"Thanks, Signor," said Maulear, "I accept your friendship. With people like you, this fruit ripens quickly. Perhaps, however, you will discover that it has not on that account less flavor and value."
Maulear tapped thrice at the door of the cell; the turnkey appeared, and Henri left, as he went out casting one last look of affection on Taddeo.
Never did time appear so long to Aminta's brother as that which intervened between Maulear's departure and the night he was so anxious for. That night came at last. The keeper brought his evening meal. He did not wish to be asleep as he was on the first occasion, when La Felina visited him. He was unwilling to lose a single moment of her precious visit. Remembering that his preceding nights had been agitated and almost sleepless, apprehensive that he would be overcome by weariness, he resolved to stimulate himself. Like most of the Neapolitans, he was very temperate, and rarely drank wine; he preferred that icy water, flavored with the juice of the orange or lime, of which the people of that country are so fond. He now, however, needed something to keep him awake, and asked for wine.
He approached the table on which his evening meal was placed, he took a flask of Massa wine, one of the best of Naples; he poured out a goblet and drank it, and felt immediately new strength course through his veins.
He sat on his bed and listened anxiously for the slightest sound, to the low accents of the night, to those indescribable sounds which are drowned by the tumults of the day, and of whose existence, silence and night alone make us aware. The hours rolled on, and at every stroke of the clock his heart kept time with every blow of the iron hammer on the bell of bronze. At last the clock struck twelve. Midnight, the time for specters and crimes, was come. A few minutes before the clock sounded, he perceived that the sleep of which he had been so much afraid gradually made his eyelids grow heavy—and that though he sought to overcome the feeling, his drowsiness increased to such a degree that he was forced to sit down.
I spoke in one of my preceding chapters of the tyrannical power exercised by sleep over all organizations, and especially in those situations when man is least disposed to yield to it. Never had this absolute master exercised a more despotic power; this pitiless god seemed to place his iron thumb on the eyes of the prisoner, and to close them by force. A strange oppression of his limbs, an increasing disturbance of his memory and thought, a kind of invincible torpor, rapidly took possession of the young man. Then commenced a painful contest between mind and body,—the latter succumbed. He felt his body powerless, his reason grow dim, and his strength pass away. In vain he sought to see, to hear, to watch, to live, to contend with an enemy which sought to make him senseless, inert and powerless. His head fell upon his bosom and he sank to sleep.
Just then, he heard a light noise, the rustling of a silk dress, and a timid step. With a convulsive effort he opened his eyes, and saw La Felina within a few feet of his bed. Tears rolled down his cheeks, and fell upon the white hand of the singer. She touched Rovero's face to assure herself that he was in reality asleep.
END OF PART II.
[From the Gem.]
"THE TWICKENHAM GHOST."