struck
from the living arm, and which, after the lapse of so many centuries,
was still as perfectly preserved as if it had been embalmed. The sight
had a most cruel fascination; and while one of the horror-seekers
stood helplessly conjuring to his vision that scene of unknown
dread,--the shrinking, shrieking woman dragged to the block, the wild,
shrill, horrible screech following the blow that drove in the spike,
the merciful swoon after the mutilation,--his companion, with a sudden
pallor, demanded to be taken instantly away.

In their swift withdrawal, they only glanced at a few detached
instruments of torture,--all original Ecelinos, but intended for the
infliction of minor and comparatively unimportant torments,--and then
they passed from that place of fear.

III.

In the evening we sat talking at the Caffe Pedrocchi with an abbate,
an acquaintance of ours, who was a Professor in the University of
Padua. Pedrocchi's is the great caffe of Padua, a granite edifice
of Egyptian architecture, which is the mausoleum of the proprietor's
fortune. The pecuniary skeleton at the feast, however, does not much
trouble the guests. They begin early in the evening to gather into the
elegant saloons of the caffe,--somewhat too large for so small a city
as Padua,--and they sit there late in the night over their cheerful
cups and their ices, with their newspapers and their talk. Not so many
ladies are to be seen as at the caffe in Venice, for it is only in the
greater cities that they go much to these public places. There are few
students at Pedrocchi's, for they frequent the cheaper caffe; but you
may nearly always find there some Professor of the University, and
on the evening of which I speak there were two present besides our
abbate. Our friend's great passion was the English language, which
he understood too well to venture to speak a great deal. He had been
translating from that tongue into Italian certain American poems, and
our talk was of these at first. Then we began to talk of distinguished
American writers, of whom intelligent Italians always know at least
four, in this succession,--Cooper, Mrs. Stowe, Longfellow, and Irving.
Mrs. Stowe's _Capanna di Zio Tom_ is, of course universally read; and
my friend had also read _Il Fiore di Maggio_,--"The May-flower."
Of Longfellow, the "Evangeline" is familiar to Italians, through a
translation of the poem; but our abbate knew all the poet's works,
and one of the other profe