Ere I could reply he called to his comrades, and in a few moments we were speeding across the campagna.

We arrived at a high wall: the old man conducted us to a postern gate, which he opened. We entered a garden filled with orange-trees, the perfume of which loaded the midnight air. We heard the splash of a fountain at a distance, and the thrilling notes of a nightingale amongst some taller trees. The moon hung like a lamp over the belvidere of the proud villa. We strode along a wide terrace edged by a marble balustrade. The old man pointed to an open summer-house terminating the walk, and gave me a significant look, but he spoke not. A window thrown open admitted us to the house. We were within a hall crowded with statues, and traversed noiselessly its marble floors. Passing through several chambers, we then mounted to a corridor, and entered an apartment which formed the ante-room to another beyond it. Placing his finger upon his lips, and making a sign to his comrades, Cristofano opened a door and disappeared. There was a breathless pause for a few minutes, during which I listened intently, but caught only a faint sound as of the snapping of a lock.

Presently the old man returned.

"He sleeps," he said, in a low, deep tone to me,-"sleeps as his victim slept-sleeps without a dream of remorse; and he shall awaken, as she awoke, to despair. Come into his chamber!"

We obeyed. The door was made fast within side.

The curtains of the couch were withdrawn, and the moonlight streamed full upon the face of the sleeper. He was hushed in profound repose. No visions seemed to haunt his peaceful slumbers. Could guilt sleep so soundly? I half doubted the old man's story.

Placing us within the shadow of the canopy, Cristofano approached the bed. A stiletto glittered in his hand. "Awake!" he cried, in a voice of thunder.

The sleeper started at the summons.
I watched his countenance.

But he quailed not.

He read Cristofano's errand in his eye.

"Cowardly assassin!" he cried; "you have well consulted your own safety in stealing on my sleep."

"And who taught me the lesson ?" fiercely interrupted the old man. "Am I the first that have stolen on midnight slumber? Gaze upon this? When and how did it acquire its dye ?" and he held forth a glove, which looked blackened and stained in the moonlight.

The marchese groaned aloud.

66

My cabinet broken open!" at length he exclaimed-“ villain! how dared you do this? But why do I rave? I know with whom I have to deal." Uttering these words he sprung from his couch with the intention of grappling with the old man; but Cristofano retreated, and at that instant the brigands who rushed to his aid thrust me forward. I was face to face with the marchese.

The apparition of the murdered man could not have staggered him more. His limbs were stiffened by the shock, and he remained in an attitude of freezing terror.

"Is he come for vengeance?" he ejaculated.

"He is!" cried Cristofano. "Give him the weapon !" And a

stiletto was thrust into my hand. But I heeded not the steel. I tore open my bosom a small diamond cross was within the folds.

"Do you

recollect this?" I demanded of the marchese.

"It was my wife's!" he shrieked in amazement.

"It was upon the infant's bosom as he slept by her side on that fatal night," said Cristofano. "I saw it sparkle there."

"That infant was myself-that wife my mother!" I cried.

"The murderer stands before you! Strike!" exclaimed Cristofano. I raised the dagger. The marchese stirred not.-I could not strike. "Do you hesitate ?" angrily exclaimed Cristofano.

"You

"He has not the courage," returned the younger Calabrian. reproached me this morning with want of filial duty. Behold how a son can avenge his father!" And he plunged his stiletto within the bosom of the marchese.

"Your father is not yet avenged, young man!" cried Cristofano, in a terrible tone. "You alone can avenge him!"

Ere I could withdraw its point the old man had rushed upon the dagger which I held extended in my grasp.

He fell without a single groan.

THE SUNKEN CITY.

FROM THE GERMAN OF J. MULLER.

BY PERCY BOYD.

THERE floats a sound far o'er the deep sea ringing,
Of bells at evening with a soft low chime,
Strange tidings of a Wonder-City bringing,
'Neath its wave whelm'd in the olden time.
And though the tide of ocean ever streaming
Washes the place of that old city's grave,
Its golden battlements are still seen gleaming
At evening, mirror'd in the lighted wave.

