It is now nearly half-past seven, and no fort
has fired a shot since three. While we are yet
speculating on this unaccustomed forbearance, a
puff of white smoke from " number six" is seen,
and a shell, directed at some French encamped
on our right, falls short.

As though to correct the error, a sister-fort,
though nearly half a mile more distant, sends a
shell right over number six, and drops it appa-
rently within, twenty yards of the first row of
tents, a range of nearly two miles.

Again a silence succeeds, when a long line
of black smoke over the Lake of Garda attracts
our attention. Up go the glasses. A steamer!
An armed steamer making for Peschiera at
tremendous speed! Now we shall see something,
for get in she cannot, without a word or two
with the French to the east of the fortress.
There is no doubt, however, of her intention.
On she comes, two miles from Peschiera, one
from the shore, along which she has to coast.
Bang! bang! two French guns. The range
is too far. The little steamer has no idea
of letting the salutation pass unnoticed. She
yaws a little, and sends a reply from one
of her eight guns, after which a brisk
little duel ensues, the steamer loading and firing
with wonderful rapidity, slackening her speed
as if in no hurry to have done with it, and
loth to get out of range. It was pluckily
done, for had a shot disabled her she was lost.
At one moment we thought this had been the
case; but she was only manœuvring to fire a
parting gun, and in a quarter of an hour from
the time her smoke had become visible she was
threading the Mincio in safety under the guns
of the fortress, the nearer works of which we
could distinguish thronged with spectators
waving their hats in acclamation. It was a pretty
little scene for a summer evening's walk, the
extreme clearness and stillness of the time
lending it the appearance of being enacted at
our very feet.

Eight o'clock: the forts have been mute since
those two shells. Their conduct to-day is inscrutable.
A member of our party, of an imaginative
turn, is positive that something unusual
is about to occur, and proposes that we
should encamp at once where we are and witness
it. Without being able to say why, everybody
partakes in some degree of the presentiment
already expressed. But what is it we are to
see? A sortie? The most unlikely thing in
the world. The besieged would not have run
the risk of awakening suspicion of any unusual
preparation by suspending their usual fire.
Against the fortress, it is notorious, nothing
will yet be done. We remain as though fascinated
to the spot, looking down upon the darkening
landscape, and listening to the decreasing
murmurs of the camps, until the moon peeps up
over the lake, and the French watch-fires glimmer
out along the line of heights, as far as the
eye can reach. Five minutes more, and we will
go. There will be nothing more to-night.

A flash! A heavy gun from the nearest work.
We heard the whiz of the iron messenger, in
the direction of the French camp. But there
was nothing in the sound to warn us that that
was the last shot destiny permitted to be fired—
the last angry accents of the great war of
Italian independence, which was to make Italy
free, from the Alps to the Adriatic. Is the
bitter mockery ended? Our discreet Lombard
rieuds would doubtless answer: "Vedremo."

A PHYSICIAN'S GHOSTS,
I.

MAN is led to noble ends by certain impulses
and excitements. Amongst them is a
delight in the Inscrutable, which prompts us onward
for ever, because it points towards the
lazy Infinite. " There is a secret! Find it out!"
was the title of an old romance, which rendered a
silly book extremely saleable. "There is a secret!
find it out!" is written, too, on the title-page of
life, which is not a silly romance, but an ever new
novel. So strong in us is the attraction towards
the unknown, that, if there be no mystery clouding
our horizon, we make one. Like children
who dally with dread, and peep furtively forth
from the dark corners into which they have
niched themselves, we persist in lurking amidst
the mists and shadows of life, shunning the ray
that would enlighten us, and, though in the
midst of wonders, feigning more. The spur of
curiosity, and the charm of doubt, which both
made Eden and lost it, are potent as ever in the
human breast, so that the principal pleasure in
running down a secret seems to be in the chase
itself.

For this reason, explanations of mysteries
are generally disagreeable to mankind. What
human being is ever satisfied with books which
profess to refer apparitions, dreams, omens, and
so forth, to the delusions of our senses, or the
mere aberrations of our own mortal minds? If
Walter Scott's Demonology and Hibbert's
Theory of Apparitions have been read extensively,
it is not because they explain the wonderful
stories they contain, but because of the stories
themselves; not because they do clear up, but
because they are felt not to clear up, the marvels
which they relate; moreover, great as may be
the popularity of any clever work that undertakes
to explain, portents and apparitions on grounds
that are called " natural," the vogue of such a
work never yet equalled, the vogue of a right-down
book of ghost-stories.

But are we, therefore, to have no explanations
of the wonderful? Far from it. Human nature,
that loves mystery, also loves a certain kind of
solution. But then, the solution itself must
be also wonderful, mysterious, and obscure.
Who but scorns Mrs. Ratcliffe's wax figure
behind the veil, in the Castle of Udolpho?
Even in matters of science and art there must
be no disappointment behind the veil which we profess
to lift. Would Faraday wield such a magician's
rod over the British Institution, if he did not
refer a million marvels of nature's forces to the one
infinite, incomprehensible power of electricity?

From these remarks I trust the reader will
infer that, when I come forward, not only with