ANTONLLLO, T GONDOLILR. 33

out to my master; he called me superstitious and a simpleton. I began to repeat an “ave,” but the castle refused to vanish, and remained before my eyes a substantial and obstinate fact. Black cypresses looked with clongated necks over the wall, and fig-trees stretched gnarled branches like fingers to- wards us, as if to beckon us in. Glittering lizards crept up the parapets and looked at us with sparkling, spiteful cyes. On the

cornices stood hidcous figures in marble of

the most repulsive ugliness-- goat - footed satyrs that made faces at us, little hunch- backed creatures with three-cornered hats, crinolined dames with horses” heads, dragons, grifiins, monsters with grins and leers and distortions that only diabolus could invent. Among the hateful masks walked a peacock with a long trailing tail, its Dlue neck shim- mering in the sun. :

““How to get into the garden?’ murmured Count Orazio, staring dreamily before him. “The gate might be scaled a bold spring, and- -

““What

arc you thinking of, Excellen-

tissimo?” said I, warningly. * lor the Madonna’s sake, give up the thought. Your

body and soul are alike at stake. Beliove me, the devil walketh about like a roaring hon, secking whom he may devour.”

“Aly warning sounded in deaf cars. He had already sprung from the gondola, when @ wicket opened, and an old Moor stepped before him with a deep curtsey : he brought a request from his mistress, the Signora Smeralda, for the honour of a visit in her garden. In vain did T hold back the blinded and intoxicated patrician by his black silk mantle : i vain did T try to excuse myself from following him ; he rushed through the gate, dragging me with him, while the old slave remained to guard our gondola.

“Strange flowers, never scen before, such as can only be supposed to grow in the pleasure- gardens of the Great Mogul himsell, nodded drowsily to us as we passed. Rainbow- coloured birds flew from branch to branch, twittering, singing, shouting with almost human voice, like a chorus of happy, chatter- g maidens. Once an ugly, long-tailed monkey swung himscll down from o trec before us, holding on with his il to a branch; grinned spitefully at us, and then hurried off once more into the wilderness of folinge. I'rom one of the side alleys stepped a purple-coloured stork, as gravely as a major-domo, before us, swayed his long neck hither and thither, as if Lowing to us, and then walked forward as our guide, ever and

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anon looking round to sce if we followed. FFor my part, 1 followed as in a dream, resisting, and yet drawn forward as by some mexplicable magic.

• Presently we stood before an immense,

strange-looking tree, with broad shining leaves hung thick with silvery bell-shaped blossoms. In the shade of its branches lay costly - Persian - carpets and cushions of crimson velvet embroidered in pearls, and on them the heathen Princess, surrounded by a bevy of beauteous maidens, was reclining with the utmost grace. The little Moor stood at her head, fanning her with a broad fan of bright peacock’s feathers. The red stork, which had hitherto walked before us, now stood still, openced wide his legs, drove his Tong beak into the carth, and S0, shghtly raising its wings for cushions, formed a three-legged casy chair on which Count Orazio, at a sign from the lady, sat down.

“Lostm gazing at the fair Smeralda, the Count had sat down speechless before her, while she, calling for her lute, discoursed sweet music s 1 had stood beside his tripodal chair torn by many feelings, when the young Moor with a cunningly-worked golden goblet full of a dark-red foaming wine stepped up to my master. *Drink not of this brew of hell, Signor 17 T whispered, and at the same time felt myself embraced by the white arm of a lovely hittle witch who offered me a similar draught.

• My first instinet was to spurn from me the

beautiful little cIf] to dash away the magic draught -but the wine gave out 50 sweet an aroma, sparkled so - enticingly, so brightly, within the golden walls! The cves of the clf glanced so entreatingly at me, her arms wound themselves so tenderly about me— ah, the spirit truly was willing, but the flesh was weal !

• Only once sip, thought I, only the wetting

of the tip of my tongue - that will hardly cost me my neck. And then 1 sipped, [ tasted, T sucked, T gulped down the liquid to the very last drop --then 1T fell on the neck of the pretty temptress, and on looking round saw my master on his knces before the seductive Smeralda. T touched with my own the Tips of my charmer—my senses whirled ma transport of - delight when, breathless from out the bushes rushed the negro boy, cryving : Iy ! Fly DAl is lost ! Porporiazzo, our gracious master, is coming ! He raves in his rage 1

• Ah, the warning voice had come too late;

scarcely had it sounded when a short, globular creature, of the form and colour