ed to shake it off, and speak as usual. Men
found themselves whispering to each other as if they feared to speak
aloud--as if some impalpable and invisible horror were hovering round
them. It might have been that the raging storm without affected all
within, with a species of awe, to which even the wisest and the
bravest are liable when the Almighty utters His voice in the tempest,
and the utter nothingness of men comes home to the proudest heart.
But there was another cause. One was missing from the council and the
board; the seat of Don Ferdinand Morales was vacant, and unuttered but
absorbing anxiety occupied every mind. It was full two hours, rather
more, from the given hour of meeting; the council itself had been
delayed, and was at length held without him, but so unsatisfactory did
it prove, that many subjects were postponed. They adjourned to the
banquet-room; but the wine circled but slowly, and the King leant back
on his chair, disinclined apparently for either food or drink.

"The storm increases fearfully," observed the aged Duke of Murcia,
a kinsman of the King, as a flash of lightning blazed through the
casements, of such extraordinary length and brilliance, that even the
numerous lustres, with which the room was lighted, looked dark when
it disappeared. It was followed by a peal of thunder, loud as if a
hundred cannons had been discharged above their heads, and causing
several glasses to be shivered on the board. "Unhappy those compelled
to brave it."

"Nay, better out than in," observed another. "There is excitement in
witnessing its fury, and gloom most depressing in listening to it
thus."

"Perchance 'tis the shadow of the coming evil," rejoined Don Felix
d'Estaban. "Old legends say, there is never a storm like this, without
bringing some national evil on its wings."

"Ha! say they so?" demanded the King, suddenly, that his guests
started. "And is there truth in it?"

"The lovers of such marvels would bring your Grace many proofs that,
some calamity always followed such a tempest," replied Don Felix. "It
may or may not be. For my own part, I credit not such things. We are
ourselves the workers of evil--no fatality lurking in storms."

"Fated or casual, if evil has occurred to Don Ferdinand Morales,
monarch and subject will alike have cause to associate this tempest
with national calamity," answered the King, betraying at once the
unspoken, but engrossing subject of his thoughts. "Who saw him last