuate its power.  In the laws which
+regulate the Universe it is decreed that nothing wicked can long endure.
+Be wise, and let history warn thee.  Thou standest on the verge of two
+worlds,--the Past and the Future; and voices from either shriek omen in
+thy ear.  I have done.  I bid thee farewell."
+
+"Not so; thou shalt not quit these walls.  I will make experiment of thy
+boasted power.  What ho there! ho!"  The Prince shouted; the room was
+filled with his minions.  "Seize that man!" he cried, pointing to the
+spot which had been filled by the form of Mejnour.  To his inconceivable
+amaze and horror, the spot was vacant.  The mysterious stranger had
+vanished like a dream.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+It was the first faint and gradual break of the summer dawn; and two men
+stood in a balcony overhanging a garden fragrant with the scents of the
+awakening flowers.  The stars had not left the sky, the birds were yet
+silent on the boughs; all was still, hushed, and tranquil.  But how
+different the tranquillity of reviving day from the solemn repose of
+night.
+
+In the music of silence there are a thousand variations.  These men, who
+alone seemed awake in Naples, were Zicci and the mysterious stranger,
+who had but an hour or two ago startled the Prince di -- in his
+voluptuous palace.
+
+"No," said the latter, "hadst thou delayed the acceptance of the Arch
+Gift until thou hadst attained to the years and passed through all the
+desolate bereavements that chilled and scared myself ere my researches
+had made it mine, thou wouldest have escaped the curse of which thou
+complainest now.  Thou wouldest not have mourned over the brevity of
+human affection as compared to the duration of thine own existence, for
+thou wouldest have survived the very desire and dream of the love of
+woman.  Brightest, and but for that error perhaps the loftiest, of the
+secret and solemn race that fills up the interval in creation between
+mankind and the demons, age after age wilt thou rue the splendid folly
+which made thee ask to carry the beauty and the passions of youth into
+the dreary grandeur of earthly immortality."
+
+"I do not repent, nor shall I," answered Zicci, coldly.  "The transport
+and the sorrow, so wildly blended, which diversify my doom, are better
+than the calm and bloodless tenor of thy solitary way.  Thou, who lovest
+nothing, hatest nothing,--feelest nothing, and walkest the world with
+the noiseless and joyless footsteps of a dream!"
+
+You mistake," replied he who had owned the name of Mejnour; "though I
+care not for love, and am dead to every passion that agitates the sons
+of clay, I am not dead to their more serene enjoyments.  I have still
+left to me the sublime pleasures of wisdom and of friendship.  I carry
+down the Stream of the countless years, not the turbulent desires of
+youth, but the calm and spiritual delights of age.  Wisely and
+deliberately I abandoned youth forever when I separated my lot from men.
+Let us not envy or reproach each other.  I would have saved this
+Neapolitan, Zicci (since so it now pleases thee to be called), partly
+because his grandsire was but divided by the last airy barrier from our
+own brotherhood, partly because I know that in the man himself lurk the
+elements of ancestral courage and power, which in earlier life would
+have fitted him for one of us.  Earth holds but few to whom nature has
+given the qualities that can bear the ordeal!  But time and excess, that
+have thickened the grosser senses, have blunted the imagination.  I
+relinquish him to his doom."
+
+"And still then, Mejnour, you cherish the desire to increase our scanty
+and scattered host by new converts and allies; Surely, surely, thy
+experience might have taught thee that scarcely once in a thousand years
+is born the being who can pass through the horrible gates that lead into
+the worlds without.  Is not thy path already strewed with thy victims?
+Do not their ghastly faces of agony and fear,--the blood-stained
+suicide, the raving maniac,--rise before thee and warn what is yet left
+to thee of human sympathy from thy insane ambition?"
+
+"Nay," answered Mejnour, "have I not had success to counterbalance
+failure?  And can I forego this lofty and august hope, worthy alone of
+our high condition,--the hope to form a mighty and numerous race, with a
+force and power sufficient to permit them to acknowledge to mankind
+their majestic conquests and dominion; to become the true lords of this
+planet, invaders perchance of others, masters of the inimical and
+malignant tribes by which at this moment we are surrounded,--a race that
+may proceed, in their deathless destinies, from stage to stage of
+celestial glory, and rank at last among the nearest ministrants and
+agents gathered round the Throne of Thrones?  What matter a thousand
+victims for one convert to our band?  And you, Zicci," continued
+Mejnour, after a pause, "you, even you, should this affection for a
+mortal beauty that you have dared, despite yourself, to cherish, be more
+than a passing fancy; should it, once admitted into your inmost nature,
+partake of its bright and enduring essence,--even you may brave all
+things to raise the beloved one into your equal.  Nay, interrupt me not.
+Can you see sickness menace her, danger hover around, years creep on,
+the eyes grow dim, the beauty fade, while the heart, youthful still,
+clings and fastens round your own,--can you see this, and know it is
+yours to--"
+
+"Cease," cried Zicci, fiercely.  "What is all other fate as compared to
+the death of terror?  What! when the coldest sage, the most heated
+enthusiast, the hardiest warrior, with his nerves of iron, have been
+found dead in their beds, with straining eyeballs and horrent hair, at
+the first step of the Dread Progress, thinkest thou that this weak
+woman--from whose cheek a sound at the window, the screech of the night-
+owl, the sight of a drop of blood on a man's sword, would start the
+color--could brave one glance of--Away! the very thought of such
+sights for her makes even myself a coward!"
+
+"When you told her you loved her, when you clasped her to your breast,
+you renounced all power to prophesy her future lot or protect her from
+harm.  Henceforth to her you are human, and human only.  How know you,
+then, to what you may be tempted?  How know you what her curiosity may
+learn and her courage brave?  But enough of this,--you are bent on your
+pursuit?"
+
+"The fiat has gone forth."
+
+"And to-morrow?"
+
+"To-morrow at this hour our bark will be bounding over yonder ocean, and
+the weight of ages will have fallen from my heart!  Fool, thou hast
+given up thy youth!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+The Prince di -- was not a man whom Naples could suppose to be addicted
+to superstitious fancies, neither was the age one in which the belief of
+sorcery was prevalent.  Still, in the South of Italy there was then, and
+there still lingers, a certain spirit of credulity, which may, ever and
+anon, be visible amidst the boldest dogmas of their philosophers and
+sceptics.  In his childhood the Prince had learned strange tales of the
+ambition, the genius, and the career of his grandsire; and secretly,
+perhaps influenced by ancestral example, in earlier youth he himself had
+followed alchemy, not only through her legitimate course, but her
+antiquated and erratic windings.  I have, indeed, been shown in Naples a
+little volume blazoned with the arms of the Visconti, and ascribed to
+the nobleman I refer to, which treats of alchemy in a spirit half
+mocking and half reverential.
+
+Pleasure soon distracted him from such speculations, and his talents,
+which were unquestionably great, were wholly perverted to extravagant
+intrigues or to the embellishment of a gorgeous ostentation with
+something of classic grace.  His immense wealth, his imperious pride,
+his unscrupulous and daring character, made him an object of no
+inconsiderable fear to a feeble and timid court; and the ministers of
+the indolent government willingly connived at excesses--, which allured
+him at least from ambition.  The strange visit and yet more strange
+departure of Mejnour filled the breast of the Neapolitan with awe and
+wonder, against which all the haughty arrogance and learned scepticism
+of his maturer manhood combated in vain.  The apparition of--Mejnour
+served, indeed, to invest Zicci with a character in which the Prince had
+not hitherto regarded him.  He felt a strange alarm at the rival he had
+braved, at the foe he had provoked.  His night was sleepless, and the
+next morning he came to the resolution of leaving Isabel in peace until
+after the banquet of that day, to which he had invited Zicci.  He felt
+as if the death of the mysterious Corsican were necessary for the
+preservation of his own life; and if at an earlier period of their
+rivalry he had determined on the fate of Zicci, the warnings of--Mejnour
+only served to confirm his resolve.
+
+"We will try if his magic can invent an antidote to the bane," said he,
+half aloud and with a gloomy smile, as he summoned Mascari to his
+presence.  The poison which the Prince, with his own hands, mixed into
+the wine intended for his guest was compounded from materials the secret
+of which had been one of the proudest heir-looms of that able and evil
+race which gave to Italy her wisest and fellest tyrants.  Its operation
+was quick, not sudden; it produced no pain, it left on the form no grim
+convulsion, on the skin no purpling spot, to arouse suspicion; you might
+have cut and carved every membrane and fibre of the corpse, but the
+sharpest eyes of the leech would not have detected the presence of the
+subtle life-queller.  For twelve hours the victim felt nothing, save a
+joyous and elated exhilaration of the blood; a delicious languor
+followed,--the sure forerunner of apoplexy.  No lancet then could save!
+Apoplexy had run much in the families of the enemies of the Visconti!
+
+The hour of the feast arrived, the guests assembled.  There were the
+flower of the Neapolitan seigneurie,--the descendants of the Norman, the
+Teuton, the Goth; for Naples had then a nobility, but derived it from
+the North, which has indeed been the Nutrix Leonum, the nurse of the
+lion-hearted chivalry of the world.
+
+Last of the guests came Zicci, and the crowd gave way as the dazzling
+foreigner moved along to the lord of the palace.  The Prince greeted him
+with a meaning smile, to which Zicci answered by a whisper: "He who
+plays with loaded dice does not always win."
+
+The Prince bit his lip; and Zicci, passing on, seemed deep in
+conversation with the fawning Mascari.
+
+"Who is the Prince's heir?" asked the Corsican.
+
+"A distant relation on the mother's side; with his Excellency dies the
+male line."
+
+"Is the heir present at our host's banquet?"
+
+"No; they are not friends."
+
+"No matter; he will be here to-morrow!"
+
+Mascari stared in surprise; but the signal for the banquet was given,
+and the guests were marshalled to the board.  As was the custom, the
+feast took place at midday.  It was a long oval hall, the whole of one
+side opening by a marble colonnade upon a court or garden, in which the
+eye rested gratefully upon cool fountains and statues of whitest marble,
+half sheltered by orange-trees.  Every art that luxury could invent to
+give freshness and coolness to the languid and breezeless heat of the
+day without (a day on which the breath of the sirocco was abroad) had
+been called into existence.  Artificial currents of air through
+invisible tubes, silken blinds waving to and fro as if to cheat the
+senses into the belief of an April wind, and miniature jets d'eau in
+each corner of the apartment gave to the Italians the same sense of
+exhilaration and comfort (if I may use the word) which the well-drawn
+curtains and the blazing hearth afford to the children of colder climes.
+
+The conversation was somewhat more lively and intellectual than is
+common among the languid pleasure-hunters of the South; for the Prince,
+himself accomplished, sought his acquaintance not only amongst the beaux
+esprits of his own country, but amongst the gay foreigners who adorned
+and relieved the monotony of the Neapolitan circles.  There were present
+two or three of the brilliant Frenchmen of the old regime, and their
+peculiar turn of thought and wit was well calculated for the meridian of
+a society that made the dolce far niente at once its philosophy and its
+faith.  The Prince, however, was more silent than usual, and when he
+sought to rouse himself, his spirits were forced and exaggerated.  To
+the, manners of his host, those of Zicci afforded a striking contrast.
+The bearing of this singular person was at all times characterized by a
+calm and polished ease which was attributed by the courtiers to the long
+habit of society.  He could scarcely be called gay, yet few persons more
+tended to animate the general spirits of a convivial circle.  He seemed,
+by a kind of intuition, to elicit from each companion the qualities in
+which he most excelled; and a certain tone of latent mockery that
+characterized his remarks upon the topics on which the conversation
+fell, seemed to men who took nothing in earnest to be the language both
+of wit and wisdom.  To the Frenchmen in particular there was something
+startling in his intimate knowledge of the minutest events in their own
+capital and country, and his profound penetration (evinced but in
+epigrams and sarcasms) into the eminent characters who were then playing
+a part upon the great stage of Continental intrigue.  It was while this
+conversation grew animated, and the feast was at its height, that
+Glyndon (who, as the reader will recollect, had resolved, on learning
+from Cetoxa the capture of the actress, to seek the Prince himself)
+arrived at the palace.  The porter, perceiving by his dress that he was
+not one of the invited guests, told him that his Excellency was engaged,
+and on no account could be disturbed; and Glyndon then, for the first
+time, became aware of how strange and embarrassing was the duty he had
+taken on himself.  To force an entrance into the banquet-hall of a great
+and powerful noble surrounded by the rank of Naples, and to arraign him
+for what to his boon companions would appear but an act of gallantry,
+was an exploit that could not fail to be at once ludicrous and impotent.
+He mused a moment; and remembering that Zicci was among the guests,
+determined to apply himself to the Corsican.  He therefore, slipping a
+few crowns into the porter's hand, said that he was commissioned to seek
+the Signor Zicci upon an errand of life and death, and easily won his
+way across the court and into the interior building.  He passed up the
+broad staircase, and the voices and merriment of the revellers smote his
+ear at a distance.  At the entrance of the reception-rooms he found a
+page, whom he despatched with a message to Zicci.  The page did the
+errand; and the Corsican, on hearing the whispered name of Glyndon,
+turned to his host.
+
+"Pardon me, my lord, an English friend of mine, the Signor Glyndon (not
+unknown by name to your Excellency), waits without.  The business must
+indeed be urgent on which he has sought me in such an hour.  You will
+forgive my momentary absence."
+
+"Nay, signor," answered the Prince, courteously, but with a sinister
+smile on his countenance, "would it not be better for your friend to
+join us?  An Englishman is welcome everywhere; and even were he a
+Dutchman, your friendship would invest his presence with attraction.
+Pray his attendance,--we would not spare you even for a moment."
+
+Zicci bowed.  The page was despatched with all flattering messages to
+Glyndon, a seat next to Zicci was placed for him, and the young
+Englishman entered.
+
+"You are most welcome, sir.  I trust your business to our illustrious
+guest is of good omen and pleasant import.  If you bring evil news,
+defer it, I pray you."
+
+Glyndon's brow was sullen, and he was about to startle the guests by his
+reply, when Zicci, touching his arm significantly, whispered in English,
+"I know why you have sought me.  Be silent, and witness what ensues."
+
+"You know, then, that Isabel, whom you boasted you had the power to save
+from danger--"
+
+"Is in this house?  Yes.  I know also that Murder sits at the right hand
+of our host.  Be still, and learn the fate that awaits the foes of
+Zicci."
+
+"My lord," said the Corsican, speaking aloud, "the Signor Glyndon has
+indeed brought me tidings which, though not unexpected, are unwelcome.
+I learn that which will oblige me to leave Naples to-morrow, though I
+trust but for a short time.  I have now a new motive to make the most of
+the present hour."
+
+"And what, if I may venture to ask, may be the cause which brings such
+affliction on the fair dames of Naples?"
+
+"It is the approaching death of one who honored me with most loyal
+friendship," replied Zicci, gravely.  "Let us not speak of it,--Grief
+cannot put back the dial.  As we supply by new flowers those that fade
+in our vases, so it is the secret of worldly wisdom to replace by fresh
+friendships those that fade from our path."
+
+"True philosophy," exclaimed the Prince.  "'Not to admire' was the
+Roman's maxim; never to mourn is mine.  There is nothing in life to
+grieve for,--save, indeed, Signor Zicci, when some beauty on whom we
+have set our heart slips from our grasp.  In such a moment we have need
+of all our wisdom not to succumb to despair and shake hands with death.
+What say you, signor?  You smile.  Such never could be your lot.  Pledge
+me in a sentiment: 'Long life; to the fortunate lover; a quick release
+to the baffled suitor!'"
+
+"I pledge you," said Zicci.  And as the fatal wine was poured into his
+glass, he repeated, fixing his eyes on the Prince, "I pledge you even in
+this wine!"
+
+He lifted the glass to his lips.  The Prince seemed ghastly pale, while
+the gaze of the Corsican bent upon him with an intent and stern
+brightness that the conscience-stricken host cowered and quailed
+beneath.  Not till he had drained the draught and replaced the glass
+upon the board did Zicci turn his eyes from the Prince; and he then
+said, "Your wine has been kept too long,--it has lost its virtues.  It
+might disagree with many; but do not fear, it will not harm me, Prince.
+Signor Mascari, you are a judge of the grape, will you favor us with
+your opinion?"
+
+"Nay," answered Mascari, with well-affected composure, "I like not the
+wines of Cyprus, they are heating.  Perhaps Signor Glyndon may not have
+the same distaste.  The English are said to love their potations warm
+and pungent."
+
+"Do you wish my friend also to taste the wine, Prince?" said Zicci.
+"Recollect all cannot drink it with the same impunity as myself."
+
+"No," said the Prince, hastily; "if you do not recommend the wine,
+Heaven forbid that we should constrain our guests!  My Lord Duke,"
+turning to one of the Frenchmen, "yours is the true soil of Bacchus.
+What think you of this cask from Burgundy,--has it borne the journey?"
+
+"Ah!" said Zicci, "let us change both the wine and the theme."  With
+that the Corsican grew more animated and brilliant.  Never did wit more
+sparkling, airy, exhilarating, flash from the lips of reveller.  His
+spirits fascinated all present, even the Prince himself, even Glyndon,
+with a strange and wild contagion.  The former, indeed, whom the words
+and gaze of Zicci, when he drained the poison, had filled with fearful
+misgivings, now hailed in the brilliant eloquence of his wit a certain
+sign of the operation of the bane.  The wine circulated fast, but none
+seemed conscious of its effects.  One by one the rest of the party fell
+into a charmed and spell-bound silence as Zicci continued to pour forth
+sally upon sally, tale upon tale.  They hung on his words, they almost
+held their breath to listen.  Yet how bitter was his mirth; how full of
+contempt for all things; how deeply steeped in the coldness of the
+derision that makes sport of life itself!
+
+Night came on; the room grew dim, and the feast had lasted several hours
+longer than was the customary duration of similar entertainments at that
+day.  Still the guests stirred not, and still Zicci continued, with
+glittering eye and mocking lip, to lavish his stores of intellect and
+anecdote, when suddenly the moon rose, and shed its rays over the
+flowers and fountains in the court without, leaving the room itself half
+in shadow and half tinged by a quiet and ghostly light.
+
+It was then that Zicci rose.  "Well, gentlemen," said he, "we have not
+yet wearied our host, I hope, and his garden offers a new temptation to
+protract our stay.  Have you no musicians among your train, Prince, that
+might regale our ears while we inhale the fragrance of your orange-
+trees?"
+
+"An excellent thought," said the Prince.  "Mascari, see to the music."
+
+The party rose simultaneously to adjourn to the garden; and then, for
+the first time, the effect of the wine they had drunk seemed to make
+itself felt.
+
+With flushed cheeks and unsteady steps they came into the open air,
+which tended yet more to stimulate that glowing fever of the grape.  As
+if to make up for the silence with which the guests had hitherto
+listened to Zicci, every tongue was now loosened; every man talked, no
+man listened.  In the serene beauty of the night and scene there was
+something wild and fearful in the contrast of the hubbub and Babel of
+these disorderly roysterers.  One of the Frenchmen in especial, the
+young Due de R--,--a nobleman of the highest rank, and of all the quick,
+vivacious, and irascible temperament of his countrymen,--was
+particularly noisy and excited.  And as circumstances, the remembrance
+of which is still preserved among certain circles of Naples, rendered it
+afterwards necessary that the Due should himself give evidence of what
+occurred, I will here translate the short account he drew up, and which
+was kindly submitted to me some few years ago by my accomplished and
+lively friend, il Cavaliere di B--.
+
+     I never remember [writes the Due] to have felt my spirits so
+     excited as on that evening; we were like so many boys released from
+     school, jostling each other as we reeled or ran down the flight of
+     seven or eight stairs that led from the colonnade into the garden,
+     --some laughing, some whooping, some scolding, some babbling.  The
+     wine had brought out, as it were, each man's inmost character.
+     Some were loud and quarrelsome, others sentimental and whining;
+     some, whom we had hitherto thought dull, most mirthful; some, whom
+     we had ever regarded as discreet and taciturn, most garrulous and
+     uproarious.  I remember that in the midst of our most clamorous
+     gayety my eye fell upon the foreign cavalier, Signor Zicci, whose
+     conversation had so enchanted us all, and I felt a certain chill
+     come over me to perceive that he bore the same calm and
+     unsympathizing smile upon his countenance which had characterized
+     it in his singular and curious stories of the court of Louis XV.  I
+     felt, indeed, half inclined to seek a quarrel with one whose
+     composure was almost an insult to our disorder.  Nor was such an
+     effect of this irritating and mocking tranquillity confined to
+     myself alone.  Several of the party have told me since that on
+     looking at Zicci they felt their blood rise and their hands wander
+     to their sword-hilts.  There seemed in the icy smile a very charm
+     to wound vanity and provoke rage.  It was at this moment that the
+     Prince came up to me, and, passing his arm into mine, led me a
+     little apart from the rest.  he had certainly indulged in the same
+     excess as ourselves, but it did not produce the same effect of
+     noisy excitement.  There was, on the contrary a certain cold
+     arrogance and supercilious scorn in his bearing and language,
+     which, even while affecting so much caressing courtesy towards me,
+     roused my self-love against him.  He seemed as if Zicci had
+     infected him, and that in imitating the manner of his guest he
+     surpassed the original, he rallied me on some court gossip which
+     had honored my name by associating it with a certain beautiful and
+     distinguished Sicilian lady, and affected to treat with contempt
+     that which, had it been true, I should have regarded as a boast.
+     He spoke, indeed, as if he himself had gathered all the flowers of
+     Naples, and left us foreigners only the gleanings he had scorned;
+     at this my natural and national gallantry was piqued, and I
+     retorted by some sarcasms that I should certainly have spared had
+     my blood been cooler.  He laughed heartily, and left me in a
+     strange fit of resentment and anger.  Perhaps (I must own the
+     truth) the wine had produced in me a wild disposition to take
+     offence and provoke quarrel.  As the Prince left me, I turned, and
+     saw Zicci at my side.
+
+     "The Prince is a braggart," said he, with the same smile that
+     displeased me before.  "He would monopolize all fortune and all
+     love.  Let us take our revenge."
+
+     "And how?"
+
+     "He has at this moment in his house the most enchanting singer in
+     Naples,--the celebrated Isabel di Pisani.  She is here, it is true,
+     not by her own choice,--he carried her hither by force; but he will
+     pretend to swear that she adores him.  Let us insist.  on his
+     producing the secret treasure; and when she enters, the Duc de Lt--
+     can have no doubt that his flatteries and attentions will charm the
+     lady and provoke all the jealous fears of our host.  It would be a
+     fair revenge upon his imperious self conceit."
+
+     This suggestion delighted me.  I hastened to the Prince.  At that
+     instant the musicians had just commenced.  I waved my hand, ordered
+     the music to stop, and addressing the Prince, who was standing in
+     the centre of one of the gayest groups, complained of his want of
+     hospitality in affording to us such poor proficients in the art
+     while he reserved for his own solace the lute and voice of the
+     first performer in Naples.  I demanded, half laughingly, half
+     seriously, that he should produce the Pisani.  My demand was
+     received with shouts of applause by the rest.  We drowned the
+     replies of our host with uproar, and would hear no denial.
+     "Gentlemen," at last said the Prince, when he could obtain an
+     audience, "even were I to assent to your proposal, I could not
+     induce the signora to present herself before an assemblage as
+     riotous as they are noble.  You have too much chivalry to use
+     compulsion with her, though the Due de R-- forgets himself
+     sufficiently to administer it to inc."
+
+     I was stung by this taunt, however well deserved.  "Prince," said
+     I, "I have for the indelicacy of compulsion so illustrious an
+     example that I cannot hesitate to pursue the path honored by your
+     own footsteps.  All Naples knows that the Pisani despises at once
+     your gold and your love; that force alone could have brought her
+     under your roof; and that you refuse to produce her because you
+     fear her complaints, and know enough of the chivalry your vanity
+     sneers at to feel assured that the gentlemen of France are not more
+     disposed to worship beauty than to defend it from wrong."
+
+     "You speak well, sir," said Zicci, gravely;--"the Prince dare not
+     produce his prize."
+
+     The Prince remained speechless for a few moments, as if with
+     indignation.  At last he broke out into expressions the most
+     injurious and insulting against Signor Zicci and myself.  Zicci
+     replied not; I was more hot and hasty.  The guests appeared to
+     delight in our dispute.  None except Mascari, whom we pushed aside
+     and disdained to hear, strove to conciliate; some took one side,
+     some another.  The issue may be well foreseen.  Swords were drawn.
+     I had left mine in the ante room; Zicci offered me his own,--I
+     seized it eagerly.  There might be some six or eight persons
+     engaged in a strange and confused kind of melee, but the Prince and
+     myself only sought each other.  The noise around us, the confusion
+     of the guests, the cries of the musicians, the clash of our own
+     swords, only served to stimulate our unhappy fury.  We feared to be
+     interrupted by the attendants and fought like madmen, without skill
+     or method.  I thrust and parried mechanically, blind and frantic as
+     if a demon had entered into me, till I saw the Prince stretched at
+     my feet, bathed in his blood, and Zicci bending over him and
+     whispering in his ear.  The sight cooled us all; the strife ceased.
+     We gathered in shame, remorse, and horror round our ill-fated host;
+     but it was too late, his eyes rolled fearfully in his head, and
+     still he struggled to release himself from Zicci's arms, who
+     continued to whisper (I trust divine comfort) in his ear.  I have
+     seen men die, but, never one who wore such horror on his
+     countenance.  At last all was over; Zicci rose from the corpse, and
+     taking, with great composure, his sword from my hand,--"Ye are
+     witnesses, gentlemen," said he, calmly, "that the Prince brought
+     his fate upon himself.  The last of that illustrious house has
+     perished in a brawl."
+
+     I saw no more of Zicci.  I hastened to the French ambassador to
+     narrate the event and abide the issue.  I am grateful to the
+     Neapolitan government and to the illustrious heir of the
+     unfortunate nobleman for the lenient and generous, yet just,
+     interpretation put upon a misfortune the memory of which will
+     afflict me to the last hour of my life.  (Signed)  Louis Victor,
+     Duc de R.
+
+In the above memorial the reader will find the most exact and minute
+account yet given of an event which created the most lively sensation at
+Naples in that day, and the narration of which first induced me to
+collect the materials of this history, which the reader will perceive,
+as it advances, is altogether different in its nature, its agencies, and
+its aims from those tales of external terror, whether derived from
+ingenious imposture or supernatural mystery, that have given life to
+French melodrama or German romance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+Glyndon had taken no part in the affray, neither had he participated
+largely in the excesses of the revel.  For his exemption from both he
+was perhaps indebted to the whispered exhortations of Zicci.  When the
+last rose from the corpse and withdrew from that scene of confusion,
+Glyndon remarked that in passing the crowd he touched Mascari on the
+shoulder, and said something which the Englishman did not overhear.
+Glyndon followed Zicci into the banquet-room, which, save where the
+moonlight slept on the marble floor, was wrapped in the sad and gloomy
+shadows of the advancing night.
+
+"How could you foretell this fearful event?  He fell not by your arm,"
+said Glyndon, in a tremulous and hollow tone.
+
+"The general who calculates on the victory does not fight in person,"
+answered Zicci.  "But enough of this.  Meet me at midnight by the
+seashore, half a mile to the left of your hotel,--you will know the spot
+by a rude pillar, the only one near--, to which a broken chain is
+attached.  There and then will be the crisis of your fate; go.  I have
+business here yet,--remember, Isabel is still in the house of the dead
+man."
+
+As Glyndon yet hesitated, strange thoughts, doubts, and fears that
+longed for speech crowding within him, Mascari approached; and Zicci,
+turning to the Italian and waving his hand to Glyndon, drew the former
+aside.  Glyndon slowly departed.
+
+"Mascari," said Zicci, "your patron is no more.  Your services will be
+valueless to his heir,--a sober man, whom poverty has preserved from
+vice.  For yourself, thank me that I do not give you up to the
+executioner,--recollect the wine of Cyprus.  Well, never tremble, man,
+it could not act on me, though it might re-act on others,--in that it is
+a common type of crime.  I forgive you; and if the wine should kill me,
+I promise you that my ghost shall not haunt so worshipful a penitent.
+Enough of this.  Conduct me to the chamber of Isabel di Pisani; you have
+no further need of her.  The death of the jailer opens the cell of the
+captive.  Be quick,--I would be gone."  Mascari muttered some inaudible
+words, bowed low, and led the way to the chamber in which Isabel was
+confined.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+It wanted several minutes of midnight, and Glyndon repaired to the
+appointed spot.  The mysterious empire which Zicci had acquired over him
+was still more solemnly confirmed by the events of the last few hours;
+the sudden fate of the Prince, so deliberately foreshadowed, and yet so
+seemingly accidental--brought out by causes the most commonplace, and
+yet associated with words the most prophetic,--impressed him with the
+deepest sentiments of admiration and awe.  It was as if this dark and
+wondrous being would convert the most ordinary events and the meanest
+instruments into the agencies of his inscrutable will; yet, if so, why
+have permitted the capture of Isabel?  Why not have prevented the crime
+rather than punished the criminal?  And did Zicci really feel love for
+Isabel?  Love, and yet offer to resign her to himself,--to a rival whom
+his arts could not fail to baffle?  He no longer reverted to the belief
+that Zicci or Isabel had sought to dupe him into marriage.  His fear and
+reverence for the former now forbade the notion of so poor an imposture.
+Did he any longer love Isabel himself?  No.  When, that morning, he
+heard of her danger, he had, it is true, returned to the sympathies and
+the fears of affection; but with the death of the Prince her image faded
+again from his heart, and he felt no jealous pang at the thought that
+she had been saved by Zicci,--that at that moment she was perhaps
+beneath his roof.  Whoever has, in the course of his life, indulged the
+absorbing passion of the gamester, will remember bow all other pursuits
+and objects vanished from his mind, how solely he was wrapped in the one
+wild delusion; with what a sceptre of magic power the despot demon ruled
+every feeling and every thought.  Far more intense than the passion of
+the gamester was the frantic yet sublime desire that mastered the breast
+of Glyndon.  He would be the rival of Zicci, not in human and perishable
+affections, but in preternatural and eternal lore.  He would have laid
+down life with content, nay, rapture, as the price of learning those
+solemn secrets which separated the stranger from mankind..  Such fools
+are we when we aspire to be over-wise!  To be enamoured too madly of the
+goddess of goddesses is only to embrace a cloud, and to forfeit alike
+heaven and earth.
+
+The night was most lovely and serene, and the waves scarcely rippled at
+his feet as the Englishman glided on by the cool and starry beach.  At
+length he arrived at the spot, and there, leaning against the broken
+pillar, he beheld a man wrapped in a long mantle and in an attitude of
+profound repose.  He approached, and uttered the name of Zicci.  The
+figure turned, and he saw the face of a stranger,--a face not stamped by
+the glorious beauty of the Corsican, but equally majestic in its aspect,
+and perhaps still more impressive from the mature age and the
+passionless depth of thought that characterized the expanded forehead
+and deep-set but piercing eyes.
+
+"You seek Zicci," said the stranger,--"he will be here anon; but perhaps
+he whom you see before you is more connected with your destiny, and more
+disposed to realize your dreams."
+
+"Hath the earth then another Zicci?"
+
+"If not," replied the stranger, "why do you cherish the hope and the
+wild faith to be yourself a Zicci?  Think you that none others have
+burned with the same godlike dream?  Who, indeed, in his first youth;--
+youth, when the soul is nearer to the heaven from which it sprang, and
+its divine and primal longings are not all effaced by the sordid
+passions and petty cares that are begot in time?--who is there in youth
+that has not nourished the belief that the universe has secrets not
+known to the common herd, and panted, as the hart for the water-springs,
+for the fountains that he hid and far away amidst the broad wilderness
+of trackless science?  The music of the fountain is heard in the soul
+within till the steps, deceived and erring, rove away from its waters,
+and the wanderer dies in the mighty desert.  Think you that none who
+have cherished the hope have found the truth, or that the yearning after
+the Ineffable Knowledge was given to us utterly in vain?  No.  Every
+desire in human hearts is but a glimpse of things that exist, alike
+distant and divine.  No! in the world there have been, from age to age,
+some brighter and happier spirits who have won to the air in which the
+beings above mankind move and breathe.  Zicci, great though he be,
+stands not alone; he has his predecessors, his contemporary rivals, and
+long lines of successors are yet to come!"
+
+"And will you tell me," said Glyndon, "that in yourself I behold one of
+that mighty few over whom Zicci has no superiority in power and wisdom?"
+
+"In me," answered the stranger, "you see one from whom Zicci himself
+learned many of his loftiest secrets.  Before his birth my wisdom was!
+On these shores, on this spot, have I stood in ages that your chronicles
+but feebly reach.  The Phoenician, the Greek, the Oscan, the Roman, the
+Lombard,--I have seen them all!--leaves gay and glittering on the trunk
+of the universal life--scattered in due season and again renewed; till,
+indeed, the same race that gave its glory to the ancient world bestowed
+a second youth on the new.  For the pure Greeks--the Hellenes, whose
+origin has bewildered your dreaming scholars--were of the same great
+family as the Norman tribe, born to be the lords of the universe, and in
+no land on earth destined to be the hewers of wood.  Even the dim
+traditions of the learned that bring the sons of Hellas from the vast
+and undetermined territories of Northern Thrace, to be the victors of
+the pastoral Pelasgi, and the founders of the line of demi-gods, might
+serve you to trace back their primeval settlements to the same region
+whence, in later times, the Norman warriors broke on the dull and savage
+hordes of the Celt, and became the Greeks of the Christian world.  But
+this interests you not, and you are wise in your indifference.  Not in
+the knowledge of things without, but in the perfection of the soul
+within, lies the empire of man aspiring to be more than men."
+
+"And what books contain that science; from what laboratory is it
+wrought?"
+
+"Nature supplies the materials: they are around you in your daily walks;
+in the herbs that the beast devours and the chemist disdains to cull; in
+the elements, from which matter in its meanest and its mightiest shapes
+is deduced; in the wide bosom of the air; in the black abysses of the
+earth,--everywhere are given to mortals the resources and libraries of
+immortal lore.  But as the simplest problems in the simplest of all
+studies are obscure to one who braces not his mind to their
+comprehension; as the rower in yonder vessel cannot tell you why two
+circles can touch each other only in one point,--so, though all earth
+were carved over and inscribed with the letters of diviner knowledge,
+the characters would be valueless to him who does not pause to inquire
+the language and meditate the truth.  Young man, if thy imagination is
+vivid; if thy heart is daring, if thy curiosity is insatiate, I will
+accept thee as my pupil.  But the first lessons are stern and dread."
+
+"If thou hast mastered them, why not I?" answered Glyndon, boldly.  "I
+have felt from my boyhood that strange mysteries were reserved for my
+career, and from the proudest ends of ordinary ambition I have carried
+my gaze into the cloud and darkness that stretch beyond.  The instant I
+beheld Zicci, I felt as if I had discovered the guide and the tutor for
+which my youth had idly languished and vainly burned."
+
+"And to me his duty can be transferred," replied the stranger.  "Yonder
+lies, anchored in the bay, the vessel in which Zicci seeks a fairer
+home; a little while and the breeze will rise, the sail will swell, and
+the stranger will have passed like a wind away.  Still, like the wind,
+he leaves in thy heart the seeds that may bear the blossom and the
+fruit.  Zicci hath performed his task--he is wanted no more; the
+perfecter of his work is at thy side.  He comes--I hear the dash of the
+oar.  You will have your choice submitted to you.  According as you
+decide, we shall meet again."  With these words the stranger moved
+slowly away, and disappeared beneath the shadow of the cliffs.  A boat
+glided rapidly across the waters; it touched land, a man leapt on shore,
+and Glyndon recognized Zicci.
