out to my master; he called me superstitious and a simpleton. I began to repeat an 'ave,' but the castle refused to vanish, and remained before my eyes a substantial and obstinate fact. Black cypresses looked with elongated necks over the wall, and fig-trees stretched gnarled branches like fingers towards us, as if to beckon us in. Glittering lizards crept up the parapets and looked at us with sparkling, spiteful eyes. On the cornices stood hideous figures in marble of the most repulsive ugliness—goat-footed satyrs that made faces at us, little hunchbacked creatures with three-cornered hats, crinolined dames with horses' heads, dragons, griffins, monsters with grins and leers and distortions that only diabolus could invent. Among the hateful masks walked a peacock with a long trailing tail, its blue neck shimmering in the sun.
"'How to get into the garden?' murmured Count Orazio, staring dreamily before him. 'The gate might be scaled—a bold spring, and———'
"'What are you thinking of, Excellentissimo?' said I, warningly. 'For the Madonna's sake, give up the thought. Your body and soul are alike at stake. Believe me, the devil walketh about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.'
"My warning sounded in deaf ears. He had already sprung from the gondola, when a wicket opened, and an old Moor stepped before him with a deep curtsey; he brought a request from his mistress, the Signora Smeralda, for the honour of a visit in her garden. In vain did I hold back the blinded and intoxicated patrician by his black silk mantle; in vain did I try to excuse myself from following him; he rushed through the gate, dragging me with him, while the old slave remained to guard our gondola.
"Strange flowers, never seen before, such as can only be supposed to grow in the pleasure gardens of the Great Mogul himself, nodded drowsily to us as we passed. Rainbow-coloured birds flew from branch to branch, twittering, singing, shouting with almost human voice, like a chorus of happy, chattering maidens. Once an ugly, long-tailed monkey swung himself down from a tree before us, holding on with his tail to a branch; grinned spitefully at us, and then hurried off once more into the wilderness of foliage. From one of the side alleys stepped a purple-coloured stork, as gravely as a major-domo, before us, swayed his long neck hither and thither, as if bowing to us, and then walked forward as our guide, ever and anon looking round to see if we followed. For my part, I followed as in a dream, resisting, and yet drawn forward as by some inexplicable magic.
"Presently we stood before an immense, strange-looking tree, with broad shining leaves hung thick with silvery bell-shaped blossoms. In the shade of its branches lay costly Persian carpets and cushions of crimson velvet embroidered in pearls, and on them the heathen Princess, surrounded by a bevy of beauteous maidens, was reclining with the utmost grace. The little Moor stood at her head, fanning her with a broad fan of bright peacock's feathers. The red stork, which had hitherto walked before us, now stood still, opened wide his legs, drove his long beak into the earth, and so, slightly raising its wings for cushions, formed a three-legged easy chair on which Count Orazio, at a sign from the lady, sat down.
"Lost in gazing at the fair Smeralda, the Count had sat down speechless before her, while she, calling for her lute, discoursed sweet music; I had stood beside his tripodal chair torn by many feelings, when the young Moor with a cunningly-worked golden goblet full of a dark-red foaming wine stepped up to my master. 'Drink not of this brew of hell, Signor!' I whispered, and at the same time felt myself embraced by the white arm of a lovely little witch who offered me a similar draught.
"My first instinct was to spurn from me the beautiful little elf, to dash away the magic draught—but the wine gave out so sweet an aroma, sparkled so enticingly, so brightly, within the golden walls! The eyes of the elf glanced so entreatingly at me, her arms wound themselves so tenderly about me—ah, the spirit truly was willing, but the flesh was weak!
"Only one sip, thought I, only the wetting of the tip of my tongue—that will hardly cost me my neck. And then I sipped, I tasted, I sucked, I gulped down the liquid to the very last drop—then I fell on the neck of the pretty temptress, and on looking round saw my master on his knees before the seductive Smeralda. I touched with my own the lips of my charmer—my senses whirled in a transport of delight when, breathless from out the bushes rushed the negro boy, crying: 'Fly! Fly! All is lost! Porporinazzo, our gracious master, is coming! He raves in his rage!'
"Ah, the warning voice had come too late; scarcely had it sounded when a short, globular creature, of the form and colour
