f Nisida were here--here, in this delicious clime, to be
my companion! What happiness--what joy! Never should I regret the world
from which this isle--for an isle it must be--is separated! Never should
I long to return to that communion with men from which we should be cut
off! Here would the eyes of my Nisida cast forth rays of joy and
gladness upon everything around; here would the sweetest transitions of
sentiment and feeling take place! Nisida would be the island queen; she
should deck herself with these flowers, which her fair hands might weave
into wildly fantastic arabesques! Oh! all would be happiness--a
happiness so serene, that never would the love of mortals he more truly
blessed! But, alas!" he added, as a dreadful thought broke rudely upon
this delightful vision, "I should be compelled to reveal to her my
secret--the appalling secret of my destiny: that when the period for
transformation came round, she might place herself in safety----"

Wagner stopped abruptly, and rose hastily from his seat on the sunny
bank. The remembrance of this dreadful fate had spoiled one of the most
delicious waking dreams in which he had ever indulged; and, dashing his
hands against his forehead, he rushed wildly toward the chain of
mountains which intersected the island.

But suddenly he stopped short, for on the ground before him lay the
doublet of a man--a doublet of the fashion then prevalent in Italy. He
lifted it up, examined it, but found nothing in the pockets; then,
throwing it on the ground, he stood contemplating it for some minutes.

Could it be possible that he was in some part of Italy? that the ship
had been carried back to the European Continent during the tempest of
the night? No; it was impossible that so lovely a tract of land would
remain uninhabited, if known to men. The longer he reflected the more he
became convinced that he was on some island hitherto unknown to
navigators, and on which some other shipwrecked individual had probably
been cast. Why the doublet should have been discarded he could well
understand, as it was thick and heavy, and the heat of the sun was
already intense, although it was not yet near the meridian.

Raising his eyes from the doublet which had occasioned these
reflections, he happened to glance toward a knot of fruit trees at a
little distance; and his attention was drawn to a large bough which hung
down as if almost broken away from the main stem. He approached the
little grov