And I slowly moved toward the stairway; it was time, I thought, with a grim resolve—­to leave her!  Possibly she was dead—­if not—­why then she soon would be!  I paused irresolute—­the wild wind battered ceaselessly at the iron gateway, and wailed as though with a hundred voices of aerial creatures, lamenting.  The torches were burning low, the darkness of the vault deepened.  Its gloom concerned me little—­I had grown familiar with its unsightly things, its crawling spiders, its strange uncouth beetles, the clusters of blue fungi on its damp walls.  The scurrying noises made by bats and owls, who, scared by the lighted candles, were hiding themselves in holes and corners of refuge, startled me not at all—­I was well accustomed to such sounds.  In my then state of mind, an emperor’s palace were less fair to me than this brave charnel house—­this stone-mouthed witness of my struggle back to life and all life’s misery.  The deep-toned bell outside the cemetery struck one!  We had been absent nearly two hours from the brilliant assemblage left at the hotel.  No doubt we were being searched for everywhere—­it mattered not! they would not come to seek us here.  I went on resolutely toward the stair—­as I placed my foot on the firm step of the ascent, my wife stirred from her recumbent position—­her swoon had passed.  She did not perceive me where I stood, ready to depart—­she murmured something to herself in a low voice, and taking in her hand the falling tresses of her own hair she seemed to admire its color and texture, for she stroked it and restroked it and finally broke into a gay laugh—­a laugh so out of all keeping with her surroundings, that it startled me more than her attempt to murder me.

She presently stood up with all her own lily-like grace and fairy majesty; and smiling as though she were a pleased child, she began to arrange her disordered dress with elaborate care.  I paused wonderingly and watched her.  She went to the brigand’s chest of treasure and proceeded to examine its contents—­laces, silver and gold embroideries, antique ornaments, she took carefully in her hands, seeming mentally to calculate their cost and value.  Jewels that were set as necklaces, bracelets and other trinkets of feminine wear she put on, one after the other, till her neck and arms were loaded—­and literally blazed with the myriad scintillations of different-colored gems.  I marveled at her strange conduct, but did not as yet guess its meaning.  I moved away from the staircase and drew imperceptibly nearer to her—­Hark! what was that?  A strange, low rumbling like a distant earthquake, followed by a sharp cracking sound; I stopped to listen attentively.  A furious gust of wind rushed round the mausoleum shrieking wildly like some devil in anger, and the strong draught flying through the gateway extinguished two of the flaring candles.  My wife, entirely absorbed in counting over Carmelo Neri’s treasures, apparently saw and heard nothing.  Suddenly she broke into another laugh—­a chuckling, mirthless laugh such as might come from the lips of the aged and senile.  The sound curdled the blood in my veins—­it was the laugh of a mad-woman!  With an earnest, distinct voice I called to her: