, or authority, of
the island, came to examine into the matter, the most unaccountable
mystery was the manner in which these ruffians had met their fate.
Zanoni had not stirred from the apartment in which he ordinarily pursued
his chemical studies. None of the servants had even been disturbed from
their slumbers. No marks of human violence were on the bodies of the
dead. They died, and made no sign. From that moment Zanoni's house--nay,
the whole vicinity--was sacred. The neighbouring villages, rejoiced
to be delivered from a scourge, regarded the stranger as one whom the
Pagiana (or Virgin) held under her especial protection.

In truth, the lively Greeks around, facile to all external impressions,
and struck with the singular and majestic beauty of the man who knew
their language as a native, whose voice often cheered them in their
humble sorrows, and whose hand was never closed to their wants,
long after he had left their shore preserved his memory by grateful
traditions, and still point to the lofty platanus beneath which they had
often seen him seated, alone and thoughtful, in the heats of noon. But
Zanoni had haunts less open to the gaze than the shade of the platanus.
In that isle there are the bituminous springs which Herodotus has
commemorated. Often at night, the moon, at least, beheld him emerging
from the myrtle and cystus that clothe the hillocks around the marsh
that imbeds the pools containing the inflammable materia, all the
medical uses of which, as applied to the nerves of organic life, modern
science has not yet perhaps explored. Yet more often would he pass
his hours in a cavern, by the loneliest part of the beach, where the
stalactites seem almost arranged by the hand of art, and which the
superstition of the peasants associates, in some ancient legends, with
the numerous and almost incessant earthquakes to which the island is so
singularly subjected.

Whatever the pursuits that instigated these wanderings and favoured
these haunts, either they were linked with, or else subordinate to, one
main and master desire, which every fresh day passed in the sweet human
company of Viola confirmed and strengthened.

The scene that Glyndon had witnessed in his trance was faithful to
truth. And some little time after the date of that night, Viola
was dimly aware that an influence, she knew not of what nature, was
struggling to establish itself over her happy life. Visions indistinct
and beautiful, such as thos