especially at a time of plague, had thrust me into one of those flimsy coffins which were then being manufactured by scores in Naples—­mere shells of thin deal, nailed together with clumsy hurry and fear.  But how I blessed their wretched construction!  Had I been laid in a stronger casket, who knows if even the most desperate frenzy of my strength might not have proved unavailing!  I shuddered at the thought.  Yet the question remained—­ Where was I?  I reviewed my case from all points, and for some time could arrive at no satisfactory conclusion.  Stay, though!  I remembered that I had told the monk my name; he knew that I was the only descendant of the rich Romani family.  What followed?  Why, naturally, the good father had only done what his duty called upon him to do.  He had seen me laid in the vault of my ancestors—­the great Romani vault that had never been opened since my father’s body was carried to its last resting-place with all the solemn pomp and magnificence of a wealthy nobleman’s funeral obsequies.  The more I thought of this the more probable it seemed.  The Romani vault!  Its forbidding gloom had terrified me as a lad when I followed my father’s coffin to the stone niche assigned to it, and I had turned my eyes away in shuddering pain when I was told to look at the heavy oaken casket hung with tattered velvet and ornamented with tarnished silver, which contained all that was left of my mother, who died young.  I had felt sick and faint and cold, and had only recovered myself when I stood out again in the free air with the blue dome of heaven high above me.  And now I was shut in the same vault—­a prisoner—­with what hope of escape?  I reflected.  The entrance to the vault, I remembered, was barred by a heavy door of closely twisted iron—­from thence a flight of steep steps led downward—­downward to where in all probability I now was.  Suppose I could in the dense darkness feel my way to those steps and climb up to that door—­of what avail?  It was locked—­nay, barred—­and as it was situated in a remote part of the burial-ground, there was no likelihood of even the keeper of the cemetery passing by it for days—­perhaps not for weeks.  Then must I starve?  Or die of thirst?  Tortured by these imaginings, I rose up from the pavement and stood erect.  My feet were bare, and the cold stone on which I stood chilled me to the marrow.  It was fortunate for me, I thought, that they had buried me as a cholera corpse—­they had left me half-clothed for fear of infection.  That is, I had my flannel shirt on and my usual walking trousers.  Something there was, too, round my neck; I felt it, and as I did so a flood of sweet and sorrowful memories rushed over me.  It was a slight gold chain, and on it hung a locket containing the portraits of my wife and child.  I drew it out in the darkness; I covered it with passionate kisses and tears—­the first I had shed since my death—­like trance-tears scalding and bitter welled into my eyes.  Life was worth living while Nina’s smile lightened