SUPPLEMENTAL NOTE
It must be allowed, that the author has displayed great adroitness in the "denouement" of his tale. In the course of a few pages all the principal characters, male and female, are suddenly produced, safe and unscathed, before the reader. To be sure, this is done by the aid of a little "diablerie," but then it is done very neatly,—much more so than in some of the clumsy fictions of the late Ettrick Shepherd, to say nothing of the edifying legends about the Romish saints which the good people of southern Europe are taught to swallow as gospel. Finally, be it remembered, that Oriental story-tellers have never subscribed to Horace's precept,—
"Nec deus interait, nisi digens vindice nodus
Inciderit"
On the contrary, their rule is, when, by a free use of the supernatural, you have got the whole of your characters into a regular fix, it is but fair that you should get them off by the same means.