"Recollect all cannot drink it with the same impunity as myself."

"No," said the Prince, hastily; "if you do not recommend the wine,
Heaven forbid that we should constrain our guests! My Lord Duke,"
turning to one of the Frenchmen, "yours is the true soil of Bacchus.
What think you of this cask from Burgundy,--has it borne the journey?"

"Ah!" said Zicci, "let us change both the wine and the theme." With
that the Corsican grew more animated and brilliant. Never did wit more
sparkling, airy, exhilarating, flash from the lips of reveller. His
spirits fascinated all present, even the Prince himself, even Glyndon,
with a strange and wild contagion. The former, indeed, whom the words
and gaze of Zicci, when he drained the poison, had filled with fearful
misgivings, now hailed in the brilliant eloquence of his wit a certain
sign of the operation of the bane. The wine circulated fast, but none
seemed conscious of its effects. One by one the rest of the party fell
into a charmed and spell-bound silence as Zicci continued to pour forth
sally upon sally, tale upon tale. They hung on his words, they almost
held their breath to listen. Yet how bitter was his mirth; how full of
contempt for all things; how deeply steeped in the coldness of the
derision that makes sport of life itself!

Night came on; the room grew dim, and the feast had lasted several hours
longer than was the customary duration of similar entertainments at that
day. Still the guests stirred not, and still Zicci continued, with
glittering eye and mocking lip, to lavish his stores of intellect and
anecdote, when suddenly the moon rose, and shed its rays over the
flowers and fountains in the court without, leaving the room itself half
in shadow and half tinged by a quiet and ghostly light.