as far as the eye could discern, an aspect of confusion that
was at once graceful and picturesque. Of the various lamps, of every
variety of pattern, hanging from the ceiling, but few remained alight.
From those, however, which were still unextinguished there shone a mild
brightness, admirably adapted to display the objects immediately around
them. The golden garlands and the alabaster pots of sweet ointment
which had been suspended before the guests during the banquet, still
hung from the painted ceiling. On the massive table, composed partly
of ebony and partly of silver, yet lay, in the wildest confusion,
fragments of gastronomic delicacies, grotesque dinner services, vases
of flowers, musical instruments, and crystal dice; while towering over
all rose the glittering dish which had contained the nightingales
consumed by the feasters, with the four golden Cupids which had spouted
over them that illustrious invention--the Nightingale Sauce. Around
the couches, of violet and rose colour, ranged along the table, the
perfumed and gaily-tinted powders that had been strewn in patterns over
the marble floor were perceptible for a few yards; but beyond this
point nothing more was plainly distinguishable. The eye roved down the
sides of the glorious chamber, catching dim glimpses of gorgeous
draperies, crowded statues, and marble columns, but discerning nothing
accurately, until it reached the half-opened windows, and rested upon
the fresh dewy verdure now faintly visible in the shady gardens
without. There--waving in the morning breezes, charged on every leaf
with their burden of pure and welcome moisture--rose the lofty
pine-trees, basking in the recurrence of the new day's beautiful and
undying youth, and rising in reproving contrast before the exhausted
allurements of luxury and the perverted creations of art which burdened
the tables of the hall within.

After a hasty survey of the apartment, the freedman appeared to be on
the point of quitting it in despair, when the noise of a falling dish,
followed by several partly suppressed and wholly confused exclamations
of affright, caught his ear. He once more approached the
banqueting-table, retrimmed a lamp that hung near him, and taking it in
his hand, passed to the side of the room whence the disturbance
proceeded. A hideous little negro, staring in ludicrous terror at a
silver oven, half filled with bread, which had just fallen beside him,
was the first object he di