And once the boatman who has seen them glisten
In the clear twilight with enchanted ray,
He lingers spell-bound for their voice, to listen
Though rocks rise threat'ning in his homeward way.
Thus to the heart, like those sweet chimes, comes often
A strange sad voice from Memory's phantom shore,
And wayward thoughts the dreamer's vision soften,
Of love long vanish'd-to return no more.

The faded ruins of a world once splendid,
Now deeply buried in the past dim sea,

With thoughts and hopes that long ago seem'd ended
In dreams of midnight, rise again to me.

Beneath the ray which memory's light was flinging,
I long to vanish in those dim waves' foam,
And angel voices to my spirit singing,
Call me to the old Wonder-City home.

MEMOIRS OF A PHYSICIAN.

BY ALEXANDRE DUMAS.

BOOK THE FIRST.

INTRODUCTION.

CHAP. I.-MONT TONNERRE.

On the left bank of the Rhine, a few leagues distance from the Imperial City of Worms, and close by where the little river of Seltz has its origin, the first ranges of mountains spring up, whose bristling crests appear to fly away towards the north, like a herd of affrighted buffaloes, disappearing in the mist.

These mountains which, already from their slopes, dominate an almost desert country, and which appear to form a train to the highest among them, bear each a name that is indicative of their form, or that recalls a tradition: one is the King's Chair, the other the Stone of Eglantines, this one the Rock of the Falcons, that one the Serpent's Crest. The most elevated of all, the one that rises most heaven-ward, girdling its granite brow with a crown of ruins, is the "Thunder Mount."

When evening darkens the shadow of the oak trees, when the last rays of the sun come to gild as they die, the lofty heads of this family of giants, it seems as if silence came down step by step from their sublime heights to the plain, and that an invisible and powerful arm developed from their flanks, to spread it over the world, wearied with the noises and the labours of the day, that long bluish veil, in the depths of which the stars sparkle. Then every thing passes insensibly from wakefulness to sleep. Every thing slumbers alike upon earth and in the air.

Alone, and in the midst of this silence, the little river of which we have already spoken, the Seltzbach, as it is called in the country, pursues its mysterious course under the pine trees on its banks, and although neither day nor night arrest it, for it must throw itself into the Rhine, which is its eternity, although we say neither day nor night can stay its onward course, the sand in its bed is so fresh, its reeds are so flexible, its rocks so well matted with mosses and saxifrages, that not one of its wavelets are heard from Morsheim, where it commences, to Freiwenheim, where it ends.

A little above its sources, between Albisheim and Kircheim-Poland, a sinuous road, hollowed out between two abrupt walls and furrowed, by eye seeks deep ruts, leads to Danenfels. Beyond Danenfels the road becomes a path, then the path itself diminishes, is effaced and lost, and the in vain for any thing on the soil, beyond the vast slope of Mont Tonnerre, whose mysterious summit so often visited by the fire of the Lord, has placed itself behind a girdle of green trees, as if behind an impenetrable wall.

In fact, once arrived beneath these trees, bushy as the oaks of the ancient Dodona, the traveller can continue his journey without being perceived

from the plain even in open day, and his horse, were he ringing with little bells, like a Spanish mule, the sound of the bells would not be heard; were he caparisoned with velvet and gold, like an emperor's horse, not one ray of gold or purple would pierce through the foliage, so effectively does the thickness of the forest stifle all noise, so effectively does the density of its shadows obscure all colours.

Still, in the present day, when the most elevated mountains have become mere observatories, and the most poetically terrible legends only awaken a smile of doubt upon the traveller's lips; even in the present day this solitude terrifies and renders this part of the country so venerable, that only a few huts of most humble aspect, stragglers from the neighbouring villages, appear at some distance from this magic girdle, to testify to the presence of man in this country.

Those who inhabit these houses scattered in the solitude, are millers, who let the river merrily grind their corn, the flour of which they convey to Rockenhausen and to Alzey, or shepherds who, on leading their flocks to pasture on the mountain, sometimes tremble, they and their dogs, at the noise of some aged pine falling from decrepitude in the unknown depths of the forest.

For the associations of the country are lugubrious, we have already said, and the path-way which is lost beyond Danenfels in the midst of the mountain heather, has not always, as the bravest are heard to say, conducted honest Christians to a harbour of safety.

