The Neapolitan smiled.  The king rose.

“Well said!” he murmured, in his silvery tones.  “One that knows so much must know more.  Exhaust his knowledge, I pray.  Do not spare your courtesies; remember he is my guest.  I leave him in your hands.”

He fixed me with his eye,—­that darkly-glazed eye, devoid of life, of love, of joy, as if he were the thing of another element,—­then bowed and passed away.

“The urbanity of His Majesty is too well known to suppose it possible that he should prove you a liar,” said the Neapolitan.

Truly, I was loft in their hands!  Shall I tell you of the charities I found there?  Not I, friend! it would wring your heart as dry of tears as mine was wrung of groans.  At last I was alone, it seemed,—­on a wet stone floor, sweat pouring from every muscle, each fibre quivering; I was distorted and unjointed, I only hoped I was dying.  But no, that was too good for me.  Anselmo, how can I but be full of scoffs, when I remember those hours, those ages?  The cold dampness of the place crept into my bones; I became swollen and teeming with intimate pain.  But that was light, my body might have ached till the throbs stiffened into death-spasms, and yet the suffering had been nought, compared with that loathing and disgust in my soul.  It had seemed that I was alone, I said.  Alone as the corpse in unshrouded grave!  I was in a charnel-house.  Men who were sinless as you hung dead upon the wall, hung dying there.  Darkness covered all things at a distance, sighs crept up from far corners, chains clanked, or imprecations or prayer uttered themselves,—­bodiless voices in the night.  I did not know what untold horror there might yet be hid.  I heard the drip of water from the black vaults; I heard the short, fierce pants and deadly groans.  Oh, worst infliction of Hell’s armory it is to see another suffer!  Why was it allowed, Anselmo?  Did it come in the long train of a broken law? was it one of the dark places of Providence? or was it indeed the vile compost to mature some beautiful germ?  Ah, then, is it possible that Heaven looks on us so in the mass?

But for me, after a while I lay torpid, and then perchance I slept, for finally I opened my eyes and found the white strong light; T lay on a bed, and a surgeon handled me.  Too elastic was I to be long crushed, once the weight removed.  Soon I breathed fresh air; and save that my frame had become in its distortion hideous, I was the same as before.

Then, indeed, began my torture,—­torture to which this had been idle jest.  I was taken once more to the room of tribunal.  Beside the Neapolitan a woman sat veiled and shrouded in masses of sable drapery.  “A queen?” I thought, “or a slave?” But I had no further room for fancy; the same interrogatories as before were given me to answer, and then I felt why I had been nursed back to life.  In the months that had elapsed, I could not know if Italy were saved or lost, if Naples