Had a thunderbolt fallen at his feet, Alfred could not have been more startled than by this intelligence. Suddenly stopping short, he grasped the Spaniard's arm, and looking him steadfastly in the face, said;— "Juan, I know you are reckless and indifferent about the world's opinion; yet I think you dared not deceive me in a matter like this." "What motive could I have in doing so?" replied the Spaniard, coolly, and without wincing in the least from the eager gaze of his guest; "I have no other desire than to save you from a rencontre, which you might ever afterwards regret." "In what relationship, then, does he stand to me?" continued Alfred, with breathless impatience. "He never told me that. I have told you all I know on the subject-on the word of a son of Castile, I have." Alfred let go his grasp, the victim of a hundred tormenting thoughts. The possibility of the outlaw being his father, rose instantly to his mind. It was, indeed, highly improbable, VOL. III, F but the bare idea almost maddened him. He hesitated an instant, whether to return immediately and demand an explanation; but a moment's reflection convinced him of the imprudence of placing himself in the power of such a man; and he resolved on continuing his journey, being satisfied in his own mind, that the Egyptian had the power, if he chose, of explaining all. Hans now made his appearance with his horse, and Alfred, drawing his purse, demanded the amount of his reckoning. "Reckoning!" replied the Spaniard, indignantly; "think you I have sunk from the rank of a lieutenant of free companions, to the trade of a tapster? Put up your money—and the next time you pass this way, may you find the larder fuller, and my wife in a better key." Juan uttered the latter words in a lower tone, and cast a hasty glance around, to satisfy himself that they were not overheard by the party to whom they referred. "So," he continued, eyeing Alfred's horse, "you still keep your favourite black Warwick? -a superb charger, by St. Martin; somewhat thinner on the flank, though, than when I galloped him along the shores of the lake of Garda, one sunny afternoon some four summers since." By this time, Alfred had mounted; and slipping a ducat into the hands of the silent Hans, while he waved an adieu to his master, he immediately resumed his journey. CHAPTER V. On the Rialto, every night at twelve, I take my evening's walk of meditation; VENICE PRESERVED. IT was late before he arrived at Verona; and leaving his horse at the nearest inn, he proceeded immediately in search of the Egyptian. He reached the arena of the amphitheatre a few minutes before the appointed time; and the peculiar solitude of the place—the sombre character of the building, with its massive walls, and dark cavernous recesses-the lateness of the hour-and the unknown purpose of the conference he was about to hold with the singular man who appeared master of his destinyall led him to indulge in a train of painful re flections, not unmingled with superstitious awe, of which he in vain strove to divest himself. He thought of the many changes which had taken place in his feelings, since he last stood within those walls. He was then entering the world with all the exuberant confidence of youth and inexperience, in the full vigour of health, and in the happy buoyancy of spirits, which attend nineteen. He knew nothing of the numerous snares which lay prepared for the destruction of the weak and the unwary, at almost every step in the path of life; nor of the evil passions of which the human breast may become so readily the prey. The visions which his own fancy had created, had now been dispelled by four years of active experience on the bustling theatre of real life, during which he had felt many a disappointment, and discovered many an unpleasant truth. The system of warfare which was pursued in Italy, where money was the sole motive of action, had dissipated all his dreams of fame and chivalry ; and the avarice of the chiefs, the incessant plots and conspiracies of the free states, and the |