and the chains awarded, before Giulia di Morentali has left her chamber."

"I cannot join the party at St. Angelo to-day, my father, nor would you wish it, I am sure."

"Not wish it, when my word was pledged to Lorenzo that I would bring you to the terrace myself, as the only means of preventing his fetching you in person; which you so earnestly desired he might not do. By St. Mark, I think thou art offended that he has not disobeyed thee a maiden had rather be surprised by a young gallant, than by an old father, perhaps."

"Dear father, do not ask me to leave the house to day."

"Ask thee! faith, not I; asking twice suits not my humour. Either be dressed, and accompany me immediately, or Lorenzo shall do his errand himself."

"What I cannot do for you, my father, I will not do for another," said Giulia, with the flashing eye which spoke her Italian birth.

"Pretty, forsooth-and dutiful too," returned Morentali, with a half laugh; "but even with all, by your leave, we will try our youth's skill at persuasion-an art he may not need long," he added, waving his hand, as he departed.

"He may not, indeed, as far as poor Giulia is concerned," said the lady; "but he will surely come, and we must prepare for his reception."

A forced smile was on her lip, but her eye swam in moisture. We will leave her for the present.

Terrible, indeed, was the secret council chamber of the Doge of Venice. A large and lofty room, lighted not by the sun, but by several lamps carefully arranged, to throw their strong lustre away from the judgment seats, and upon a central point, surrounded by a low massive rail, was rendered utterly impervious to sound, by means of doubly quilted arras, and treble doors. The floor was thickly carpeted, save in the space alluded to, which was about twelve feet in diameter, and appeared to be boarded. Within this room deeds were whispered to have been done, at the mention of which human blood is freezingly arrested. A concealed door behind the arras led to a smaller apartment, where every engine for wrenching the joints, crushing the flesh, and grinding the marrow of their fellow mortals, had been stored by the relentless agents of Venetian tyranny. Those boards surrounded by the rail could be raised, and the half breathing body, which had undergone the agonies of that chamber, was thrown into an abyss of appalling depth, at whose bottom, it was rumoured, years before a machine had been placed, which the falling mass set in motion, and by which it was mangled to atoms. A winding staircase, entered from a corner, also hidden by the tapestry, conducted down to a spot where a more hideous torture than all was prepared. A small low roofed room was there, built entirely of iron, not sufficiently large to enable the inmate to stand erect, but allowing the full range of limb in every other direction. Below was a furnace. Stripped to the skin, the victim was led thither, and though in utter darkness, ventilation was supplied him. For some hours, perchance, he was thus left, until he began to dread a perpetual imprisonment. But the at

mosphere grows more confined, still more so, and the blood is thrown violently to his head. Air is again admitted, he breathes again,—it must have been a fancy. But no, this time there is no deception, the heat is stifling, the floor below him is unbearable, he raises himself on his extremities, he raves, he screams for mercy. Anon his scorched limbs become blistered, and writhings and shrieks proclaim his excruciating agony. A few minutes, and all must cease in death. No. The tormentor's craft has been better taught. Suddenly the iron floor is drawn from beneath him, its place is supplied by a slab of the coldest marble, while gushes of icy water from above fall upon his burning frame. The transition is exquisite, almost too delicious for mortal bearing. For a time he lies in semi-insensibility, but not long. The chill comes over him, and the relief becomes another torment. Then is accomplished the crowning efforts of the fiends, who know too well the indescribable effect of the unexpected substitution of one agony for another. The marble bed is drawn away, and the wretch is writhing on a red-hot floor. Then scream follows scream, and the body is drawn into every form and posture conceivable, with terrible swiftness. Malice has now done its utmost, a few more struggles, and a few more groans, and a blackened and undistinguishable corpse is withdrawn from its fiery cavern, and hurled through a trap-door near, eventually to find its way into one of the canals of Venice. Such had been the fate of that Miollano, whom the gondoliers have mentioned as one of the last victims of Count Morentali. Who is to be the next?

The count sat alone in the secret council chamber, reclining with Italian indolence upon a richly cushioned couch. The lamps were lighted, and beneath them stood two half-dressed muscular men, in visors, the executioners of his pleasure. "Bring in the hound;" and the ill-fated gondolier, Speranza, heavily manacled, stood before Morentali.

"So, thou art here. Hast any more tales of the cruel and merciless count to tell ?"

The prisoner, pale as death, muttered only, "My lord! my lord!" and convulsive breathings seemed to drown his voice.

"Thou shalt know another," continued Morentali, in the same cold, sneering tone, ere long. Pity that thou wilt not be able to tell it." "My lord remember-your promise

"Was of secrecy, I believe; and it shall be kept.

Look around, whom dost thou fear can overhear thy stories of the count, or thy screams which may follow them?

"Recollect, my lord, I am servant to the Duke di Regola."

"I do not forget that; on the contrary, it shall add to thy reward. For the rest, dost thou think Antonio, though beardless, will discover thee here? Should he indeed recognize thee floating before his palazzo, perhaps he might be amazed, to prevent which surprise thou shalt find thy way down the abyss below thee, which, I think, does not lead to the canal."

"Oh! mercy, my good lord, as you hope for it yourself hereafter, as you"

"So! menaces and remembrances having failed, thou wouldst now try prayers-'tis well, but address them elsewhere, while thy worthy

friends on each side remove thy superfluous dress, preparatory to a pleasure thou hast not dreamed of."

At a sign from the count, some of the chains were removed, with the upper portion of Speranza's garments. Morentali then spoke again.

"If there is any peculiar torment thou wouldst select, name it, and we, to the best of our poor abilities, will humour thee. There is the rack, or the screw, or the sharp pendulum, or the bath of molten lead. Or thou mayst prefer the barrel of razors. Or, as thou art a man of a friendly disposition, there is the burning chamber, in which thy companion Miollano some few weeks since expiated the crime of noticing a jewel in a lady's hair, as being once the property of a Venetian noble. Thou didst find his body, and therefore knowest something of the sentence he underwent. Truly he did our machinery credit; his cries were loud, and his agonised struggles and contortions vigorous. I myself was present at the operation of reducing him to a cinder, and have seldom been more delighted. What sayst thou, wilt try that room, in a spirit of friendly emulation ?"

During the count's speech, the gondolier stood as a man half awakened, but at its conclusion, as the noble's taunting laugh rang on his ear, he staggered from his companions, and sank at the edge of the rail in complete insensibility. Terror had benumbed him.

"Nay," said Morentali, "twere hardly worth while to submit the fool to the torture in this state. Remove him, let the surgeon attend, and see him prepared for my visit this night."

We will briefly trace so much of the life and situation of the count as is necessary to elucidate this careful and veracious history. He had been raised from low rank to sudden nobility, when young, by the rapid successive deaths of the various heirs to the title, which occurred with such unexampled speed as to excite widely-spread notice, and almost suspicion. But the glittering circlet having once wreathed his brow, the new count effectually silenced all slanderous tongues-some by the splendour and liberality of his entertainments, others by a more certain method. He married a young lady of great beauty, and the gorgeous nuptial ceremony was for a month the theme of Venice, but the countess dying within a year, the noble widower retired in a great measure from the pursuit of pleasure to that of ambition. Wealth and intrigue here, as elsewhere, crowned his wishes with full success, and Morentali became a member of the Council of Ten, and, as men whispered with fearful caution, of another tribunal none dared to name in public. One misfortune only had befallen the count, and, independently of its own severity, it became the more galling from novelty. His children, in giving birth to whom their mother had been sacrificed, were one day playing on the terrace before the mansion, when their attendant's eye was withdrawn from her charge by a passing gondola. On again reverting to the terrace, to her unbounded dismay the young Adolpho had disappeared, his terrified sister knew not where. Every search was made without success, the boy was never again heard of, and the general rumour of the count's power and severity produced such an effect on the female attendant, that in a moment of agony she threw herself into the canal, the noble's last hope of eliciting informa

tion as to the fate of his child perishing with her. There was one trivial circumstance, however, which, years afterwards, when his daughter had grown up into womanhood, and the name of his son was all but forgotten, had produced a powerful impression on his mind. Deprived of his wife, it was not surprising that the count should, in the pride of manhood, and with every advantage around him, occasionally seek female society, although he abstained from forming a second matrimonial connexion. For other purposes than those of enjoying air, or of dispensing charity, was Morentali supposed to visit the more retired streets of Venice.

