_ ears,
oh baby! must have spoken from the battlements of death. Immediately deep
shadows fell between us, and aboriginal silence. The choir had ceased to
sing. The hoofs of our horses, the rattling of our harness, alarmed the
graves no more. By horror the bas-relief had been unlocked into life. By
horror we, that were so full of life, we men and our horses, with their
fiery fore-legs rising in mid air to their everlasting gallop, were frozen
to a bas-relief. Then a third time the trumpet sounded; the seals were
taken off all pulses; life, and the frenzy of life, tore into their
channels again; again the choir burst forth in sunny grandeur, as from
the muffling of storms and darkness; again the thunderings of our horses
carried temptation into the graves. One cry burst from our lips as the
clouds, drawing off from the aisle, showed it empty before us--"Whither has
the infant fled?--is the young child caught up to God?" Lo! afar off, in a
vast recess, rose three mighty windows to the clouds: and on a level with
their summits, at height insuperable to man, rose an altar of purest
alabaster. On its eastern face was trembling a crimson glory. Whence came
_that_? Was it from the reddening dawn that now streamed _through_ the
windows? Was it from the crimson robes of the martyrs that were painted
_on_ the windows? Was it from the bloody bas-reliefs of earth? Whencesoever
it were--there, within that crimson radiance, suddenly appeared a female
head, and then a female figure. It was the child--now grown up to woman's
height. Clinging to the horns of the altar, there she stood--sinking,
rising, trembling, fainting--raving, despairing; and behind the volume of
incense that, night and day, streamed upwards from the altar, was seen the
fiery font, and dimly was descried the outline of the dreadful being that
should baptize her with the baptism of death. But by her side was kneeling
her better angel, that hid his face with wings; that wept and pleaded for
_her_; that prayed when _she_ could _not_; that fought with heaven by tears
for _her_ deliverance; which also, as he raised his immortal countenance
from his wings, I saw, by the glory in his eye, that he had won at last.

[Footnote 1: _Campo Santo_.--It is probable that most of my readers will be
acquainted with the history of the Campo Santo at Pisa--composed of earth
brought from Jerusalem for a bed of sanctity, as the highest prize which
the noble piety of crusaders could ask or