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It was as if this dark and wondrous being would convert the most ordinary events and the meanest instruments into the agencies of his inscrutable will; yet, if so, why have permitted the capture of Isabel? Why not have prevented the crime rather than punished the criminal? And did Zicci really feel love for Isabel?

The mysterious empire which Zicci had acquired over him was still more solemnly confirmed by the events of the last few hours; the sudden fate of the Prince, so deliberately foreshadowed, and yet so seemingly accidental brought out by causes the most commonplace, and yet associated with words the most prophetic, impressed him with the deepest sentiments of admiration and awe.

None except Mascari, whom we pushed aside and disdained to hear, strove to conciliate; some took one side, some another. The issue may be well foreseen. Swords were drawn. I had left mine in the ante room; Zicci offered me his own, I seized it eagerly. There might be some six or eight persons engaged in a strange and confused kind of melee, but the Prince and myself only sought each other.

As the Prince left me, I turned, and saw Zicci at my side. "The Prince is a braggart," said he, with the same smile that displeased me before. "He would monopolize all fortune and all love. Let us take our revenge." "And how?" "He has at this moment in his house the most enchanting singer in Naples, the celebrated Isabel di Pisani.

He felt as if the death of the mysterious Corsican were necessary for the preservation of his own life; and if at an earlier period of their rivalry he had determined on the fate of Zicci, the warnings of Mejnour only served to confirm his resolve. "We will try if his magic can invent an antidote to the bane," said he, half aloud and with a gloomy smile, as he summoned Mascari to his presence.

"Another ambuscade?" said Mascari, inquiringly. "Nay, why not enter the house itself? The situation is lonely, and the door is not made of iron." Before Mascari could reply, the gentleman of the chamber announced the Signor Zicci.

When, that morning, he heard of her danger, he had, it is true, returned to the sympathies and the fears of affection; but with the death of the Prince her image faded again from his heart, and he felt no jealous pang at the thought that she had been saved by Zicci, that at that moment she was perhaps beneath his roof.

An impostor must have some motive for deluding us, either ambition or avarice. I am neither rich nor powerful; Zicci spends more in a week than I do in a year. Nay, a Neapolitan banker told me that the sums invested by Zicci in his hands, were enough to purchase half the lands of the Neapolitan noblesse."

The sight of his fair young face calmed her at once. She did not love him, yet his sight gave her pleasure. She had for him a kind and grateful feeling. Ah, if she had never beheld Zicci! "Isabel," said the Englishman, drawing her again to the bench from which she had risen, and seating himself beside her, "you know how passionately I love thee.

"How could you foretell this fearful event? He fell not by your arm," said Glyndon, in a tremulous and hollow tone. "The general who calculates on the victory does not fight in person," answered Zicci. "But enough of this. Meet me at midnight by the seashore, half a mile to the left of your hotel, you will know the spot by a rude pillar, the only one near , to which a broken chain is attached.