ing;
and when there was nobody nigh, he saw a dark-coloured chariot, drawn by
six milk-white horses, stop close beside him. The chariot was followed by
a numerous train of domestics in dark liveries, mounted on dark-coloured
steeds. In the chariot there sat a tall stranger of a majestic aspect; his
long black hair floated in the wind--fire flashed from his large black
eyes, and a curl of ineffable scorn dwelt upon his lips. The look of the
stranger was so sublime that he was awed, and trembled with fear when he
gazed upon him. His complexion was much darker than that of any man he had
ever seen, and the atmosphere around him was hot and suffocating. He
perceived immediately that he was a being of another world. The stranger,
seeing his trepidation, asked him blandly, yet majestically, to mount
beside him. He had no power to refuse, and before he was well aware that
he had moved, he found himself in the chariot. Onwards they went, with the
rapidity of the wind, the stranger speaking no word, until they stopped
before a door in the high-street of Milan. There was a crowd of people in
the street, but, to his great surprise, no one seemed to notice the
extraordinary equipage and its numerous train. From this he concluded that
they were invisible. The house at which they stopped appeared to be a
shop, but the interior was like a vast half-ruined palace. He went with
his mysterious guide through several large and dimly-lighted rooms. In one
of them, surrounded by huge pillars of marble, a senate of ghosts was
assembled, debating on the progress of the plague. Other parts of the
building were enveloped in the thickest darkness, illumined at intervals
by flashes of lightning, which allowed him to distinguish a number of
gibing and chattering skeletons, running about and pursuing each other, or
playing at leap-frog over one another's backs. At the rear of the mansion
was a wild, uncultivated plot of ground, in the midst of which arose a
black rock. Down its sides rushed with fearful noise a torrent of
poisonous water, which, insinuating itself through the soil, penetrated to
all the springs of the city, and rendered them unfit for use. After he had
been shewn all this, the stranger led him into another large chamber,
filled with gold and precious stones, all of which he offered him if he
would kneel down and worship him, and consent to smear the doors and
houses of Milan with a pestiferous salve which he held out to him. He now
kn