rong be wild and incoherent, I owe it, first, to
the wild fever which my native sun communicated to my veins; next, to my
childhood, trained amidst the shifts, tricks, and feats of jugglers and
mountebanks; and then, to a youth of fraud and deception, through
the course thou didst prescribe me, in which I might, indeed, hear
everything, but communicate with no one. The last cause of my wild
errors, if such they are, originates, O Christian, with you alone; by
whose intrigues I was placed with yonder lady, and who taught me, that
to revenge my father's death, was my first great duty on earth, and
that I was bound by nature to hate and injure her by whom I was fed and
fostered, though as she would have fed and caressed a dog, or any other
mute animal. I also think--for I will deal fairly with you--that you had
not so easily detected your niece, in the child whose surprising agility
was making yonder brutal mountebank's fortune; nor so readily induced
him to part with his bond-slave, had you not, for your own purposes,
placed me under his charge, and reserved the privilege of claiming me
when you pleased. I could not, under any other tuition, have identified
myself with the personage of a mute, which it has been your desire that
I should perform through life."

"You do me injustice, Zarah," said Christian--"I found you capable
of the avenging of your father's death--I consecrated you to it, as I
consecrated my own life and hopes; and you held the duty sacred, till
these mad feeling towards a youth who loves your cousin----"

"Who--loves--my--cousin," repeated Zarah (for we will continue to call
her by her real name) slowly, and as if the words dropped unconsciously
from her lips. "Well--be it so!--Man of many wiles, I will follow thy
course for a little, a very little farther; but take heed--tease me not
with remonstrances against the treasure of my secret thoughts--I mean
my most hopeless affection to Julian Peveril--and bring me not as an
assistant to any snare which you may design to cast around him. You and
your Duke shall rue the hour most bitterly, in which you provoke me. You
may suppose you have me in your power; but remember, the snakes of my
burning climate are never so fatal as when you grasp them."

"I care not for these Peverils," said Christian--"I care not for their
fate a poor straw, unless where it bears on that of the destined woman,
whose hands are red in your father's blood. Believe me, I can divide
h