It is even possible that one of its actual inhabitants may have heard related formerly by his father or his grandfather, that which we are now going to endeavour to relate ourselves.

The 6th of May, 1770, at the hour when the waters of the great river are tinted with white and rose, that is to say, the moment when for all Rhingau the sun descends behind the spire of the cathedral at Strasburg, which cuts it into two hemispheres of fire: a man coming from Mayence, after having traversed Alzey and Kircheim Poland, made his appearance beyond the village of Danenfels, followed the path as long as the path was visible, and when every trace of a road was lost, he dismounted, and taking his horse by the bridle, made it fast, without hesitation, to the nearest pine tree of the redoubtable forest. The animal neighed with anxiety, and the forest seemed to quake at this unaccustomed noise.

"Well, well!" muttered the traveller, "be quiet, my good Jerid; we have got over twelve leagues, and you, at all events, have arrived at the end of your journey."

And the traveller attempted to pierce with his eye into the leafy depths before him; but the shadows were so opaque, that only black masses were to be seen, that were backed by masses of a still deeper black. This fruitless examination made, the traveller turned to the animal, whose Arab name at once indicated his origin and his speed, and taking his head in both his hands, he brought his smoking nostrils close to his mouth.

"Good bye, my brave horse," he said, "if I do not see you again, good bye."

And these words were accompanied by a rapid glance which the traveller cast around him, as if he either feared or wished to be overheard. The horse shook its silky mane, struck the ground with its foot,

and neighed as it would have done at the approach of a lion in the desert. The traveller this time merely shook his head, from above below, as if he would have said, "You are not wrong, Jerid, the danger lies here."

But then, as if decided beforehand not to resist this danger, the adventurous unknown drew from the bow of the saddle two pistols, with chased barrels and silver gilt stocks, then, with the screw of their ramrods, he unloaded the one after the other, and threw the powder on the ground. This operation concluded, he placed the pistols in their cases. That was not all. The traveller carried at his waist a sword with a steel handle; he unbuckled the girdle, rolled it round the sword, passed the whole under the saddle, and fastened it with the stirrup-leathers, so that the point of the sword corresponded to the groin, and the handle to the shoulder of the horse. At length, these strange formalities being concluded, the traveller shook his dusty boots, took off his gloves, explored his pockets, and having found in them a small pair of scissors, and a penknife with a tortoise-shell handle, he cast them one after the other over his shoulder, without looking where they fell. This accomplished, after having, for the last time, passed his hand over the buttocks of his horse, after having breathed, as if to give his chest every possible amount of dilatation, the traveller sought in vain for even the trace of a pathway, and seeing none, he penetrated into the forest as chance directed him.

It is time, we think now, to give to our readers an exact idea of the traveller whom we have just introduced to them, and who is destined to play an important part in the course of our history.

He

He who, after dismounting from his horse, had ventured so boldly into the forest, appeared to be a man of thirty or thirty-two years of age, above the mean height, and so well set, that one could perceive at once that both skill and force dwelt in his flexible and muscular limbs. was dressed in a kind of travelling coat, of black velvet, with gold buttons, beneath the last buttons of which the two ends of an embroidered waistcoat showed themselves, while his limbs, which might have served as models for a statuary, were encased in tight leather breeches and boots of varnished leather.

As to his countenance, which had all the mobility of a southern type, it was a singular admixture of strength and craftiness; his look, which could express every sentiment, appeared, when it rested upon any one, to throw two rays of light into the person contemplated, that were destined to light up his soul. His brown cheeks, it could be seen at once, had been tinged by a sun that burnt more than ours. Lastly, a large mouth, of beautiful form, opened just sufficiently to allow a double row of magnificent teeth to be seen, and which the depth of his colour caused to appear still whiter. His foot was long but slender; the hand was small but muscular.

Scarcely had the person, whose portrait we have just drawn, advanced ten paces into the dark wood, than he heard rapid footsteps in the direction in which he had left his horse. His first movement, a movement as to the intention of which there could be no mistake, was to return upon his steps; but he restrained himself; nevertheless, being unable to resist the desire of knowing what had become of Jerid, he rose upon the top of his toes to peer through a small opening in the foliage, and, led away by an invisible hand, that had unfastened his bridle, Jerid had disappeared.