the colour--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 foresee 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! I compassionate
thee, O foolish sage,--THOU hast given up THY youth!"

CHAPTER 3.XVII.

Alch: Thou always speakest riddles. Tell me if thou art that
fountain of which Bernard Lord Trevizan writ?

Merc: I am not that fountain, but I am the water. The fountain
compasseth me about.

Sandivogius, "New Light of Alchymy."

The Prince di -- was not a man whom Naples could suppose to be addicted
to superstitious fancies. 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 science, 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