After Sanazio’s decease, curiosity quickly led me to his study:  I was alone, and the shades of evening were stealing over the earth:  conceive then my utter dismay and superstitious horror upon suddenly entering, what I could but suppose to be a charnel-house!  Its effluvium was intolerable, and well accounted for by (loathsome spectacle!) a disorderly collection of human fragments in various stages of preservation and decay!  A dozen grisly skeletons grinned upon me from pedestals round the room, and in the centre of it, the half dissected body of a man, stretched upon a large lava slab, supported by tressels, was more horrible and odious than all.  I now comprehended the full meaning of Sanazio’s dying words and secret; but received at the same time, a shock which to this day I have not recovered; I found myself compelled to make Druso my confidant in this matter, and my companion in some of my first attempts at following the hideous occupation recommended by my deceased friend.  By degrees I grew accustomed to the horrors of the room and of my employment.  Druso, who found himself better engaged in courting the living than in cutting up the dead, was no longer necessary to me in the prosecution of my hateful studies, and kept aloof, but I soon discovered the value of them, in my increase of knowledge, employment, and reputation.  At last an epidemic raged in Padua, proving very fatal; Ignatius, alarmed for the safety of his Phaedera, who was attacked, applied to me, and I cured her.  Some time afterwards, the ungrateful wretch rushed into my laboratory, claiming the body upon which I was operating, as that of a young man, cousin to Phaedera, which had miraculously disappeared just previous to the day intended for its interment.  The features of the poor wretch were too much disfigured to render possible his recognition by them, but Druso swore to its being the body of Marcus, from a scar on the left leg, which had been wounded severely by a quoit.  Of course I refused to resign, that, for which I had paid a handsome price, and to reveal the names of those from whom I purchased it.  So Druso dragged me before the Supreme Council, impeached me of sacrilege in the affair of the nun, of theft, and of violating the sanctity of the tomb, of barbarously mutilating the dead, and of applying their lacerated remains to the unholy purposes of sorcery! and on these counts have I been indicted, found guilty, and sentenced to be burnt as a sacrilegious heretic, an unnatural robber, and a formidable wizard!  Antonia, the mother of seven children, is to be—­like the unchaste vestal—­immured!  Oh Heaven! whilst Druso the Informer, receiving at the same time the portion of a prince for his venal treachery, will celebrate his union with Phaedera, amidst the shrieks and groans of his expiring victims!