Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 026.djvu/403

 livid features. His glazed and sunken eyes still glared with fiend-like and collected malice on his conqueror, and every lineament was inwrought with reckless and insatiable ferocity.

Colonna gazed awhile in solemn and impressive silence upon the foe he had destroyed. His broad forehead dark- ened with deep thought, and his eyes saddened with painful recollections of the beloved parent whose untimely death he had so well avenged. Soon, however, his noble features brightened with a fervent look of mingled filial piety and exultation. He wiped his reeking blade upon the remnants of Barozzo's mantle, and we retraced our steps. Colonna ascended a sheep path, and crossed the mountain to regain his boat, while I returned by a circuitous road to the villa, leaving the governor of Candia and his retinue to the vul- tures of the Apennine, which, with unerring ken, had seen or scented the dead Greeks, and were already sailing in wide eddies, high above the scene of blood.

Here my friend, who had with difficulty pursued his way through the mouldy pages of the decayed manuscript, was compelled to make a final pause. The long action of time and damp had nearly obliterated the remain- der of the narrative, and glimpses only of romantic perils by sea and land were occasionally discernible. We were obliged to suspend all farther gratification of our curiosity until our return to Venice, where we hoped by a chemical process to succeed in restoring to a more legible tint the pale characters of this interesting manuscript.

THE RUINED NUNNERY. BY DELTA.

I. 'TWAS a tempestuous eve; the rains, Over the mountains and the plains, Pour'd down with ceaseless noise; The forest depths were in a roar; The sea came foaming to the shore, And through the rocky caverns hoar, Howl'd with a giant's voice. II. At length the winds began to still, As Hesper crown'd the southern hill: The rains began to cease; Night's star-bestudded map unfurl'd; Up from the earth the black clouds curl'd; And the white moon rose o'er the world, As twere to herald Peace. III. Lull'd was the turmoil on the shore, While the fierce rack that, just before, With tempest laden deep, Swept through the sad and sullen sky, Grew bright, and, in serenity, Beneath the quiet moon's calm eye, Appear'd to fall asleep.

IV. The green trees twinkled in the vale; Pure was the radiance-pure and pale, With beauty silvering o'er The verdant lawn, and lapsing rill; There was a silence on the hill; Hush'd were the winds; and all grew still, Except the river's roar. VOL. CCVI. NO. CLVI.