unyielding vengeance, and as if unconscious of the interruption: "but the Idead who died in the resistance of their monastic duties-who expired in their prison-cells unshrined-and whose souls are even now writhing in the fires that are unquenchable: the dead, over whom no prayers were utteredupon whom neither holy oil nor holy water was expended-and whose ashes we have cast out from the blessed resting place, where moulder those of their more worthy brethren: there kneel and pray; and St. Nicholas preserve you from the visitation of their foul and fire-bound spirits!"

A slight wave of the hand terminated the address of the superior; and at this signal the monk, who had been the accuser of the marchese, and who was still in attendance, rose from his knees, and laid his open palm heavily upon the arm of his victim. Father Dominic proudly and silently turned to quit the chamber, where the general was already once more to all appearance wholly engrossed by the contents of his ponderous manuscript, for he was anxious to find himself alone, in order that he might examine the hidden letter, by which his thoughts were far more occupied than by dread of the penance which had just been pronounced against him.

"And do you go forth thus?" exclaimed the superior, as he abruptly raised his head, and glanced towards the retiring figure of the young noble, who had scorned to offer one word of explanation or entreaty; "do you dare to venture upon such a vigil as that which I have described, and to find yourself the only living man in that accursed solitude, without asking from me, your spiritual father, either a blessing or a prayer? Where will you seek for protection against the unholy horrors of your midnight

watch?"

"In heaven and my innocence!" said the marchese; and then, after the pause of a second, he added, with bitterness-" I will not ask of you, a holy man, to whom evil passions and evil impulses are unknown, a blessing on my sin."

For a moment rage choked the utterance of the general, but in the next he rose haughtily from his seat, and exclaimed with a violent gesture

"Away with him; and on your re

turn, let the keys of the cemetery be delivered into my own hands!"

It was a glorious evening! The sun was setting behind a veil of gold, which had steeped the ragged crest of the mountain in brightness. The wind swept sighingly along, as though it mourned over the waning of the daylight; and there was a calm, bland stillness settling upon every object, which must have spoken peace to a heart at ease. But neither the marchese nor his gaoler appeared to feel the influence of the hour. The one was weaving strange and wild conjectures, built up upon the paper in his bosom; and the other was moodily calculating in his own mind the "indulgences,' both spiritual and sensual, which he had secured by his false witness and want of charity. To himself he called it religious zeal, and jealousy of the honour of the order; but there was already a mocking fiend, who sat gibbering on his heart, and cast back the wilful self-deceit. The cry of remorse was even then awakening in his bosom-but it was too late. He had sought only to serve his own narrow interests; he had never foreseen so hideous a result to his treachery; and now he saw and felt that he had probably sacrificed, if not the life, at least the reason of an innocent and unhappy fellow-being. But what availed the consciousness?-it was too late.

As they descended from the cell of the superior, and traversed the cloisters, the community were listlessly wearing out the hour of recreation in their usual monotonous pursuits, each heedless of all save his own individual employment; and thus the marchese and his companion passed along without attracting one inquiring glance. From the cloisters they were admitted through an iron gate, closely locked, into the garden of the novices-a large enclosure, in which a few stunted forest trees and patches of common and ill-blossoming flowers, served to afford an avocation to the unprofessed members of the abbey. Hence they arrived at the potager, or kitchen-garden, where four venerable lay brothers, who were busy among the herbs and roots, turned a wondering look towards them as they moved along; and then signing the cross upon their breasts, silently

resumed their labour. At the extremity of this extensive piece of land (for the soil was so poor and unproductive, that a garden of moderate dimensions would not have sufficed for the supply of the monastic esculents,) another strongly-guarded door gave them ingress to the cemetery of the abbey.

When they arrived at this spot, the marchese, despite his pre-occupation, could not refrain from looking around him with eager curiosity. It was the first time that he had ever stood within that silent necropolis; for during his sojourn at St. Nicholas there had been no mortality among the brotherhood; and by a caprice of the superior, all access to the graveyard had been interdicted to the community, save on occasions of burial; and the keys were carefully kept by the lay brother who officiated as sexton; and upon whom and another devolved the duty of checking the growth of the foul weeds, which sprang from the human and humid soil. The task was but imperfectly performed-and thus the rude black crosses that marked the little tumuli were generally garlanded with bindweed and briars, or half buried amid the spreading fern-leaves, and the purple flowering nightshade.

In the centre of the space, planted in an artificial mound, and towering high above every thing about it, stood a tall crucifix of stone, supporting a Christ of the same material, which had once been coloured to the life, but which had been for so long a period exposed to all the atmospheric vicissitudes of that mountainous region, that the original tints had become washed and burned into each other, until the effigy had assumed the horrible and revolting appearance of a crucified mummy; while at the foot of the cross knelt St. Benedict and St. Nicholas, the size of life, also carved in stone, and in perfect keeping with the principal figure.

The marchese felt, as he looked around him, that nothing could well be conceived more miserable than the whole aspect of this desolate place of graves! And this was to be the closing scene of his own career-this! or should he put himself beyond the pale o. monastic mercy; something yet more horrible, more abandoned, more ghastly; and he was now about t

comprehend that something-to contemplate that ultima thule which carried the bigotry of conventual tyranny from this world to the next-that place of hyper vengeance, which buried the crime beneath the earth, but left the shame sitting like a foul spirit upon the grave!

The path which they followed led the two monks gradually up the ascent of the mountain, which became more and more abrupt as they proceeded; while the soft soil over which they had originally passed, was first intermixed with masses of rock, and finally failed altogether, before a hard crust of lavarized earth, formed by the exhalations from the sulphureous convulsions of the crater; and covered only by trailing plants of fetid odour, with orange-coloured stems, and leaves of a purplish brown, looking like vegetable reptiles. At the extreme verge of the cemetery these replaced altogether the feathery fern and the enlacing bindweed; while even the stunted cypresses with which it was studded, and which bore rather the aspect of shrubs than of forest trees, failed altogether, as though there was no longer sustenance for their roots.

From this gloomy enclosure the two ill-assorted companions again emerged through a narrow arched door, perforated in the wall, and as scrupulously (and, as it seemed to the marchese, as needlessly) guarded as those which they had previously passed. When the key turned harshly in the rusted lock, and the unaccustomed hinges slowly suffered the door to fall back, Father Francesco receded a pace or two in order that his victim might precede him; and the unhappy young noble had no sooner passed into his place of captivity, than his guide, muttering a few sentences of church Latin, and devoutly signing himself upon the brow and breast, rapidly closed the door behind him, and the marchese suddenly found himself alone.

Evening was closing; but enough of twilight still remained to enable him to appreciate all the horrors by which he was surrounded. The cemetery of sin was situated at the extreme and loftiest verge of the abbey enclosures, and was only separated by a high wall from the waste of the mountain. As the superior had stated, it was so closely overhung by the crest of the stupen

dous height, that it lay throughout the day in deep shadow, as best beseemed its purpose.

Assuredly the marchese was no coward; but the stoutest nerves must have quailed at the first aspect of the prison-ground in which he was destined to wear out the night. Of an extent so vast, that in that treacherous and decaying light he could not even guess its limits: totally devoid of either tree or shrub, and far separated from the habitation of men, it needed not a knowledge of the uses to which it had been consigned, to render this restingplace of guilt a spot where none would have loved to linger; but forewarned of the companionship to which he had been temporarily abandoned, the captive sought for yet more thrilling evidences of its terrors; nor did he fail to find them. Even a grave had here been denied to the dead. The soil, impenetrable to the mattock and the pick-axe, remained intact; and the unshriven and unblessed tenants of this wild necropolis were imperfectly covered by masses of the stone which lay scattered about on all sides.

As the marchese moved with hurried steps from one rugged tumulus to another, in order to assure himself that such was really the case, he was suddenly startled by a shrill scream; and an obscene bird, disturbed in its rest by the sound of his footsteps, whirled heavily into the air, and beat its dark wings angrily above the spot whence it had been driven; while at the same instant, a couple of those bloated and disgustful earth-rats, which batten on corruption, and make their foul home in the dungeon and the charnel-house, scared by the same unaccustomed intrusion, rushed past him, pressing down the skirt of his long robe, as they made their escape from his vicinity.

The young noble felt his heart heave and his brain burn; and having, in his first sensation of horror and curiosity, forgotten the mysterious letter, he resolved, ere the light totally failed, to ascertain the full extent of the terrors by which he was surrounded. There were no pious symbols here to mark the widely-scattered graves; but in his circuit he came upon a colossal cross of black stone-not standing erect, as if to protect the ashes of the dead about it, but stretched along the

earth, as if to typify its overthrow by the crimes against which it lay there as the accuser.

