A Creature of the Night: An Italian Enigma

Transcriber's Notes: 1. Page scan source: The Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/creatureofnighti00hume_0 (The Library of Congress.) 2. Chapter XVII. (Nemesis) is misnumbered as XV. in this edition.
Yea, out of the womb of the night
For evil a rod,
With vampire wings plumed for a flight
It cometh abroad,
The mission to curse and to blight
Permitted by God.
All rights reserved .
I think it is Lord Beaconsfield who, in one of his brilliant stories, makes the clever observation that adventures are to the adventurous, and certainly he who seeks for adventures even in this prosaic nineteenth century will surely succeed in his quest. Fate leads him, chance guides him, luck assists him, and although the adventure supplied by this trinity of circumstances may be neither so dangerous nor so picturesque as in the time of Borgia or Lazun, still it will probably be interesting, which after all is something to be grateful for in this eminently commonplace age of facts and figures. Still, even he who seeks not to prove the truth of Disraeli's aphorism, may, after the principle of Mahomet's mountain, have the adventure come to him, without the trouble of looking for it, and this was my case at Verona in the summer of 18--.
The Cranstons were always a poor family, that is, as regards money, although they certainly could not complain of a lack of ancestors; and when it came to my turn to represent the race, I found that my lately deceased father had left me comparatively nothing. Not having any fixed income, I therefore could not live without doing something to earn my bread; and not having any business capacity, I foresaw failure would be my lot in mercantile enterprise. I was not good-looking enough to inveigle a wealthy heiress into matrimony; and as, after a survey of my possessions, I found I had nothing but a few hundred pounds and an excellent baritone voice, I made up my mind to use the former in cultivating the latter with a view to an operatic career.