+
+"I give thee, Glyndon, I give thee no more the option of happy love and
+serene enjoyment.  That hour is past, and fate has linked the hand that
+might have been thine own to mine.  But I have ample gifts to bestow
+upon thee if thou wilt abandon the hope that gnaws thy heart, and the
+realization of which even I have not the power to foresee.  Be thine
+ambition human, and I can gratify it to the full.  Men desire four
+things in life,--love, wealth, fame, power.  The first I cannot give
+thee,--no matter why; the rest are at my disposal.  Select which of them
+thou wilt, and let us part in peace."
+
+"Such are not the gifts I covet: I choose knowledge, which indeed, as
+the schoolman said, is power, and the loftiest; that knowledge must be
+thine own.  For this, and for this alone, I surrendered the love of
+Isabel; this, and this alone, must be any recompense."
+
+"I cannot gainsay thee, though I can warn.  The desire to learn does not
+always contain the faculty to acquire.  I can give thee, it is true, the
+teacher; the rest must depend on thee.  Be wise in time, and take that
+which I can assure to thee."
+
+"Answer me but these questions, and according to your answer I will
+decide.  Is it in the power of man to attain intercourse with the beings
+of other worlds?  Is it in the power of man to read the past and the
+future, and to insure life against the sword and against disease?"
+
+"All this may be possible," answered Zicci evasively, "to the few.  But
+for one who attains such secrets, millions may perish in the attempt."
+
+"One question more.  Thou--"
+
+"Beware!  Of myself, as I have said before, I render no account."
+
+"Well, then, the stranger I have met this night--are his boasts to be
+believed?  Is he in truth one of the chosen seers whom you allow to have
+mastered the mysteries I yearn to fathom?"
+
+"Rash man," said Zicci, in a tone of compassion, "thy crisis is past,
+and thy choice made.  I can only bid thee be bold and prosper.  Yes, I
+resign thee to a master who has the power and the will to open to thee
+the gates of the awful world.  Thy weal or woe are as nought in the eyes
+of his relentless wisdom.  I would bid him spare thee, but he will heed
+me not.  Mejnour, receive thy pupil!"  Glyndon turned, and his heart
+beat when he perceived that the stranger, whose footsteps he had not
+heard on the pebbles, whose approach he had not beheld in the moonlight,
+was once more by his side.
+
+Glyndon's eyes followed the receding form of the mysterious Corsican.
+He saw him enter the boat, and he then for the first time noticed that
+besides the rowers there was a female, who stood up as Zicci gained the
+boat.  Even at this distance he recognized the once-adored form of
+Isabel.  She waved her hand to him, and across the still and shining air
+came her voice, mournfully and sweetly in her native tongue, "Farewell,
+Clarence--farewell, farewell."
+
+He strove to answer, but the voice touched a chord at his heart, and the
+words failed him.  Isabel was then lost forever,--gone with this dread
+stranger,--darkness was round her lot.  And he himself had decided her
+fate and his own!  The boat bounded on, the soft waves flashed and
+sparkled beneath the oars, and it was along one sapphire track of
+moonlight that the frail vessel bore away the lovers.  Farther and
+farther from his gaze sped the boat, till at last the speck, scarcely
+visible, touched the side of the ship that lay lifeless in the glorious
+bay.  At that instant, as if by magic, up sprang with a glad murmur the
+playful and refreshing wind.  And Glyndon turned to Mejnour, and broke
+the silence.
+
+"Tell me,--if thou canst read the future,--tell me that her lot will be
+fair, and that her choice at least is wise."
+
+"My pupil," answered Mejnour, in a voice the calmness of which well
+accorded with the chilling words, "thy first task must be to withdraw
+all thought, feeling, sympathy from others.  The elementary stage of
+knowledge is to make self, and self alone, thy study and thy world.
+Thou hast decided thine own career; thou hast renounced love; thou hast
+rejected wealth, fame, and the vulgar pomps of power.  What, then, are
+all mankind to thee?  To perfect thy faculties and concentrate thy
+emotions is henceforth thy only aim."
+
+"And will happiness be the end?"
+
+"If happiness exist," answered Mejnour, "it must be centred in A Self to
+which all passion is unknown.  But happiness is the last state of being,
+and as yet thou art on the threshold of the first!"
+
+As Mejnour spoke, the distant vessel spread its sails to the wind, and
+moved slowly along the deep.  Glyndon sighed, and the pupil and the
+master retraced their steps towards the city.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+It was about a month after the date of Zicci's departure and Glyndon's
+introduction to Mejnour, when two Englishmen were walking arm-in-arm
+through the Toledo.
+
+"I tell you," said one (who spoke warmly), "that if you have a particle
+of common-sense left in you, you will accompany me to England.  This
+Mejnour is an impostor more dangerous--because more in earnest--than
+Zicci.  After all, what do his promises amount to?  You allow that
+nothing can be more equivocal.  You say that he has left Naples, that he
+has selected a retreat more genial than the crowded thoroughfares of men
+to the studies in which he is to initiate you; and this retreat is among
+the haunts of the fiercest bandits of Italy,--haunts which Justice
+itself dare not penetrate; fitting hermitage for a sage!  I tremble for
+you.  What if this stranger, of whom nothing is known, be leagued with
+the robbers; and these lures for your credulity bait but the traps for
+your property,--perhaps your life?  You might come off cheaply by a
+ransom of half your fortune; you smile indignantly well! put common-
+sense out of the question; take your own view of the matter.  You are to
+undergo an ordeal which Mejnour himself does not profess to describe as
+a very tempting one.  It may, or it may not, succeed; if it does not,
+you are menaced with the darkest evils; and if it does, you cannot be
+better off than the dull and joyless mystic whom you have taken for a
+master.  Away with this folly!  Enjoy youth while it is left to you.
+Return with me to England; forget these dreams.  Enter your proper
+career; form affections more respectable than those which lured you a
+while to an Italian adventuress, and become a happy and distinguished
+man.  This is the advice of sober friendship; yet the promises I hold
+out to you are fairer than those of Mejnour."
+
+"Merton," said Glyndon, doggedly, "I cannot, if I would, yield to your
+wishes.  A power that is above me urges me on; I cannot resist its
+fascination.  I will proceed to the last in the strange career I have
+commenced.  Think of me no more.  Follow yourself the advice you give to
+me, and be happy."
+
+
+"This is madness," said Merton, passionately, but with a tear in his
+eye; "your health is already failing; you are so changed I should
+scarcely know you: come, I have already had your name entered in my
+passport; in another hour I shall be gone, and you, boy that you are,
+will be left without a friend to the deceits of your own fancy and the
+machinations of this relentless mountebank."
+
+"Enough," said Glyndon, coldly; "you cease to be an effective counsellor
+when you suffer your prejudices to be thus evident.  I have already had
+ample proof," added the Englishman, and his pale cheek grew more pale,
+"of the power of this man,--if man he be, which I sometimes doubt; and,
+come life, come death, I will not shrink from the paths that allure me.
+Farewell, Merton: if we never meet again; if you hear amidst our old and
+cheerful haunts that Clarence Glyndon sleeps the last sleep by the
+shores of Naples, or amidst the Calabrian hills,--say to the friends of
+our youth, 'He died worthily, as thousands of martyr-students have died
+before him, in the pursuit of knowledge.'"
+
+He wrung Merton's hand as he spoke, darted from his side, and
+disappeared amidst the crowd.
+
+That day Merton left Naples; the next morning Glyndon also quitted the
+City of Delight, alone and on horseback.  He bent his way into those
+picturesque but dangerous parts of the country which at that time were
+infested by banditti, and which few travellers dared to pass, even in
+broad daylight, without a strong escort.  A road more lonely cannot well
+be conceived than that on which the hoofs of his steed, striking upon
+the fragments of rock that encumbered the neglected way, woke a dull and
+melancholy echo.  Large tracts of waste land, varied by the rank and
+profuse foliage of the South, lay before him; occasionally a wild goat
+peeped down from some rocky crag, or the discordant cry of a bird of
+prey, startled in its sombre haunt, was heard above the hills.  These
+were the only signs of life; not a human being was met, not a hut was
+visible.  Wrapped in his own ardent and solemn thoughts, the young man
+continued his way, till the sun had spent its noonday heat, and a breeze
+that announced the approach of eve sprung up from the unseen ocean that
+lay far distant to his sight.  It was then that a turn in the road
+brought before him one of those long, desolate, gloomy villages which
+are found in the interior of the Neapolitan dominions; and now he came
+upon a small chapel on one side of the road, with a gaudily painted
+image of the Virgin in the open shrine.  Around this spot, which in the
+heart of a Christian land retained the vestige of the old idolatry (for
+just such were the chapels that in the Pagan age were dedicated to the
+demon-saints of mythology), gathered six or seven miserable and squalid
+wretches, whom the Curse of the Leper had cut off from mankind.  They
+set up a shrill cry as they turned their ghastly visages towards the
+horseman; and, without stirring from the spot, stretched out their gaunt
+arms, and implored charity in the name of the Merciful Mother.  Glyndon
+hastily threw them some small coins, and, turning away his face, clapped
+spurs to his horse, and relaxed not his speed till he entered the
+village.  On either side the narrow and miry street, fierce and haggard
+forms--some leaning against the ruined walls of blackened huts, some
+seated at the threshold, some lying at full length in the mud--presented
+groups that at once invoked pity and aroused alarm; pity for their
+squalor,--alarm for the ferocity imprinted on their savage aspects.