It was, beyond doubt, no impulse of mercy which deposited the holy cross in so unseemly a position, and in the midst of so inappropriate a scene, but it nevertheless failed not in its be nignant effect upon the marchese. Even while he had revolted against the puerile mummeries entailed by his monastic duties, he had never felt his faith weakened nor his piety destroyed. He had fought against the abuses of his religion, but he had never ceased to honour and to adore its Founder; and thus, when his eye fell upon the holy symbol, he bent his knee at the foot of the prostrate and funereal emblem, and found a peaceful companionship in its presence. Then it was that, having poured forth his soul in prayer, he remembered the letter which he bore about him; and hastily thrusting his hand into his bosom, he drew it forth, just as the last thread of light was quivering and failing in the web of darkness.

A few brief instants sufficed for its perusal. The well-known characters were those of his sister Nina-of the fair girl whose heart-rending sobs had been the requiem of his liberty. It was written hurriedly and by ɛtealth. "Console yourself, my brother," it said; "console yourself amid the gloom of your cloisters; console yourself in the desolation of your conventional life, for the world no longer holds one regret for a heart that has loved like yours. Weep no more, my poor Alberto; truth and faith have failed where you most trusted. Estrella has dried her tears, forsworn her vows, and learned that other lips can murmur passion beside your own. How shall I tell you all? And yet, surely you will find consolation in the truth, and strength, and solace, and resignation to your hard fate, when you learn that the dearest tie which linked you to your home has been abruptly and wilfully broken. As I know not how I shall contrive to convey this letter to you safely and secretly, it is probable that ere it reach you Estrella will have become our brother's bride. The ambition of our stern father-that ambition to which you were sacrificed-has been crowned with success. The two great houses of the principality will be united

in their representatives, and the heiress of the Conde will merge her broad lands and unite her lordly palaces with those of the young Duca di- Is

not this strange, Alberto? To me, who too well know how she loathed him once, all seems like a hideous dream. But, alas! alas! it will have no waking. You, my best-loved brother, are lost to me for ever. She, the companion of my girlhood, will turn from the altar with a perjured heart, and can be dear to me no longer! Pray for me in your holy solitude, as I pray for you amid the chances and changes of this false and hollow world."

And this was all. The last cherished vision of the recluse was dispelledviolently and suddenly dispelled for ever. His shipwrecked spirit had no longer even an ideal haven. Estrella was married to his brother!-his brother!

It was

The playmate of his infancy; the companion of his boyhood; the being whom he had loved almost with the love of woman-his own and only brother had done him this grievous wrong! It was too much. the one drop more which had caused his cup of bitterness to overflow. He glanced abruptly and eagerly at the date of the letter: a wild hope, without aim or purpose, sprang up in his heart —Nina had spoken only of the future, there might yet be time.

He did

not tell himself for what; he only knew that he was a desperate man, and he forgot that he was a prisoner. The emotion was however destined to be transient-the writing was already two months old. The brother and the mistress had lost no time in their work of treachery. His place had been but a short while vacant at his father's hearth, ere he was forgotten by both.

He

The marchese neither groaned nor wept; to such a grief as his, groans or tears had alike been a mockery. He looked around him in the darkness, and although night had closed over his head he could distinguish every feature of the scene amid which he sat. saw the piles of stone rudely flung together, beneath each of which lay a dishonoured skeleton, the prey alike of reptiles and of the elements. He heard once more the shrieks of the bird of prey; he felt anew the bound of the bloated rats across his robe. He sought with his hands for the mighty propor

tions of the prostrate cross; and then he crouched down, with the fatal letter, upon his knees, and clasped his rigid hands tightly above it.

From that moment the darkened and unholy sepulchres had no terrors for the unhappy marchese, who gradually sank into a state of mental abstraction, which rendered him insensible to all external influences. He could scarcely be said to live, as he sat there hour after hour, like some dark figure hewn in stone, which had never known mortality.

Hour after hour he sat crouched down there, wordless, motionless, and almost breathless. The reptiles that he had disturbed at their garbage, reassured by his tranquillity, returned to complete their meal, and rustled his long robe as they passed; but they produced no loathing now. The bird of rapine planed for awhile above his head, and then, with another shriek as piercing as the first, resumed its unhallowed roost; but the cry did not enter the dull ear of the watcher. The night-wind howled and whistled amid the charnel stones, but he heeded not the wild music that it awakened. All his being was absorbed in one faculty. His whole existence was in the past.

