n reptile; and pausing, at length it
cowered beside the table which held the mystic volume, and again fixed
its eyes through the filmy veil on the rash invoker. All fancies, the
most grotesque, of monk or painter in the early North, would have failed
to give to the visage of imp or fiend that aspect of deadly malignity
which spoke to the shuddering nature in those eyes alone. All else
so dark,--shrouded, veiled and larva-like. But that burning glare so
intense, so livid, yet so living, had in it something that was almost
HUMAN in its passion of hate and mockery,--something that served to
show that the shadowy Horror was not all a spirit, but partook of
matter enough, at least, to make it more deadly and fearful an enemy to
material forms. As, clinging with the grasp of agony to the wall,--his
hair erect, his eyeballs starting, he still gazed back upon that
appalling gaze,--the Image spoke to him: his soul rather than his ear
comprehended the words it said.

"Thou hast entered the immeasurable region. I am the Dweller of the
Threshold. What wouldst thou with me? Silent? Dost thou fear me? Am
I not thy beloved? Is it not for me that thou hast rendered up the
delights of thy race? Wouldst thou be wise? Mine is the wisdom of the
countless ages. Kiss me, my mortal lover." And the Horror crawled near
and nearer to him; it crept to his side, its breath breathed upon his
cheek! With a sharp cry he fell to the earth insensible, and knew no
more till, far in the noon of the next day, he opened his eyes and found
himself in his bed,--the glorious sun streaming through his lattice,
and the bandit Paolo by his side, engaged in polishing his carbine, and
whistling a Calabrian love-air.

CHAPTER 4.VIII.

Thus man pursues his weary calling,
And wrings the hard life from the sky,
While happiness unseen is falling
Down from God's bosom silently.
--Schiller.

In one of those islands whose history the imperishable literature and
renown of Athens yet invest with melancholy interest, and on which
Nature, in whom "there is nothing melancholy," still bestows a glory of
scenery and climate equally radiant for the freeman or the
slave,--the Ionian, the Venetian, the Gaul, the Turk, or the restless
Briton,--Zanoni had fixed his bridal home. There the air carries with it
the perfumes of the plains for miles along the blue, translucent deep.
(See Dr. Holland's "Travels to the Ionian Isles," etc., page 18.) Seen
f