interpretation put upon a misfortune the memory of which will
afflict me to the last hour of my life. (Signed) Louis Victor,
Duc de R.

In the above memorial the reader will find the most exact and minute
account yet given of an event which created the most lively sensation at
Naples in that day, and the narration of which first induced me to
collect the materials of this history, which the reader will perceive,
as it advances, is altogether different in its nature, its agencies, and
its aims from those tales of external terror, whether derived from
ingenious imposture or supernatural mystery, that have given life to
French melodrama or German romance.




CHAPTER XVII.


Glyndon had taken no part in the affray, neither had he participated
largely in the excesses of the revel. For his exemption from both he
was perhaps indebted to the whispered exhortations of Zicci. When the
last rose from the corpse and withdrew from that scene of confusion,
Glyndon remarked that in passing the crowd he touched Mascari on the
shoulder, and said something which the Englishman did not overhear.
Glyndon followed Zicci into the banquet-room, which, save where the
moonlight slept on the marble floor, was wrapped in the sad and gloomy
shadows of the advancing night.

"How could you foretell this fearful event? He fell not by your arm,"