For some time a singular and costly jewel was observed to glitter in the hair of a very pretty black-eyed damsel, residing in the strada, now known by the name of St. Giuseppe. The fair wearer seemed by no means desirous of concealing her ornament, and one evening as she wandered along the bank of a neighbouring canal, shooting those roguish glances so well on the Adriatic, a young gondolier, who accidentally approached her, incautiously exclaimed, "Saints of heaven! I could risk my soul on the identity of that jewel with— and the rough hand of a friend, which was suddenly placed upon his lips, did not prevent the remark from being overheard. That night Miollano found himself in one of the dungeons of the Council of Ten. He was subsequently examined by Morentali, who appeared to take an interest in the trinket, but the gondolier could give no satisfactory replies, save that he persisted in recognizing the jewel, though unable to say to whom he supposed it to belong, or upon what his suspicions were grounded. His silence was judged to be contumacious, and a severe application of the rack ensued, but without better success. It was then considered that he had seen too much for liberty, and at the instigation of the count, who witnessed the perpetration, he underwent the horrible agonies and death of the Fiery Vault. His fate, in itself, would have produced no effect upon Morentali, who was far too much inured to similar scenes for pity or remorse, but a short time after the occurrence, a thought arose in the noble's mind too startlingly hideous to be borne. For days and nights it never left him, until the uncertainty could not be sustained, and as a last resource, the haughty Venetian resolved to seek a celebrated magician, or astrologer, who resided in a wing of the Doge's palace, retained for the purpose imposing a more fearful and undefined idea of the power of knowledge of the Council upon the popular mind, than could be preserved by mere human agency. But the skill of Columbo Asprenici did not exist in report alone. Difficult of access, even the count was compelled to request, as a favour, admittance to the astrologer. It was towards midnight, when wrapped in a large cloak, armed, but unattended, Morentali entered the awful abode, around which the very air seemed filled with terror.

of

Few of the appendages, with which romance and superstition have invested the communer with other worlds, were to be seen in the small and gloomy apartment where the magician pursued his tremendous studies. The chamber, or rather vault, to which name its stone walls and arched roof would better entitle it, was reached by the count after he had traversed several spacious halls, and darkened

galleries, admirably adapted to secure seclusion, not by gate and barrier, but by the far more powerful agency of fear. The calculating mind of Morentali armed him with courage as he pursued his dreary way, nor was the astrologer's reception of his visitor such as to strike awe, or even unusual respect. A slightly formed, middle-aged man, with a countenance of delicate and precise outline, shaded by the tuft and moustache of the age, simply but neatly apparelled in a dark dress, rose to meet the Italian noble, with the air rather of a retired and satiated man of the world, than with that which might have been expected in a sage of such undoubted fame. A transparent globe, in the centre of which a light seemed glowing, a few mathematical instruments scattered around among numberless papers and parchments, with a low black marble column, inscribed with foreign characters, were all the uncommon features of the room. Behind Asprenici was a large window, but no moonlight was visible through it, although the queen of heaven was silvering all Venice as Morentali entered the palace. The count removed his mask, and bowed, and the astrologer first spoke.

"To what fortunate circumstance is the humble student to ascribe the visit of the noblest senator in Venice?"

“ After craving pardon for my intrusion, learned sir, I have to beg from you the assistance which none other in the world can give me."

"Even had I known nothing of the Count di Morentali, the hospitality I have received in your glorious city would compel me to do all the little in my power for any of her sons. Speak, signore, and my service is with you."

"Learned Asprenici, to one to whom the past is so well known as to yourself, I have only to name an incident, to bring it to his recollection. A short time ago an unhappy man, for an insult to myself, died in a dungeon of this palace. In his examination he named a jewel, with which strange ideas are connected in my imagination. If it please you, I would have the whole event cleared up, that I may at least know my doom."

، The victim bore the name of .

"Miollano, among his fellows," replied the count, in a stifled

voice.

"The jewel was given by yourself, signore, to a damsel of the city," said the astrologer, with a half smile; " from whence did you obtain it?"

"It was among many that have been long in my family. I have no particular recollection of it, however, but took it for my purpose, as being elegant and of small value."

"Thus far, signore, my knowledge extends, but beyond this the answers of another must be sought, if you are resolved on gaining the information. I would caution you, here, against pursuing the inquiry, for it will be fearful in its following out, and its end may be fatal. Can you not rest satisfied with the belief, which appears to me most probable, that Miollano had made an empty boast, which obstinacy prevented him from retracting, or that he was totally mistaken in supposing that he knew the trinket?"