Page:Artabanzanus (Ferrar, 1896).djvu/84

76 There were also many columns of great size and beauty, and of venerable antiquity, with fierce fires burning on their summits. One was dedicated to Glory, another to Victory, another to Patriotism, another to Despotic Power. Several were ornamented with statues of the Angel of Death, crowned with flowers which seemed to have been dipped in blood.

The Demon's chariot stood still at last beside a suspicious-looking crimson pool. The people who had come from the other quarters to see the review had ranged themselves around the four sides of the square. The resemblance of a curtain like that in a theatre was drawn up before us, and a picture presented to view which made my hair stand on end. The scene at first was one of peaceful joy and exquisite beauty. A spacious and magnificent park, with a handsome, not to say a grand, residence, fit for a royal duke; two gentlemen were talking and laughing together, within a short distance of the mansion, while several men were lounging about in their neighbourhood, and some were extended harmlessly on the grass, At a given signal they started up and attacked the two gentlemen with long knives, and they, after a vain struggle, fell stabbed to the heart. The assassins fled, but were pursued by the three Furies, and disappeared from the scene; and our noble Phoenix Park, in which I played many a time with my school-fellows, was polluted with blood shed by murderers.

Are murderers mad? Have they lost, with all their moral feeling, every perception of wisdom and prudence too? They seem to be incapable of reflecting that the blood which they so freely shed will some day come flowing back to their own doors. They are remorseless, cruel men, who cannot remember that the death they are so ready to inflict on others will certainly present his stern visage to themselves. They flatter themselves that the arm of the law, however