cuit of the island, so that they might meet each other, but not a trace of either us or our boat could they discover. Francesca had wept; she was very kind to me; she lamented with pain the deaths of Gennaro and the two seamen. Fabiani would not be satisfied without himself going out to search; he resolved to examine every little crevice of the rocks, to see whether some of us might not have saved ourselves by swimming, and might perhaps be even then enduring the most horrible of deaths — that of distress and hunger; for from not one single place was it possible to climb up to human beings. In the early morning, therefore, he had gone out with four strong rowers, had visited the isolated rocky portals of the sea, and every individual chasm of rock. The rowers were unwilling to approach the terrific Witches' Cave, but Fabiani commanded them to steer there towards the little green flat. As he approached the place, he saw, at no great distance, a human being lying outstretched; it was myself. I lay like a corpse among the green bushes; my dress was half dried by the winds; they took me into the boat; he covered me with his cloak, rubbed my hands and my breast, and perceived that I breathed faintly. They made for land, and, under the care of the physician, I was again among the number of the living. Gennaro and the two seamen were nowhere to be found.

They made me tell them all that I could remember, and I told them of the singularly beaming cave in which I had awoke, of the boat with the old fisherman and the blind girl, and they said it was my imagination, a feverish dream in the night air; even I myself felt as if I ought to think so, and yet I could not, it stood all so livingly before my soul.

"Was he then found by the Witches' Cave?" inquired the physician, and shook his head.

"You do not, then, believe that this place has a more potent influence than any other?" asked Fabiani.

"Nature is a chain of riddles," said the physician; “we have only found out the easiest."

It became day in my soul. The Witches' Cave, that world of which our seamen had spoken, where all was gleaming fire and beams!-had the sea, then, borne me in there? I re

membered the narrow opening through which I had sailed out of it. Was it reality, or a dream? Had I looked into a spiritual world? The mercy of the Madonna had saved and protected me. My thoughts dreamed themselves back again into the beamingly beautiful hall where my protecting angel was called Lara.

In truth, the whole was no dream. I had seen that which not until some years afterwards had been discovered, and now is the most beautiful object in Capri, nay, in Italy, the Grotta Azzurra. The female form was really the blind girl from Pæstum. But how could I believe it? -how imagine it to be so? It was, indeed, very strange. I folded my hands, and thought upon my guardian angel.

.

F

CHAPTER XXII.

JOURNEY HOME.

RANCESCA and Fabiani remained yet two days in

Capri, that we might be able to make the journey back to Naples together. If I had formerly been many times wounded by their mode of speaking to me, and their treatment of me, I now received so much affection from them, and they had showed so much solicitude about me, that I clung to them with my whole heart.

"Thou must go with us to Rome," they said; "that is the most rational and the best thing for thee."

My singular deliverance, the wonderful appearance in the cave, operated greatly on my excited state of mind. I felt myself so wholly in the hand of the invisible guide who lovingly directs all for the best, that I now regarded all chances as in the ruling of Providence, and was resigned; and, therefore, when Francesca kindly pressed my hand, and asked me whether I had a desire to live in Naples with Bernardo, I assured her that I must and would go to Rome.

“We should have shed many tears for thee, Antonio,” said Francesca, and pressed my hand; "thou art our good child. Madonna has held her protecting hand over thee."

"Excellenza shall know," said Fabiani, " that the Antonio with whom he was angry is drowned in the Mediterranean, and that we are bringing back home with us the old, excellent Antonio!"

"Poor Gennaro !" sighed Francesca then; "he possessed a noble heart, life, and spirit. In everything he was a master!"

The physician sat beside me for many hours; he was properly from Naples, and was only on a visit in Capri. On the third day he accompanied us back. He said that I was per

fectly well, bodily at least, though not spiritually. I had looked into the kingdom of death · had felt the kiss of the angel of death upon my brow. The mimosa of youth had folded together its leaves.

When we were seated in the boat, with the physician in company, and I saw the clear, transparent water, all the recollections of the past crowded themselves upon my soul, and I thought how near I had been to death, and how wonderfully I had been saved. I felt that life was still so beautiful, and tears rushed to my eyes. All my three companions occupied themselves alone with me, nay, Francesca herself talked of my beautiful talent, called me a poet; and when the physician heard that it was I who had improvised, he told what delight I had given to all his friends, and how transported they had been with me.

The wind was in our favor, and instead of sailing direct to Sorrento, as had at first been determined, and of going from thence overland to Naples, we now sailed directly up to the capital. In my lodging I found three letters, one from Federigo; he had again set off to Ischia, and would not return for three days; this distressed me, for thus I should not be able to bid him farewell, because our departure was fixed for the noon of the following day. The second letter, the waiter told me, had been brought the morning after I had set out; I opened it, and read:

"A faithful heart, which intends honorably and kindly towards you, expects you this evening." Then was given the house and the number, but no name, only the words, "Your old friend."

The third letter was from the same hand, and contained : "Come, Antonio! The terror of the last unfortunate moment of our parting is now well over. Come quickly! regard it as a misunderstanding. All may be right; only delay not a moment in coming! The same signature as before.

That these were from Santa was to me sufficiently evident; although she had chosen another house than hers for our meeting. I resolved not to see her again; wrote in haste a few polite words to her husband, that I was leaving Naples,

that the hurry in which our arrangements were made forbade me to pay him a farewell visit; I thanked him for his and his signora's politeness to me, and besought them not to forget For Federigo I wrote, also, a little note; promised him a regularly long letter from Rome, because I was not now in a condition to write.

me.

I went out nowhere, for I wished not to meet Bernardo, and saw none of my new friends. The only person whom I visited was the physician, and I drove to his house with Fabiani. His was a charming and friendly home: his eldest sister, an unmarried lady, kept his house. There was a something so affectionate, something so truthful about her, that I was immediately taken with her. I could not help thinking of old Domenica, only that she was accomplished, was possessed of talents and higher perfections.

The next morning, the last which I was to spend in Naples, my eye dwelt, with a melancholy sentiment, upon Vesuvius, which I now saw for the last time; but thick clouds enveloped the top of the mountain, which seemed as if it would not say to me farewell.

The sea was perfectly tranquil. I thought upon my dreampictures Lara in the glittering grotto- and soon would all my whole residence here in Naples be like a dream! I took up the paper "Diaro di Napoli," which the waiter brought in: I saw my own name in it, and a critique on my first appearance. Full of curiosity, I read it: my rich fancy and my beautiful versification were in particular most highly praised. It was said that I seemed to be of the school of Pangetti, only that I had a little too much followed my master. I knew nothing at all about this Pangetti, that was certain; and, therefore, could not have formed myself upon that model. Nature and my own feelings had alone been my guides. But the greatest number of critics are so little original themselves, that they believe, that all whom they pass judgment upon must have some model to copy. The public had awarded me a greater applause than this; although the critic said that in time I should become a master, and that I was now already possessed of uncommon talent, rich imagination, feeling, and inspiration. I folded together the paper, and resolved to keep it: it would