There were, however, other dark mysteries at work during his frightful vigil besides that which convulsed the soul of the young noble, and built up its power upon the tottering ruins of his reason. Blended with the nightblasts, hollow murmurs awoke from time to time, like those which stir the depths of ocean ere the tempest lashes its waves to fury. Strange groanings and strugglings as of some powerful element forcing its way against mighty and stubborn impediments, and wrestling to overcome a strongly-resisting antagonist. These threatenings became gradually louder and more frequent; but the lonely man who sat amid the graves of the doomed was unconscious of their existence. The earth shivered beneath his feet, as if some oppressive weight, which it was unable to support, had been suddenly flung upon its surface; but the betrayed lover of the Lady Estrella did not quiver in a single pulse.

Even, as it has been already stated, hour after hour went by, and these stupendous symptoms of subterranean

convulsion increased and multiplied until all was dread and expectation in the mountain villages; and the monks of St. Nicholas, roused out of their usual apathy, collected in their costly chapel to pray through the period of peril; but as their stern general stood upon the steps of the high altar, quailing under each successive shock of the labouring mountain, he thought only of his own safety, and of that of the abbey over which he presided; he had forgotten or abandoned the captive of the upper cemetery.

Suddenly a voice of thunder pealed forth its death-proclaiming tidings from the mighty crater, which flung out stones and fire far into the deep blue of the midnight sky, while a dense vapour unrolled its heavy volumes and blotted out the stars. Then, and then only, the marchese awoke to a consciousness of his coming martyrdom; and he bent down and kissed the prostrate cross, as the fiery shower fell back and roared down the rugged declivities of the mountain. Ere long, however, this unnatural calm abandoned him. He was prepared to welcome death; but the fate which now threatened him was so horrible, so unlooked-for, so utterly beyond all voluntary human endurance, that he began to glance franticly around him for some issue by which he might escape his hideous prison.

Alas! he looked in vain. There was no darkness now, and by the fierce and lurid light that burned and bubbled high above his head, he could command the whole extent of the enclosure; nor was he long ere the conviction forced itself upon him that there was but one opening into that place of graves -the narrow door by which he had himself entered, and which had been secured by his savage gaoler.

The

lofty walls were smooth and perpendicular; they afforded no footing even for the recklessness of a despair like his ; and still as he rushed from side to side, shrieking out an agonised response to every fresh howl of the heaving mountain, the work of ruin went fiercely on, and the lava-streams began to pour, hissing and leaping from the sides of the yawning crater.

Down it came at last like a sea of molten flame-it touched the boundarywall, and the huge stones rocked and groaned under the pressure. More

and more succeeded, billow upon billow, tide upon tide, volume upon volume. The wall tottered-cracked -swayed for an instant along its whole line-and then the mighty mass of masonry fell inwards with a crash, that was nevertheless almost unheard amid the hissing and bounding of its fiery conqueror.

There was no escape!-none! No help-no hope-and still the miserable victim of tyranny and falsehood fled madly before his fate. One bound aside, and he stood beyond the limit of the lava flood, and saw it rush against the wall of the inner cemetery, which fell before it as the last had done; and then he cast himself upon his knees, for he dreamed that he was saved.

Another roar, another shower of stones, another burst of sulphureous vapour, and once more Etna flung forth its freight of living fire. On rushed the burning stream, leaping and bounding over the heated track traced by its predecessor, widening the fearful path which had been marked out for it, and spreading, as it went, its tide of death. The captive had only watched the danger which had passed him by; in the confusion of his terror he had forgotten that the work of riot and destruction was still in deadly progress; and thus he knelt in the very track of the coming mischief, gasping out a prayer, and insensible to all save the escape which he had so miraculously effected.

In that pious posture did the lava stream overtake him. There was not the pause of a second in which he could shriek out his agony-not the lapse of an instant in which he could suffer the anguish of death-the molten mischief at once enveloped him like a fiery garment, and then bore him along, panting and heaving beneath the weight of its unresisting burthen. And thus it upbore his corse, until, its strength outspent by the distance over which it had rolled its fearful billows, it cast him, still in the same attitude, at the foot of the crucifix and between the figures of the kneeling saints which supported its base.

Morning dawned, fair and beautiful, but clouds of dense and heated vapour still hung about the crest of Etna.