dishevelled black hair that hung over its shoulders.
Reverting once more to the wild tales of the
peasantry, Astolfo had no difficulty in
recognising in this miserable being the maniac of the
Valle della Bomba, who frequently tore to
pieces the children of the mountaineers when
he met them in some secluded glen, and then
bounded away beyond the reach of their
infuriated parents. Nor, though he was richly
endowed with the valour of his proud lineage,
did Astolfo at all regret that he stood on a spot
inaccessible to the maniac, whose contortions
and shouts denoted the most ferocious condition
of insanity.

The bounds of the monster increasing in
height and violence, and therefore threatening
to bring him near to the level of Prince Astolfo,
the latter involuntarily hastened his steps, and
with a smile that ill accorded with his deep
melancholy, observed that the maniac did not
advance along the path, but confined his leaps
to one point. Still pursuing his course, he
came to a small ruined chapel, the interior of
which was easily visible, and in which he
perceived a venerable hermit, deeply engaged in
the study of a vellum scroll, while on the rustic
table by his side lay a few roots and a skull,
apt symbols of the mortality of earthly things.
Deeply read in the philosophy of his time,
Astolfo was aware that he too had a skull, and
therefore his heart yearned with sympathy for
the lost possessor of this poor relic of
humanity. Still more was he struck with the
tranquil appearance of the hermit, and as he
yet heard the maniac's voice in the distance,
he could not help exclaiming to himself:

"How unlike is the senseless noise of
insanity that rendeth the air to the calm silence
of wisdom that openeth not the lips!"

Scarcely had he made this profound reflection,
when the hermit bounded from his seat,
dashed his scroll to the ground, and uttered a
savage yell, compared to which the loudest
shout of the maniac was but as a whisper.

"Comnenus!" he said. " Comnenus! Rather
had I perished in the lowest depths of
Vesuvius——" And he sank back upon his seat
exhausted.

"Pardon a stranger, Holy Father," said
Prince Astolfo, gracefully stepping into the
chapel—" pardon a stranger, if he ventures to
ask the cause of this strange excitement."

The hermit would probably have repelled
him with anger, but the polished manner which
had made Astolfo the favourite of every court in
Europe was not lost even upon the mountain
recluse, and, calming his violent emotion, he
answered:

"Welcome, stranger. Sit thee down and
hear the tale of my sorrows and my crimes."

"Crimes!—nay, Holy Father," said Astolfo,
with an air of courteous disbelief.

"Ay, crimes, young man," interposed the
hermit. " I recognise thy charitable spirit, and
I perceive by thine air that thy education hath
comprised every branch of knowledge. Still thy
intimacy with my affairs is less than mine own.
As the tale is somewhat long, first refresh thy
mortal frame."

And placing a root in the hands of Astolfo,
with a grasp which slightly crushed it, thus
causing a damp, unpleasant sensation, he pro-
ceeded:

"Being a native of Andalusia, and a
descendant of the old Gothic Kings of Spain, I
naturally took an interest in the affairs of the
Greek empire."

Astolfo did not exactly follow the chain of
the hermit's reasoning, but he was too
courteous to interrupt him with impertinent
questions. The speaker, however, interrupted
himself, for again bounding from his seat, he
repeated the yell with a violence which made
Astolfo place his hands against his ears, and
then exclaimed:

"No—I will not relate the story of my grief
in the presence of my dead and deadliest foe;
for learn, oh young man, that this skull, which
I heedlessly selected as a companion in my
retirement from a hated world, is shown by
this manuscript to be——- But no matter.
Thus I cast it from me."

And seizing the skull, he tossed it into the
air with a vigour which would have done honour
to that thrower of the discus, whose strength
is immortalised by the master of sculptural art.
A yell from below, louder than any that had
been heard before, immediately ensued, and was
followed by a profound silence.

"Ha, ha! Then thou heardest plainly the
voice of the Comnenus," cried the hermit.

"Something indeed I heard," replied Astolfo,
who had a heart that could endure unmoved
every shock not immediately concerning himself;
"but as I am not personally acquainted with
the Comnenus, pardon me if I do not commit
myself to a hasty and inconsiderate judgment.
Indeed, if it is to that skull thou givest the
name of Comnenus, I would rather attribute
the cry to some other source, for Professor
Esculapio di Galeno, under whom I studied
anatomy at Padua, taught his admiring pupils
that the human head, severed from the body,
is not capable of uttering a whisper, much less
a shout like that."

The conjecture of the hermit was indeed
incorrect; but the skull, though it had uttered
no sound, had been the indirect cause of the
terrific yell. The maniac, lured by the first
shout of the hermit, had stealthily advanced
along the lower path, but was suddenly checked
by the descending skull, which alighted with
such violence upon his head, as to make him
lose his footing, and roll down the slope upon
the plain, till, accompanied by the ghastly
missile, he almost reached the deserted abbey of
San Corcoro. The yell heard by the hermit and
the prince had been the maniac's expression of
pain on receiving the blow.

While these strange events were occurring
on the mountain, the spirit of evil had been
active on the plain. The abbey was tenanted,
not, as the peasantry supposed, by the ghosts of