+They gazed at him, grim and sullen, as he rode slowly up the rugged
+street; sometimes whispering significantly to each other, but without
+attempting to stop his way.  Even the children hushed their babble, and
+ragged urchins, devouring him with sparkling eyes, muttered to their
+mothers, "We shall feast well to-morrow!"  It was, indeed, one of those
+hamlets in which Law sets not its sober step, in which Violence and
+Murder house secure,--hamlets common then in the wilder parts of Italy,
+in which the peasant was but the gentler name for the robber.
+
+Glyndon's heart somewhat failed him as he looked around, and the
+question he desired to ask died upon his lips.  At length, from one of
+the dismal cabins emerged a form superior to the rest.  Instead of the
+patched and ragged overall which made the only garment of the men he had
+hitherto seen, the dress of this person was characterized by all the
+trappings of Calabrian bravery.  Upon his raven hair, the glossy curls
+of which made a notable contrast to the matted and elfin locks of the
+savages around, was placed a cloth cap with a gold tassel that hung down
+to his shoulder; his mustaches were trimmed with care, and a silk
+kerchief of gay lines was twisted round a well-shaped but sinewy throat;
+a short jacket of rough cloth was decorated with several rows of gilt
+filagree buttons; his nether garments fitted tight to his limbs, and
+were curiously braided; while in a broad, party-colored sash were placed
+four silver-hilted pistols; and the sheathed knife, usually worn by
+Italians of the lower order, was mounted in ivory elaborately carved.  A
+small carbine of handsome workmanship was slung across his shoulder, and
+completed his costume.  The man himself was of middle size, athletic,
+yet slender; with straight and regular features,--sunburnt, but not
+swarthy; and an expression of countenance which, though reckless and
+bold, had in it frankness rather than ferocity, and, if defying, was not
+altogether unprepossessing.
+
+Glyndon, after eyeing this figure for some moments with great attention,
+checked his rein, and asked in the provincial patois, with which he was
+tolerably familiar, the way to the "Castle of the Mountain."
+
+The man lifted his cap as he heard the question, and, approaching
+Glyndon, laid his hand upon the neck of the horse, and said in a low
+voice, "Then you are the cavalier whom our patron the signor expected.
+He bade me wait for you here, and lead you to the castle.  And indeed,
+signor, it might have been unfortunate if I had neglected to obey the
+command."  The man then, drawing a little aside, called out to the
+bystanders in a loud voice, "Ho, ho, my friends, pay henceforth and
+forever all respect to this worshipful cavalier.  He is the accepted
+guest of our blessed patron of the Castle of the Mountain.  Long life to
+him!  May he, like his host, be safe by day and by night, in the hill
+and on the waste, against the dagger and the bullet, in limb and in
+life!  Cursed be he who touches a hair of his head, or a baioccho in his
+pouch.  Now and forever we will protect and honor him; for the law or
+against the law; with the faith, and to the death.  Amen.  Amen!"
+
+"Amen!" responded in wild chorus a hundred voices, and the scattered and
+straggling groups pressed up the street, nearer and nearer to the
+horseman.
+
+"And that he may be known," continued the Englishman's strange
+protector, "to the eye and to the ear, I place around him the white
+sash, and I give him the sacred watchword,--'Peace to the Brave.'
+Signor, when you wear this sash, the proudest in these parts will bare
+the head and bend the knee.  Signor, when you utter this watchword, the
+bravest hearts will be bound to your bidding.  Desire you safety, or ask
+you revenge; to gain a beauty, or to lose a foe, speak but the word, and
+we are yours, we are yours!  Is it not so, comrades?  "And again the
+hoarse voices shouted, "Amen, amen!"
+
+"Now, signor," whispered the bravo, in good Italian, "if you have a few
+coins to spare, scatter them amongst the crowd, and let us be gone."
+
+Glyndon, not displeased at the concluding sentence, emptied his purse in
+the street; and while, with mingled oaths, blessings, shrieks, and
+yells, men, women, and children scrambled for the money, the bravo,
+taking the rein of the horse, led it a few paces through the village at
+a brisk trot, and then turning up a narrow lane to the left, in a few
+minutes neither houses nor men were visible, and the mountains closed
+their path on either side.  It was then that, releasing the bridle and
+slackening his pace, the guide turned his dark eyes on Glyndon with an
+arch expression, and said,--
+
+"Your Excellency was not, perhaps, prepared for the hearty welcome we
+have given you."
+
+"Why, in truth, I ought to have been prepared for it, since my friend,
+to whose house I am bound, did not disguise from me the character of the
+neighborhood.  And your name, my friend, if I may call you so?"
+
+"Oh, no ceremonies with me, Excellency.  In the village I am generally
+called Maestro Paulo.  I had a surname once, though a very equivocal
+one; and I have forgotten that since I retired from the world."
+
+"And was it from disgust, from poverty, or from some some ebullition of
+passion which entailed punishment, that you betook yourself to the
+mountains?"
+
+"Why, signor," said the bravo, with a gay laugh, "hermits of my class
+seldom love the confessional.  However, I have no secrets while my step
+is in these defiles, my whistle in my pouch, and my carbine at my back."
+With that the robber, as if he loved permission to talk at his will,
+hemmed thrice, and began with much humor; though, as his tale proceeded,
+the memories it roused seemed to carry him further than he at first
+intended, and reckless and light-hearted ease gave way to that fierce
+and varied play of countenance and passion of gesture which characterize
+the emotions of his countrymen.
+
+"I was born at Terracina,--a fair spot, is it not?  My father was a
+learned monk, of high birth; my mother--Heaven rest her!--an innkeeper's
+pretty daughter.  Of course there was no marriage in the case; and when
+I was born, the monk gravely declared my appearance to be miraculous.  I
+was dedicated from my cradle to the altar; and my head was universally
+declared to be the orthodox shape for a cowl.  As I grew up, the monk
+took great pains with my education, and I learned Latin and psalmody as
+soon as less miraculous infants learn crowing.  Nor did the holy man's
+care stint itself to my interior accomplishments.  Although vowed to
+poverty, he always contrived that my mother should have her pockets
+full; and between her pockets and mine there was  soon established a
+clandestine  communication; accordingly, at fourteen, I wore my cap on
+one side, stuck pistols in my belt, and assumed the swagger of a
+cavalier and a gallant.  At that age my poor mother died; and about the
+same period, my father, having written a 'History of the Pontifical
+Bulls,' in forty volumes, and being, as I said, of high birth, obtained
+a cardinal's hat.  From that time he thought fit to disown your humble
+servant.  He bound me over to an honest notary at Naples, and gave me
+two hundred crowns by way of provision.  Well, signor, I saw enough of
+the law to convince me that I should never be rogue enough to shine in
+the profession.  So instead of spoiling parchment, I made love to the
+notary's daughter.  My master discovered our innocent amusement, and
+turned me out of doors,--that was disagreeable.  But my Ninetta loved
+me, and took care that I should not lie out in the streets with the
+lazzaroni.  Little jade, I think I see her now, with her bare feet, and
+her finger to her lips, opening the door in the summer nights, and
+bidding me creep softly into the kitchen, where--praised be the saints!-
+-a flask and a manchet always  awaited the hungry amoroso.  At last,
+however, Ninetta grew cold.  It is the way of the sex, signor.  Her
+father found her an excellent marriage in the person of a withered
+picture-dealer.  She took the spouse, and very properly clapped the door
+in the face of the lover.  I was not disheartened, Excellency; no, not
+I.  Women are plentiful while we are young.  So, without a ducat in my
+pocket, or a crust for my teeth, I set out to seek my fortune on board
+of a Spanish merchantman.  That was duller work than I expected: but
+luckily we were attacked by a pirate; half the crew were butchered, the
+rest captured.  I was one of the last,--always in luck, you see, signor,
+monks' sons have a knack that way!  The captain of the pirate took a
+fancy to me.  'Serve with us,' said he.  'Too happy,' said I.  Behold me
+then a pirate.  Oh jolly life! how I blest the old notary for turning me
+out of doors!  What feasting! what fighting! what wooing! what
+quarreling!  Sometimes we ran ashore and enjoyed ourselves like princes;
+sometimes we lay in a calm for days together, on the loveliest sea that
+man ever traversed.  And then, if the breeze rose, and a sail came in
+sight, who so merry as we?  I passed three years in that charming
+profession, and then, signor, I grew ambitious.  I caballed against the
+captain; I wanted his post.  One still night we struck the blow.  The
+ship was like a log in the sea,--no land to be seen from the mast-head,
+the waves like glass, and the moon at its full.  Up we rose,--thirty of
+us and more.  Up we rose with a shout; we poured into the captain's
+cabin,--I at the head.  The brave old boy had caught the alarm, and
+there he stood at the doorway, a pistol in each hand; and his one eye
+(he had only one) worse to meet than the pistols were.
