m which he never
awoke,--but Doctor Doolittle, anxious to secure Cooke as a patient,
became quite eloquent upon the advantages of a vegetable diet, and of
the Pythagorean system in general; after which the conversation of the
night closed, and the guests departed to their respective lodgings.

The night was still an beautiful. The moon was about to sink, but still
she emitted that faint and shadowy light which lends such calm, but
picturesque beauty to the nocturnal landscape. Woodward was alone;
but it would be difficult to find language in which to describe the
bitterness of his feelings and the frightful sense of his disappointment
on finding, not only that his infamous design upon the life of Alice
Goodwin had been frustrated, but on feeling certain that she had been
restored to perfect health before his eyes. This, however, was not
the worst of it. He had calculated on killing her, and consequently of
securing the twelve hundred a year, on the strength of which he and his
mother could confidently negotiate with the old nobleman, who always
slept with one eye open. In the venom and dark malignity of his heart
he cursed Alice Goodwin, he cursed Valentine Greatrakes, he cursed
the world, and he cursed God, or rather would have cursed him had he
believed in the existence of such a being.

In this mood of mind he was proceeding to his lodgings, when he espied
before him the _Shan-dhinne-dhuv_, or Black Spectre with the middogue in
his hand. He stood and looked at it steadily.

"What is this?" said he, addressing the figure before him. "What pranks
are you playing now? Do you think me a fool? What brought you here? and
what do you mean by this pantomimic nonsense, Mr. Conjurer?"

The figure, of course, made no reply, except by gesture. It brandished
the middogue, or dagger, however, and pointed it three times at his
heart. The spot upon which this strange interview occurred was perfectly
clear of anything that could conceal an individual. In fact it was an
open common. Woodward, consequently, led astray by circumstances with
which the reader will become subsequently acquainted, started forward
with the intention of reaching the individual whom he suspected of
indulging himself in playing with his fears, or rather with jocularly
intending to excite them. He sprang forward, we say, and reached the
spot on which the Black Spectre had stood, but our readers may judge
of his surprise when he found that the spectre, or what