and whether my ears deceived me or not, I am ignorant; neither do I know how I was restored to my senses; but I heard it say, ‘Tremble, parricide, whom nothing can convert, and who wilt not turn to the path thou hast abandoned!’”
The very recollection produced such horror on Calzolaro’s mind as to stop his respiration and prevent his proceeding. The colonel briefly explained to the spectators what appeared to them mysterious in his words, and then said to the penitent juggler:
“Since your imagination has played you so strange a trick, I exhort you in future to avoid all similar accidents, and to accept the arrangement proposed to you by the person whom your father has named as his heir.”
“No, monsieur,” answered he, “no agreement, no bargain; else I shall only half fulfil my duty. Every thing shall belong to this heiress, and the law-suit shall be abandoned.”
He at the same time declared that he was weary of the mode of life he had adopted, and that every wish of his father’s should be fulfilled.
The colonel told him that such a resolution compensated for what had failed in the evening’s amusement.
The company, however, did not cease making numberless inquiries of Calzolaro, many of which
