I found myself within a strange city, where all things might have served to blot from recollection the sweet dreams I had dreamed so long in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass.  The pomps and pageantries of a stately court, and the mad clangor of arms, and the radiant loveliness of women, bewildered and intoxicated my brain.  But as yet my soul had proved true to its vows, and the indications of the presence of Eleonora were still given me in the silent hours of the night.  Suddenly these manifestations they ceased, and the world grew dark before mine eyes, and I stood aghast at the burning thoughts which possessed, at the terrible temptations which beset me; for there came from some far, far distant and unknown land, into the gay court of the king I served, a maiden to whose beauty my whole recreant heart yielded at once —­ at whose footstool I bowed down without a struggle, in the most ardent, in the most abject worship of love.  What, indeed, was my passion for the young girl of the valley in comparison with the fervor, and the delirium, and the spirit-lifting ecstasy of adoration with which I poured out my whole soul in tears at the feet of the ethereal Ermengarde? —­ Oh, bright was the seraph Ermengarde! and in that knowledge I had room for none other. —­ Oh, divine was the angel Ermengarde! and as I looked down into the depths of her memorial eyes, I thought only of them —­ and of her.

I wedded; —­ nor dreaded the curse I had invoked; and its bitterness was not visited upon me.  And once —­ but once again in the silence of the night; there came through my lattice the soft sighs which had forsaken me; and they modelled themselves into familiar and sweet voice, saying: 

“Sleep in peace! —­ for the Spirit of Love reigneth and ruleth, and, in taking to thy passionate heart her who is Ermengarde, thou art absolved, for reasons which shall be made known to thee in Heaven, of thy vows unto Eleonora.”

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Notes to This Volume

Notes —–­ Scherezade

{*1} The coralites.

{*2} “One of the most remarkable natural curiosities in Texas is a petrified forest, near the head of Pasigno river.  It consists of several hundred trees, in an erect position, all turned to stone.  Some trees, now growing, are partly petrified.  This is a startling fact for natural philosophers, and must cause them to modify the existing theory of petrification. —­ Kennedy.

This account, at first discredited, has since been corroborated by the discovery of a completely petrified forest, near the head waters of the Cheyenne, or Chienne river, which has its source in the Black Hills of the rocky chain.