+
+"'Yield,' cried I, 'your life shall be safe.'
+
+"'Take that,' said he, and whiz went the pistol; but the saints took
+care of their own, and the ball passed by my cheek, and shot the
+boatswain behind me.  I closed with the captain, and the other pistol
+went off without mischief in the struggle; such a fellow he was, six
+feet four without his shoes!  Over we went, rolling each on the other.
+Santa Maria!--no time to get hold of one's knife.  Meanwhile, all the
+crew were up, some for the captain, some for me; clashing and firing,
+and swearing and groaning, and now and then a heavy splash in the sea!
+Fine supper for the sharks that night!  At last old Bilboa got
+uppermost: out flashed his knife; down it came, but not in my heart.
+No! I gave my left arm as a shield, and the blade went through and
+through up to the hilt, with the blood spirting up like the rain from a
+whale's nostril.  With the weight of the blow the stout fellow came
+down, so that his face touched mine; with my right hand I caught him by
+the throat, turned him over like a lamb, signor, and faith it was soon
+all up with him; the boatswain's brother, a fat Dutchman, ran him
+through with a pike.
+
+"'Old fellow,' said I, as he turned up his terrible eye to me, 'I bear
+you no malice, but we must try to get on in the world, you know.'  The
+captain grinned and gave up the ghost.  I went upon deck; what a sight!
+Twenty bold fellows stark and cold, and the moon sparkling on the
+puddles of blood as calmly as if it were water.  Well, signor, the
+victory was ours, and the ship mine; I ruled merrily enough for six
+months.  We then attacked a French ship twice our size; what sport it
+was!  And we had not had a good fight so long we were quite like virgins
+at it!  We got the best of it, and won ship and cargo.  They wanted to
+pistol the captain: but that was against my laws; so we gagged him, for
+he scolded as loud as if we were married to him; left him and the rest
+of his crew on board our own vessel, which was terribly battered:
+clapped our black flag on the Frenchman's, and set off merrily, with a
+brisk wind in our favor.  But luck deserted us on forsaking our own dear
+old ship.  A storm came on; a plank struck; several of us escaped in the
+boats; we had lots of gold with us, but no water.  For two days and two
+nights we suffered horribly: but at last we ran ashore near a French
+seaport; our sorry plight moved compassion, and as we had money we were
+not suspected; people only suspect the poor.  Here we soon recovered our
+fatigues, rigged ourselves out gayly, and your humble servant was
+considered as noble a captain as ever walked deck.  But now, alas, my
+fate would have it that I should fall in love with a silk-mercer's
+daughter.  Ah! how I loved her,--the pretty Clara!  Yes, I loved her so
+well, that I was seized with horror at my past life; I resolved to
+repent, to marry her, and settle down into an honest man.  Accordingly,
+I summoned my messmates, told them my resolution, resigned my command,
+and persuaded them to depart.  They were good fellows; engaged with a
+Dutchman, against whom I heard afterwards they made a successful mutiny,
+but I never saw them more.  I had two thousand crowns still left; with
+this sum I obtained the consent of the silk-mercer, and it was agreed
+that I should become a partner in the firm.  I need not say that no one
+suspected I had been so great a man, and I passed for a Neapolitan
+goldsmith's son instead of a cardinal's.  I was very happy then, signor,
+very,--I could not have harmed a fly.  Had I married Clara I had been as
+gentle a mercer as ever handled a measure."
+
+The bravo paused a moment, and it was easy to see that he felt more than
+his words and tone betokened.  "Well, well, we must not look back at the
+Past too earnestly,--the sun light upon it makes one's eyes water.  The
+day was fixed for our wedding, it approached; on the evening before the
+appointed day, Clara, her mother, her little sister, and myself were
+walking by the port, and as we looked on the sea I was telling them old
+gossip tales of mermaids and sea-serpents,--when a red-faced bottle-
+nosed Frenchman clapped himself right before me, and placing his
+spectacles very deliberately astride his proboscis, echoed out, 'Sacre,
+mille tonnerres!  This is the damned pirate that boarded the "Niobe"!'
+
+"None of your jests,' said I, mildly.  'Ho, ho,' said he.  'I can't be
+mistaken.  Help there,' and he gripped me by the collar.  I replied, as
+you may suppose, by laying him in the kennel; but it would not do.  The
+French captain had a French lieutenant at his back, whose memory was as
+good as his master's.  A crowd assembled; other sailors came up; the
+odds were against me.  I slept that night in prison; and, in a few weeks
+afterwards, I was sent to the galleys.  They had spared my life because
+the old Frenchman politely averred that I had made my crew spare his.
+You may believe that the oar and the chain were not to my taste.  I, and
+two others, escaped; they took to the road, and have, no doubt, been
+long since broken on the wheel.  I, soft soul, would not commit another
+crime to gain my bread, for Clara was still at my heart with her soft
+eyes; so, limiting my rogueries to the theft of a beggar's rags, which I
+compensated him by leaving my galley attire instead, I begged my way to
+the town where I left Clara.  It was a clear winter's day when I
+approached the outskirts of the town.  I had no fear of detection, for
+my beard and hair were as good as a mask.  Oh, Mother of Mercy! there
+came across my way a funeral procession!  There, now, you know it.  I
+can tell you no more.  She had died, perhaps of love, more likely of
+shame.  Do you know how I spent that night?  I will tell you; I stole a
+pickaxe from a mason's shed, and, all alone and unseen, under the frosty
+heavens I dug the fresh mould from the grave; I lifted the coffin; I
+wrenched the lid, I saw her again--again.  Decay had not touched her.
+She was always pale in her life!  I could have sworn she lived!  It was
+a blessed thing to see her once more,--and all alone too!  But then at
+dawn, to give her back to the earth,--to close the lid, to throw down
+the mould, to hear the pebbles rattle on the coffin,--that was dreadful!
+Signor, I never knew before, and I don't wish to think now, how valuable
+a thing human life is.  At sunrise I was again a wanderer; but now that
+Clara was gone my scruples vanished, and again I was at war with my
+betters.  I contrived, at last, at O--, to get taken on board a vessel
+bound to Leghorn, working out my passage.  From Leghorn I went to Rome,
+and stationed myself at the door of the cardinal's palace.  Out he
+came,--his gilded coach at the gate.  "'Ho, father,' said I, 'don't you
+know me?'
+
+"'Who are you?'
+
+"'Your son,' said I, in a whisper.
+
+"The cardinal drew back, looked at me earnestly, and mused a moment.
+'All men are my sons,' quoth he then, very mildly; 'there is gold for
+thee.  To him who begs once, alms are due; to him who begs twice, jails
+are open.  Take the hint and molest me no more.  Heaven bless thee!'
+With that he got into his coach and drove off to the Vatican.  His
+purse, which he had left behind, was well supplied.  I was grateful and
+contented, and took my way to Terracina.  I had not long passed the
+marshes, when I saw two horsemen approach at a canter.
+
+"'You look poor, friend,' said one of them, halting; 'yet you are
+strong.'
+
+"'Poor men and strong are both serviceable and dangerous, Signor
+Cavalier.'
+
+"'Well said! follow us.'
+
+"I obeyed and became a bandit.  I rose by degrees; and as I have always
+been mild in my calling, and have taken purses without cutting throats,
+bear an excellent character, and can eat my macaroni at Naples without
+any danger to life and limbs.  For the last two years I have settled in
+these parts, where I hold sway, and where I have purchased land.  I am
+called a farmer, signor; and I myself now only rob for amusement, and to
+keep my hand in.  I trust I have satisfied your curiosity.  We are
+within a hundred yards of the castle."
+
+"And how," asked the Englishman, whose interest had been much excited by
+his companion's narrative, "and how came you acquainted with my host?
+and by what means has he so well conciliated the goodwill of yourself
+and your friends?"
+
+Maestro Paulo turned his black eyes gravely towards his questioner.
+"Why, signor," said he, "you must surely know more of the foreign
+cavalier with the hard name than I do.  All I can say is, that about a
+fortnight ago I chanced to be standing by a booth in the Toledo at
+Naples, when a sober-looking gentleman touched me by the arm, and said,
+'Maestro Paulo, I want to make your acquaintance; do me the favor to
+come into yonder tavern.'  When we were seated, my new acquaintance thus
+accosted me: 'The Count d' O-- has offered to let me hire his old castle
+near B--.  You know the spot?'
+
+"'Extremely well; no one has inhabited it for a century at least; it is
+half in ruins, signor.  A queer place to hire; I hope the rent is not
+heavy.'
+
+"'Maestro Paulo,' said he, 'I am a philosopher, and don't care for
+luxuries.  I want a quiet retreat for some scientific experiments.  The
+castle will suit me very well, provided you will accept me as a
+neighbor, and place me and my friends under your special protection.  I
+am rich; but I shall take nothing to the castle worth robbing.  I will
+pay one rent to the count, and another to you.'
