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Rh notice the spot on which the sun's rays most brightly fall; search, and thou wilt discover my treasure." The hand then ceased to move. The Prince put several questions to it, to which it returned no answer. "What shall I do with you?" he added. The hand made fresh signs, by which he understood that he was to replace it in the press. He did so, and shut up everything again; hid the ramrod in the wall where he had found it; and being now a little accustomed to prodigies, descended to the gallery.

On his entrance the windows began to clatter and make an extraordinary movement. He looked for the spot where the rays of the sun fell brightest; he perceived it was upon the portrait of a youth, so handsome and with so majestic an air that he stood enchanted by it. On lifting the picture, he found the wainscot of ebony with mouldings of gold, as throughout the rest of the gallery. He knew not how to remove it, or whether he ought to do so. He consulted the windows; he saw that the wainscot lifted up. He immediately raised it, and found himself in a vestibule all of porphyry, ornamented with statues. He ascended a large staircase of agate, the balustrade of which was inlaid with gold. He entered a saloon of lapis lazuli, and traversing numberless apartments, in which he was enraptured by the excellence of the paintings and the richness of the furniture, he arrived at last at a little chamber, of which all the ornaments were composed of turquoises, and he saw on a bed of blue and gold gauze a lady, who appeared sleeping. She was of incomparable beauty; her tresses, blacker than ebony, set off the whiteness of her skin. She seemed to be uneasy in her slumbers. Her features had an air of melancholy in them, and like those of an invalid.

The Prince, fearing to wake her, approached softly. He heard her speaking, and listening with great attention to her words, he caught these few sentences, broken by sighs: "Dost thou imagine, perfidious one, that I can love thee, when thou hast separated me from my beloved Trasimene?—What! before my eyes thou hast dared divide a hand so dear, from an arm which must ever be dreaded by thee! Is it by such arts thou pretendest to prove to me thy respect and thy affection? Ah, Trasimene, my dear lover! must I never see thee more?" The Prince observed that the tears found a