your own regiment disguised as
banditti."

L'Isle started back one step. In an instant, from the fairy land of
hope and love, his Eden of delights, with every soothing and
intoxicating influence around him, he found himself transported to a
bleak common, stripped of his dreamy joys, exposed to the ridicule of
the enchantress, and soon to be pelted with the pitiless jests of all
who might hear of his adventure. He looked at Lady Mabel, almost
expecting to see her undergo some magic transformation. But there she
stood unchanged, except that there was a little sneer on her lip, a
glance of triumph from her eye, an expression of intense but
mischievous enjoyment in her whole air, and, what he had never
observed before, a strong likeness to her father.

Striving quickly and proudly to recover himself, L'Isle said, with
admirable gravity, "You have convinced me, Lady Mabel, that it is my
especial duty to protect you from my own banditti. I will not leave
you, not close an eye in sleep, while a shadow of danger hangs over
you. But," he added, slowly drawing near to a window, and gently
opening it, "I have observed that house-breakers always choose the
darkest hours to hide their deeds of darkness. For to-night the danger
is over. The moon is overhead, and not a cloud obscures the sky. We
English may envy these Southern nations their nights, though not their
days." Half a dozen nightingales were now pouring out their rival
melodies in the grove. Looking out on the landscape before him, its
features softened rather than concealed by the sober silvery light, he
repeated:

"How sweet the moonlight sleeps on yonder bank,
* * * * In such a night as this,
When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees,
And they did make no noise--in such a night
Troilus, methinks, mounted the Trojan walls,
And sighed his soul toward the Grecian tents,
Where Cressid lay that night."

While repeating these lines, he measured with his eye the distance to
the ground. The comfort-loving monks had provided lofty ceilings and
abundant air for their apartments under the scorching sun of
Alemtejo. But in L'Isle's angry, defiant mood, he would have leapt
from the top of Pompey's Pillar, rather than stay to be laughed at by
Lady Mabel. Seating himself on the window-sill, he turned and threw
his legs out of the window.

"For Heaven's sake, Colonel L'Isle, what are you dreaming of?"

"I am dreaming that, happy as Ulysses, I have liste