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34 are you not afraid to receive from him a gift which may carry with it the most fatal consequences? Do you not know that he is said to be a sorcerer — to possess the mal-occhio — to "

"Prithee, spare us your antiquated superstitions," interrupted Cetoxa, contemptuously. "They are out of fashion; nothing now goes down but scepticism and philosophy. And what, after all, do these rumours, when sifted, amount to? They have no origin but this — a silly old man of eighty-six, quite in his dotage, solemnly avers that he saw this same Zanoni seventy years ago (he himself, the narrator, then a mere boy) at Milan; when this very Zanoni, as you all see, is at least as young as you or I, Belgioso."

"But that," said the grave gentleman — "that is the mystery. Old Avelli declares that Zanoni does not seem a day older than when they met at Milan. He says that even then at Milan — mark this — where, though under another name, this Zanoni appeared in the same splendour, he was attended also by the same mystery. And that an old man there remembered to have seen him sixty years before, in Sweden."

"Tush," returned Cetoxa, "the same thing has been said of the quack Cagliostro — mere fables. I will believe them when I see this diamond turn to a wisp of hay. For the rest," he added gravely, "I consider this illustrious gentleman my friend; and a whisper against his honour and repute will in future be equivalent to an affront to myself"

Cetoxa was a redoubted swordsman, and excelled in