“Jarpeado! Jarpeado! receive the homage of the fairy queen whose heart thou hast won.”
The moment was enchanting. The perfumed breeze wooed the flushed cheek of the prince, and whispered love. Jarpeado stood irresolute. It was but for an instant, when rousing himself from the subtle influences that were kindling a fire of unworthy passion in his breast, he replied—
“Fair spirit, whose unearthly radiance lays siege to a true heart, and who with cunning and skill have sought out the weak points of my armour, all thine arts, wiles, and hellish tricks can never quench my love for the fair Anna.”
Scarcely had the last word escaped his lips, when the weird scene was blotted out from his gaze, and a ghastly green light disclosed a slimy waste alive with crawling monads, and all the simplest forms of life. The balmy air was chilled and its fragrance replaced by the noxious breath of animal decay. A flash of lightning and peal of thunder heralded the approach of a monster with mouth wide open, dark and deep as the bottomless pit, his horns erect, his tail fiercely sweeping the waste; onward he came, spreading terror around, and leaving death in his train.
This was the Valvos, which preyed like cholera on the people, but the prince escaped, saved by a fair maiden.
“Daughter of my country!” he exclaimed, “my deliverer, cruel destiny stands between us; I cannot wed thee.”
The scene changed, and Anna was transported unseen to the attic of her lover, the poor pupil of Granarius. Bent over his books, for a moment he raised his head, crying out—
“Oh! if Anna would only wait for me; in three years I shall have the cross of the Legion of Honour. I feel, I know, I shall solve this entomological problem, and succeed in transporting to Algeria the culture of the Cocus Cacti. Good heavens! that would be a conquest.”
Anna awoke and found herself in bed, she had dreamed a dream. But who was this Jarpeado of whom her father constantly spoke? She hastened to ask the old professor. It was necessary to be careful, she must watch, and after breakfast seize one of his lucid intervals; for in his normal condition, her father’s mind was absent exploring the fathomless depths of science. Seated at the breakfast table she exclaimed—