CHAPTER III.

THE stars still shone brightly when I awoke, and Taurus high in the

southern heaven shewed that it was midnight. I awoke from disturbed dreams.

Methought I had been invited to Timon's last feast; I came with keen

appetite, the covers were removed, the hot water sent up its unsatisfying

steams, while I fled before the anger of the host, who assumed the form of

Raymond; while to my diseased fancy, the vessels hurled by him after me,

were surcharged with fetid vapour, and my friend's shape, altered by a

thousand distortions, expanded into a gigantic phantom, bearing on its brow

the sign of pestilence. The growing shadow rose and rose, filling, and then

seeming to endeavour to burst beyond, the adamantine vault that bent over,

sustaining and enclosing the world. The night-mare became torture; with a

strong effort I threw off sleep, and recalled reason to her wonted

functions. My first thought was Perdita; to her I must return; her I must

support, drawing such food from despair as might best sustain her wounded

heart; recalling her from the wild excesses of grief, by the austere laws

of duty, and the soft tenderness of regret.

The position of the stars was my only guide. I turned from the awful ruin

of the Golden City, and, after great exertion, succeeded in extricating

myself from its enclosure. I met a company of soldiers outside the walls; I

borrowed a horse from one of them, and hastened to my sister. The

appearance of the plain was changed during this short interval; the

encampment was broken up; the relics of the disbanded army met in small

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The Last Man