Page:The Coming Race, etc - 1888.djvu/351

 BOOK II.

CHAPTER I.

T was about a month after the date of Zicci's departure and Glyndon's introduction to Mejnour, when two Englishmen were walking arm-in-arm through Toledo. "I tell you," said one (who spoke warmly), "that if you have a particle of common sense left in you, you will accompany me to England. This Mejnour is an impostor more dangerous—because more in earnest—than Zicci. After all, what do his promises amount to? You allow that nothing can be more equivocal. You say that he has left Naples—that he has selected a retreat more genial than the crowded thoroughfares of men to the studies in which he is to initiate you; and this retreat is among the haunts of the fiercest bandits of Italy, haunts which Justice itself dare not penetrate:—fitting hermitage for a sage! I tremble for you. What if this stranger, erf whom nothing is known, be leagued with the robbers; and these lures for your credulity bait but the traps for your property—perhaps your life? You might come off cheaply by a ransom of half your fortune: you smile indignantly;—well! put common sense out of the question: take your own view of the matter. You are to undergo an ordeal which Mejnour himself does not profess to describe as a very tempting one. It may, or it may not, succeed; if it does not, you are menaced with the darkest evils; and if it does, you cannot be better off than the dull and joyless mystic whom you have taken for a master. Away with this folly. Enjoy youth while it is left to you, Return with me to England: forget these dreams. Enter your proper career; form affections more respectable than those which lured you awhile to an Italian adventuress, and become a happy and distinguished man. This is the advice of sober friendship; yet the promises I hold out to you are fairer than those of Mejnour."

"Merton," said Glyndon, doggedly, "I cannot, if I would, yield to your wishes. A power that is above me urges me on: I cannot