glow out, and the figures painted thereon seemed, ghost-like, to creep and glide.  What was most strange, he did not feel himself ill—­he did not sink or quail beneath the dread frenzy that was gathering over him.  The novelty of the feelings seemed bright and vivid—­he felt as if a younger health had been infused into his frame.  He was gliding on to madness—­and he knew it not!

Nydia had not answered his first question—­she had not been able to reply—­his wild and fearful laugh had roused her from her passionate suspense:  she could not see his fierce gesture—­she could not mark his reeling and unsteady step as he paced unconsciously to and fro; but she heard the words, broken, incoherent, insane, that gushed from his lips.  She became terrified and appalled—­she hastened to him, feeling with her arms until she touched his knees, and then falling on the ground she embraced them, weeping with terror and excitement.

‘Oh, speak to me! speak! you do not hate me?—­speak, speak!’

’By the bright goddess, a beautiful land this Cyprus!  Ho! how they fill us with wine instead of blood! now they open the veins of the Faun yonder, to show how the tide within bubbles and sparkles.  Come hither, jolly old god! thou ridest on a goat, eh?—­what long silky hair he has!  He is worth all the coursers of Parthia.  But a word with thee—­this wine of thine is too strong for us mortals.  Oh! beautiful! the boughs are at rest! the green waves of the forest have caught the Zephyr and drowned him!  Not a breath stirs the leaves—­and I view the Dreams sleeping with folded wings upon the motionless elm; and I look beyond, and I see a blue stream sparkle in the silent noon; a fountain—­a fountain springing aloft!  Ah! my fount, thou wilt not put out rays of my Grecian sun, though thou triest ever so hard with thy nimble and silver arms.  And now, what form steals yonder through the boughs? she glides like a moonbeam!—­she has a garland of oak-leaves on her head.  In her hand is a vase upturned, from which she pours pink and tiny shells and sparkling water.  Oh! look on yon face!  Man never before saw its like.  See! we are alone; only I and she in the wide forest.  There is no smile upon her lips—­she moves, grave and sweetly sad.  Ha! fly, it is a nymph!—­it is one of the wild Napaeae!  Whoever sees her becomes mad-fly! see, she discovers me!’

’Oh!  Glaucus!  Glaucus! do you not know me?  Rave not so wildly, or thou wilt kill me with a word!’

A new change seemed now to operate upon the jarring and disordered mind of the unfortunate Athenian.  He put his hand upon Nydia’s silken hair; he smoothed the locks—­he looked wistfully upon her face, and then, as in the broken chain of thought one or two links were yet unsevered, it seemed that her countenance brought its associations of Ione; and with that remembrance his madness became yet more powerful, and it swayed and tinged by passion, as he burst forth: