Page:Iron shroud, or, Italian revenge (4).pdf/21

 vanished. He was in darkness. He doubted whether it was not a dream that had passed before his sleeping fancy; but gradually his scattered thoughts returned, and with them remembrance Yes; he had looked once again upon the gorgeous splendour of nature! Once again hsshis [sic] eyes had trembled beneath their veiled lids, at the sun's radiance, and sought repose in the solt verdure of the olive tree, or the gentle swell of undulating waves. Oh, that he were a mariner, exposed upon the waves to the worst fury of storm and tempest; or a very wretch, loathsome with disease, plague-stricken, and his body one leprous contagion from crown to sole, hunted forth to gasp out the remnant of infectious life beneath those verdant trees, so he might shun the destiny upon whose edge he tottered!

Vain thoughts like these would steal over his mind from time to time, in spite of himself; but they scarcely moved it from that stupor into which it had sunk, and which kept him, during the whole night, like one who had been drugged with opium. He was equally insensible to the calls of hunger and of thirst, though the third day was now commencing since even a drop of water had passed his lips. He remained on the grouudground [sic], sometimes sitting, sometimes lying; at intervals, sleeping heavily; and when not sleeping, silently brooding over what was to come, or talking aloud, in disordered speech, of his wrongs, of his