+
+"With that we soon came to terms, and as the strange signor doubled the
+sum I myself proposed, he is in high favor with all his neighbors.  We
+would guard the old castle against an army.  And now, signor, that I
+have been thus frank, be frank with me.  Who is this singular cavalier?"
+
+"Who?--he himself told you, a philosopher."
+
+"Hem!  Searching for the philosopher's stone, eh?  A bit of a magician;
+afraid of the priests?"
+
+"Precisely.  You have hit it."
+
+"I thought so; and you are his pupil?"
+
+"I am."
+
+"I wish you well through it," said the robber, seriously, and crossing
+himself with much devotion; "I am not much better than other people, but
+one's soul is one's soul.  I do not mind a little honest robbery, or
+knocking a man on the head if need be,--but to make a bargain with the
+devil!--Ah! take care, young gentleman, take care."
+
+"You need not fear," said Glyndon, smiling; "my preceptor is too wise
+and too good for such a compact.  But here we are, I suppose.  A noble
+ruin!  A glorious prospect!"
+
+Glyndon paused delightedly, and surveyed the scene before and below with
+the eye of a poet and a painter.  Insensibly, while listening to the
+bandit, he had wound up a considerable ascent, and now he was upon a
+broad ledge of rock covered with mosses and dwarf shrubs.  Between this
+eminence and another of equal height, upon which the castle was built,
+there was a deep but narrow fissure, overgrown with the most profuse
+foliage, so that the eye could not penetrate many yards below the rugged
+surface of the abyss; but the profoundness might well be conjectured by
+the hoarse, low, monotonous sound of waters unseen that rolled below,
+and the subsequent course of which was visible at a distance in a
+perturbed and rapid stream that intersected the waste and desolate
+valleys.  To the left, the prospect seemed almost boundless; the extreme
+clearness of the purple air serving to render distinct the features of a
+range of country that a conqueror of old might have deemed in itself a
+kingdom.  Lonely and desolate as the road which Glyndon had passed that
+day had appeared, the landscape now seemed studded with castles, spires,
+and villages.  Afar off, Naples gleamed whitely in the last rays of the
+sun, and the rose-tints of the horizon melted into the azure of her
+glorious bay.  Yet more remote, and in another part of the prospect,
+might be caught, dim and shadowy, and backed by the darkest foliage, the
+ruined village of the ancient Possidonia.  There, in the midst of his
+blackened and sterile realms, rose the dismal Mount of Fire; while, on
+the other hand, winding through variegated plains, to which distance
+lent all its magic, glittered many a stream, by which Etruscan and
+Sybarite, Roman and Saracen and Norman, had, at intervals of ages,
+pitched the invading tent.  All the visions of the past the stormy and
+dazzling histories of Southern Italy--rushed over the artist's mind as
+he gazed below.  And then, slowly turning to look behind, he saw the
+gray and mouldering walls of the castle in which he sought the secrets
+that were to give to hope in the Future a mightier empire than memory
+owns in the Past.  It was one of those baronial fortresses with which
+Italy was studded in the earlier middle ages, having but little of the
+Gothic grace of grandeur which belongs to the ecclesiastical
+architecture of the same time; but rude, vast, and menacing even in
+decay.  A wooden bridge was thrown over the chasm, wide enough to admit
+two horsemen abreast; and the planks trembled and gave back a hollow
+sound as Glyndon urged his jaded steed across.
+
+A road that had once been broad, and paved with rough flags, but which
+now was half obliterated by long grass and rank weeds, conducted to the
+outer court of the castle hard by; the gates were open, and half the
+building in this part was dismantled, the ruins partially hid by ivy
+that was the growth of centuries.  But on entering the inner court,
+Glyndon was not sorry to notice that there was less appearance of
+neglect and decay: some wild roses gave a smile to the gray walls; and
+in the centre there was a fountain, in which the waters still trickled
+coolly, and with a pleasing murmur, from the jaws of a gigantic triton.
+Here he was met by Mejnour with a smile.
+
+"Welcome, my friend and pupil," said he; "he who seeks for Truth can
+find in these solitudes an immortal Academe."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER.  II.
+
+
+The attendants which Mejnour had engaged for his strange abode were such
+as might suit a philosopher of few wants.  An old Armenian, whom Glyndon
+recognized as in the mystic's service at Naples; a tall, hard-featured
+woman from the village, recommended by Maestro Paulo; and two long-
+haired, smooth-spoken, but fierce-visaged youths, from the same place,
+and honored by the same sponsorship,--constituted the establishment.
+The rooms used by the sage were commodious and weather-proof, with some
+remains of ancient splendor in the faded arras that clothed the walls
+and the huge tables of costly marble and elaborate carving.  Glyndon's
+sleeping apartment communicated with a kind of belvidere or terrace
+that commanded prospects of unrivalled beauty and extent, and was
+separated, on the other side, by a long gallery and a flight of ten
+or a dozen stairs, from the private chambers of the mystic.  There was
+about the whole place a sombre, and yet not displeasing, depth of repose.
+It suited well with the studies to which it was now to be appropriated.
+
+For several days Mejnour refused to confer with Glyndon on the subjects
+nearest to his heart.
+
+"All without," said he, "is prepared, but not all within.  Your own soul
+must grow accustomed to the spot, and filled with the surrounding
+Nature; for Nature is the source of all inspiration."
+
+With these words, which savored a little of jargon, Mejnour turned to
+lighter topics.  He made the Englishman accompany him in long rambles
+through the wild scenes around, and he smiled approvingly when the young
+artist gave way to the enthusiasm which their fearful beauty could not
+have failed to rouse in a duller breast; and then Mejnour poured forth
+to his wondering pupil the stores of a knowledge that seemed
+inexhaustible and boundless.  He gave accounts the most curious,
+graphic, and minute, of the various races--their characters, habits,
+creeds, and manners--by which that fair land had been successively
+overrun.  It is true that his descriptions could not be found in books,
+and were unsupported by learned authorities; but he possessed the true
+charm of the tale-teller, and spoke of all with the animated confidence
+of a personal witness.  Sometimes, too, he would converse upon the more
+durable and the loftier mysteries of Nature with an eloquence and a
+research which invested them with all the colors rather of poetry than
+science.  Insensibly the young artist found himself elevated and soothed
+by the lore of his companion; the fever of his wild desires was slaked.
+His mind became more and more lulled into the divine tranquillity of
+contemplation; he felt himself a nobler being; and in the silence of his
+senses he imagined that he heard the voice of his soul.
+
+It was to this state that Mejnour sought to bring the Neophyte, and in
+this elementary initiation the mystic was like every more ordinary sage.
+For he who seeks to discover must first reduce himself into a kind of
+abstract idealism, and be rendered up; in solemn and sweet bondage, to
+the faculties which contemplate and imagine.
+
+Glyndon noticed that, in their rambles, Mejnour often paused where the
+foliage was rifest, to gather some herb or flower; and this reminded him
+that he had seen Zicci similarly occupied.  "Can these humble children
+of Nature," said he one day to Mejnour, "things that bloom and wither in
+a day, be serviceable to the science of the higher secrets?  Is there a
+pharmacy for the soul as well as the body, and do the nurslings of the
+summer minister not only to human health but spiritual immortality?"
+
+"If," answered Mejnour, "before one property of herbalism was known to
+them, a stranger had visited a wandering tribe,--if he had told the
+savages that the herbs, which every day they trampled underfoot, were
+endowed with the most potent virtues; that one would restore to health a
+brother on the verge of death; that another would paralyze into idiocy
+their wisest sage; that a third would strike lifeless to the dust their
+most stalwart champion; that tears and laughter, vigor and disease,
+madness and reason, wakefulness and sleep, existence and dissolution,
+were coiled up in those unregarded leaves,--would they not have held him
+a sorcerer or a liar?  To half the virtues of the vegetable world
+mankind are yet in the darkness of the savages I have supposed.  There
+are faculties within us with which certain herbs have affinity, and over
+which they have power.  The moly of the ancients was not all a fable."
+
+One evening, Glyndon had lingered alone and late upon the ramparts,--
+watching the stars as, one by one, they broke upon the twilight.  Never
+had he felt so sensibly the mighty power of the heavens and the earth
+upon man! how much the springs of our intellectual being are moved and
+acted upon by the solemn influences of Nature!  As a patient on whom,
+slowly and by degrees, the agencies of mesmerism are brought to bear, he
+acknowledged to his heart the growing force of that vast
+and universal magnetism which is the life of creation, and binds the
+atom to the whole.  A strange and ineffable consciousness of power, of
+the something great within the perishable clay, appealed to feelings at
+once dim and glorious,--rather faintly recognized than all unknown.  An
+impulse that he could not resist led him to seek the mystic.  He would
+demand, that hour, his initiation into the worlds beyond our world; he
+was prepared to breathe a diviner air.  He entered the castle, and
+strode through the shadowy and star-lit gallery which conducted to
+Mejnour's apartment.
+
+
+THE END. (1)
+
+
+(1)  [So far as Zicci was ever finished.]
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ZICCI, BOOK 2, BY LYTTON ***
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