window-frames of the old houses, and causing to sway dismally the crown of rusty iron that, suspended to a bar of the same metal, formed the sign of my inn. Scarcely had I passed beneath its protection when, with a roar that seemed to burst from the chimney-pots, a salvo of thunder announced the opening of the ball, and ere it died away a rushing cataract, like the discharge of a waterspout, was flooding the streets, that hissed and boiled beneath the sudden fury of the downpouring deluge. The evening was now closing in, and as there was no prospect of being able to get out any more that day, I summoned resolution to pass the remaining hours as best I could within doors, desiring to be shown the room I was to occupy. It appeared, however, that it was situated at the other extremity of an open court-yard, throughout whose long extent I could see the raindrops, big as dollars, lashing the flagstones; so, postponing the passage of the seething cauldron between me and my apartment till the storm had spent itself, I sat down in the public room, and invoked patience to my aid. With a cheerless sense of utter loneliness, I tried to beguile the time by looking out of the window; it commanded an uninterrupted view of a particularly blank wall inspecting the interior of the salle-à-manger-if such it was, where nobody seemed disposed to resort for dining purposes-battered chairs and greasy tables summed up the inventory of its contents. I was at the end of my resources. The occasional bang of a distant door, and the stray sound of voices, showed that there were some signs of life in the kitchen and servants' quarters. I longed to go amongst them, if only for the sake of any companionship to break the feeling of solitude that began to be painfully oppressive. I had been travelling much and rapidly of late, and matters of private anxiety had kept my mind worried and on the stretch, so much so, that a state of nervous irritability had begun to manifest itself at times, which I felt equally out of my power to repress or account for. Determining however, by a vigorous effort of resolution, not to give way to the foolish fancies that were ready to gain mastery over my weakness, I braced myself up to shake them off; and, the violence of the hurricane being now diminished, the waiter was called, and, by my desire, ushered me across the still-flooded court-yard, towards the room whither my luggage had already preceded me.

It was apparently an older and less generally tenanted part of the house to which I was now conducted, to judge by the evidence of the dismal hall, and unlighted staircase, along which we passed, and the discoloured walls, from which patches of the plaster had here and there dropped-it must have been long ago-without any effort to repair or stay the damage. The solitary candle, flickering in the hand of my guide, threw shadows grotesque and fantastical athwart the broad stone steps up which we went. One or two passages opening out from the main corridor branched off, and were lost in darkness, that probably magnified their extent, or else to my excited fancy the proportions of all around me assumed increased dimensions; for I recollect pausing at the entrance of one and looking down it with the absurd notion floating through my brain, that it was more like a railway-tunnel than anything else; and that perhaps, far, far away there might be some steady, swift, unresting power I knew not of, gliding hitherward, impelled to seek me

VOL. III.

C

out, empowered to fascinate me here to await its coming. What was that? A faint, light foot-fall broke the silence, touching the floor with a quick even motion, rapidly advancing from the further end of the gallery towards me. I could see nothing, but nearer it came-nearer still— it was within a foot of where I stood when, psha! with a squealing mew of alarm, a startled cat scurried past me. It was really ridiculous, I felt, allowing myself to be such a fool. Hastily turning away in the direction of the dim light that still piloted me on, I did not stop again till I had passed within the door of my room, and taking the candle from the waiter's hand, saw that functionary disappear, wishing me good night, and leaving me once more alone.

As soon as I had taken a leisurely survey of my new quarters, I was forced to confess that they were not exactly of a description to put to flight the whimsical absurdities of fancy, in which I was already ashamed of indulging, or to restore the even tension of nerves which I really felt were for the moment overwrought or unstrung. The apartment that was now to be mine for the night, had evidently at some distant date formed part of a state suite of rooms, probably the principal ones in the palace of a noble, it might be of Duke Alfonso's court. It was so lofty that the upper part of the wall was lost in shadow; and the dusky ceiling only allowed so much of its design to be visible, as to show that it had been fashioned in stucco-work of a richly elaborate kind, but of which the pattern was cut short by the lath-and-plaster division at present doing duty for a partition-wall between the room I was in and the next slice of what was no longer a continuous gallery. There was a high heavy mantel-piece at one end of the room; and above it, let into the wall itself, was a picture painted on panel, a portrait probably of the sixteenth century. It was the figure of a man draped in the folds of a Spanish cloak, and wearing a hat with a drooping plume of feathers slouching low on his forehead. To my distempered imagination the eyes seemed fixed on me with a strange burning brilliancy; and there almost appeared to me to be something familiar in the attitude and the whole effect of the figure, till the scene of the afternoon suddenly recurring to my mind, I recognised, in my remembrance of the man I had seen amid the castle ruins, the clue to my supposed familiarity with the picture before me. It was absurd, and yet when I looked again, there was more than a fancied likeness; the light was too indistinct to allow me to see the features accurately, but the glitter of the eyes, the cloak thrown over the shoulder, the hat Why, thought I, if the hero of my daylight rencontre had but worn feathers in his, which I don't recollect that he did, I could have sworn that that was the very droop of his sombrero. I resolved to look no longer, and putting down the candle on the table, threw myself into an armchair in company with an old newspaper which I took out of my portmanteau, determined to read it steadily through, and so discipline the time that remained before going to bed. It was in vain, however, that I tried to fix my attention on leading article, fashionable intelligence, or advertisement; the paragraphs met my gaze, but failed to engage any interest in their contents. My ear was set to catch the slightest sound; my eye wandered restlessly towards the shadowy corners of the room, and, though I resolved not to glance in that direction, I felt the inspection of those unwavering

eyes above the mantel-piece looking down upon me, and watching every movement. The storm, meantime, that had lulled for a little, now broke forth afresh, not with the continued violence of its former fury, but fitfully, at passionate intervals, dashing against the window-panes, and roaring round the roof as if seeking to force an entry, and then sullenly withdrawing its beaten forces to gather strength ere rushing to a renewed attack. It was in one of the intervals that thus diversified the war of wind and rain going on outside, as I listened, in the gradually succeeding quiet, to the distant preparations of the combatants, that a low murmuring sound, coming from the direction of the far end of the room, struck my ear and made me start to my feet. A large heavy screen was stretched before the wall of that side of the apartment; and it was evident that from behind it came the sounds in question, seeming to proceed from some spot not within the room itself, but as though a door left ajar between it and another chamber gave them admittance. Cautiously, with candle advanced well before me, and stepping softly, I crept to the screen, peered round it-nothing to be seen there. At this moment, with an outburst of redoubled violence, the wind, dashing

inst the window-frame, forced it open, and extinguishing the candle, left the room in darkness. No sooner was this the case than I perceived, what till then had failed to be noticeable, that through two or three chinks in the partition boarding, rays from a light in the adjacent apartment were visible; and on looking closer, the planks of lath were, I saw, so loosely put together as to enable me, in more than one place, to command a view of what was taking place in the room beyond. First closing the window, I returned, and without bestowing a thought upon the equivocal nature of my proceeding, applied my eye to one of these apertures, and no sooner had I done so than all other considerations were lost in the interest with which the scene I looked on held me rivetted to the spot.

It was a room of about the same dimensions as the one I occupied, but barer and more scantily furnished. On a table, at one side, stood an oil-lamp of the rudest construction, whose feeble glimmer scarcely sufficed to light up that part of the chamber lying beyond it, where I could with difficulty make out the folds of a curtain hanging before what was either a recess in the room itself, or the passage to another apartment. It was not, however, on these furnishing details that my attention was turned; my eye but glanced over them to be caught and arrested by the figure of a woman, who seemed, at first sight, the only occupant of the room. She was standing nearly opposite to where I was placed, holding open a door leading to some passage, the darkness of which allowed me to distinguish nothing beyond; her face was turned away from me, and after a moment I perceived that the sounds of the voices I had heard were those of her's and that of some one outside with whom she was holding a hurried conversation. I had hardly done more than note what I have described, when turning round towards me, what was my astonishment to recognize in her the young girl whom I had seen that day, and in the man, whom she was now conducting softly into the apartment, with finger on her lip, and looking cautiously around, her quondam companion. There he stood, in cloak, hat, and general appearance, much the same as I had seen him in the

grounds of the Castle; but in the girl's face and whole air a complete change was manifest.

Instead of the dejected look of grief and despair with which her eyes had been fixed on the ground when last I saw her, an eager excitement seemed now to animate every gesture, every glance; the ear bent forward to listen anxiously, the eye peering restlessly in all directions, were evidences of irrepressible anxiety, resolute to accomplish something of which the execution yet gave cause for alarm. This strange pair moved forward thus to the centre of the room, and, there pausing, the woman turned round, and pointing to the curtain I have mentioned as hanging at the other end of the chamber, said to her companion in a tone of voice sufficiently distinct for me to catch each word-"Hush! his sleeping chamber is beyond."

"And you are certain, Giulia, that it is he himself," replied the

man.

"Can I be mistaken ?" she rejoined. "When first he arrived, his disguise, and the absence of any idea that I should meet him here, prevented me from recognizing him; but his voice and accent soon struck me, I knew not why, for I did not recollect him even then; but I watched closely; he, suspecting nothing, heeded me not. I marked his gait; I looked upon his hand--you remember that scar upon his left palm-his disguise was penetrated; the so-called Count Moncorvo stood before me. Oh, it was maddening to think that there, by a miracle of Heaven, within reach of my hand, was placed the man who has brought you, father, so low, and that yet he might escape. I dreaded that you might already have left the town, and if so- I could not bear to think of it. I rushed forth to seek, thank Heaven to find you, in time."

"At length my hour is come !"-and as the man uttered these words, his form seemed to dilate, his eye to glisten, the fire of long-repressed passion to burn in his regard—" the hour of justice, call it not revengethe hour that shall redress the wrong I suffered at his hands, or and his fingers closed upon a dagger-hilt which peeped from beneath the folds of his cloak-"repay it him."

"Hark! what was that?" exclaimed the girl, as a sound proceeding from the direction of the curtain made them both start. "It is his step he is coming this way. Back! back! the light will betray us!" and catching hold of the man's hand, she drew him quickly back within the shadow of the wall. At the same instant, emerging from the darkness at the opposite extremity of the room, there advanced forward a man, the expression of whose countenance, as he came towards the table on which the lamp stood, once seen, made me forget all beside ; so pale as to be well nigh bloodless, with lips rigidly closed, and eyes that, while wide open, seemed wholly void of speculation-cold, motionless orbs, wherein no ray of intelligence appeared ever to have shone. I scarce noted the short, abrupt, mechanical movement of the pace with which this figure advanced, so intently absorbed was I by the unearthly aspect of the features I beheld. Such a face, methought, might Frankenstein have shuddered to see instinct with the first animation of life, as the horrible monster of his creation began to recognise in him the author of its being. On he came, gazing fixedly before him, not moving

his head a hair-breadth to the right or left, straight in the direction of the spot where I was standing. Fascinated with horror, I held my breath till, as he drew nearer, in a paroxysm of nervous excitement I was on the point of rushing from the room and shouting an alarm, when he suddenly stopped short within a few feet of the wall dividing us, and stretching out his hands, seemed searching for something in the empty space. This gesture, and the uncertain manner in which he moved his hands about, were so strange as to cause me to examine more closely ; and, as I did so, the truth flashed across my mind that, in the man before me, I saw a somnambulist! Such was certainly the case. He was even now occupied in the mental carrying out of some course of action, of which he alone held the clue.

"It should be here," he muttered. "Why, what is this? Has the chapel been rebuilt, or is the altar gone, or have I, it may be, gone astray? No, no-this is the Oratory of Saint Anthony-this, surely, is the spot. Ah, here it is indeed," exclaimed he, as he touched, in groping about, a low, heavy, old-fashioned chest that did duty for a wardrobe against the wall. "Let my friend Filippo cry loud as he may, it will be long before he makes this hiding-place reveal its secret," continued he, with a low chuckle, as stooping down he opened a bottom drawer of the chest, which he appeared to identify with some place of concealment present to his mind's eye, and made a motion as if depositing something therein.

"The Oratory of Saint Anthony!" repeated, with a suppressed cry, the cloaked stranger, who, while all this was going on, had crept gradually forward, and was now standing close behind the sleep-walker. "I know it well. 'Twas there, most noble Count, was it, that the papers were to be guarded whose loss should blast my life?" And folding his arms, he looked down with a fierce smile of exulting hatred on the man who, kneeling before him, was busied in re-closing the drawer.

Suddenly the latter started, listened, and after a moment's pause sprung to his feet.

"Hist! Who spoke? Giacomo-make answer, man. Who is it?" A hand fell upon his shoulder with a clench, that I could see held him as in a vice, and the first speaker's voice replied, "Filippo! awake, Signor Conte, and welcome an old friend."

With a convulsive shudder, that seemed to thrill through his whole body, the somnambulist gasped violently, his eyes quivered, and he awoke. For some seconds his scattered senses failed to show him his situation; but the pressure of the hand that grasped his shoulder made him start, and, looking up, a cry of terror seemed on the point of bursting from his lips at sight of the man before him, when the latter, anticipating him, flung his cloak before his mouth, and rapidly whispered, "On your life, not a sound-raise an alarm and you die on the spot. Those letters-those papers! Speak! Where are they now?"

"What mean you? I know not what you seek of me."

"Trifle not with a desperate man-speak, and quickly, or it may be too late."

"Father! father!" cried the young girl, rushing in alarm from the door, where till now she had been keeping watch, "I hear them coming this way already. They have tracked you hither! Fly, or you are lost." "And leave him again to mock at me in safety? Never!"