"So, Michel," continued the archæolo- | opened the gate, but did not close it after gist, "you court Matheo's daughter-but him. The son still followed, letting his why over the walls ?" At this moment the head of a young female protruded itself over the wall. It was Zerline: she had heard her lover in terpellated on his descent, and, partly through fear and partly curiosity, she had mounted the ladder. "Why, I do believe," said Zerline, "it is the same gentleman who offered my father a large sum of money only to see the sarcophagus of Olympia.' Precisely so, my pretty dear," joined in the antiquary. "I tell you what, Michel," continued the intendant's daughter, "let him be here to-morrow night, at ten, with a dark lantern. I will provide the key and the ladder, and you shall show him the way, Michel, and we," she added, with a little emphasis highly pleasurable to the beadle's son, "will have the reward." Cinelli remained for a brief space of time in the gloomy library after his father's departure. He walked up and down, he looked at the book-shelves-not at the books, he had no taste for musty old tomes-and then he beat the devil's tattoo on the windows. But that would not pay his debts; so lifting up the sash, he vaulted into the open air. He did not care to run away; that would do no good; nor yet did he care to have another tête-à-tête with his dear friend Archangeli; besides, he had another project in view; so, secreting himself in the shrubbery, he hung about for many weary hours, till the parish clock struck the midnight hour. It was not long after that he became assured that some one was approaching. He looked out of his hiding-place, and, half in terror, half in hope, he made out that it was his aged parent, his clothes and his hair all in disorder, carrying a dark-lantern. Measuring his steps by those of the old man, the son followed the father. They thus traversed together a long alley, which led up to the peristyle of the pavilion. The father footsteps fall with those that preceded him. The Marquis neither looked to the right nor to the left, but, walking between an avenue of statues, he went right up to the sarcophagus. Arrived there, he knelt down, as if in prayer, and, at the same time, as if overwhelmed with grief. The son stood motionless a few paces behind him. It was a sad, a strange scene, with nothing but the marble statues looking down upon it. But we are wrong; there was a witness, and an unwilling one, too, to this sad scene. This was the very night that Winckelmann had been admitted by the lovers to visit the sarcophagus. Disturbed in his examination by the sound of approaching footsteps, he had just time to blow out his light and hide himself behind a Pallas of Velletri, when father and son came in. It can be imagined with what mingled surprise and terror the unfortunate archæologist contemplated the scene now being enacted before his eyes. The old man had risen up, and had, with the most painful effort, approached to lift up the cover of the sarcophagus. "He spoke of my treasure," he muttered, aloud. "Heaven preserve him from having to keep one like it." At this moment Cinelli rushed forward. "It is there then, is it ?" The old man turned round, and looking at his son, he simply said, "What do you want?" "Gold !" was the reply, but in a voice rendered husky by emotion. "There is none here," replied the Marquis. "That we shall see," said the young man. And, drawing a dagger from his bosom, he held it against the breast of his aged parent. Winckelmann felt a strong impulse to step forward and interfere. But nature had made him an archeologist and not a warrior, and fear kept him nailed to the spot where he stood. The greatest mental effort he was capable of was to wish himself heartily in the caves of Ellora or at the foot of the Pyramids-any where but near the sarcophagus of Olympia. In the mean time, the old man had approached the sarcophagus, and, lifting off the cover, as if he had suddenly regained the strength of youth. "Look!" he said, "here is my treasure!" "A dead body!" exclaimed Cinelli, stepping back in horror. "Look at it," said the old man; "look at it well, and then look at me! I also am a parricide, as you will probably be. There is your grandfather, and it was I who killed him! I, like you, had lost large sums in gambling-I, like you, had exhausted all my resources. I applied to him, as you have done to me. He refused me, as I did you, and I killed him for his gold, as you are about to kill me. Expiation! For now nigh a quarter of a century my days are without repose, and my nights without rest. I come here to weep for my crime and to ask forgiveness, but it is in vain. And now there is my treasure the treasure that you wish to rob me of at the sacrifice of my life. Take it, and bury your crime-there is room for two in the sarcophagus!" And the old Marquis, exhausted by excitement, fainted away. When he came to himself again, Činelli, humbled and ashamed, helped him from the dark and cold scene of horror. Needless to say that our archæologist followed the moment he deemed that the coast was open. The first breath that he took of the open air seemed to be the most delightful he had ever inspired. When he got back to Verona-for it is needless to say he had nothing to detain him any longer at Villa Pollo-the Speronis, mother and daughter, had returned from Vicenza, and it may be imagined with what delight they received the visits of a man who was indebted to Madame Speroni for his first step in life, and who, on the other hand, had on his side reflected by his European fame so much gratification for a first kindly aid and patronage. But there was nothing but grief and trouble on the part of Winckelmann. He had heard of the ties that united the daughter of his patroness to the son of the Marquis Pollo; he knew that Cinelli loved Cinthia dearly, and he soon ascertained that the young man's passion was returned with all the warmth of a Southern blood, unpolluted by contamination with the world. But that so fair and pure a person-the daughter, too, of those to whom he was so deeply indebted-should wed the son of a parricide, and one whom he had seen on the eve of being a parricide himself, he felt never could be permitted. But then, again, how could he communicate the evil tidings to Madame Speroni and her daugh ter? Cinelli had returned to Verona, and daily rode past the window, and he felt that to unmask the villain would be most assuredly followed by one of those acts of revenge which are usually consummated at the angle of a doorway or in some dark passage. He thought that he could, on leaving Verona, go to Dussau, and give full information to the father; and, having come to this final resolve, he abided gloomily and impatiently the hour of his departure. This was soon determined upon. Portmanteaus were packed, the horses ordered, and our antiquary had bidden farewell to the Speronis. It was about six o'clock in the evening. "I am going," said Winckelmann to his friend the sculptor, "to take a last look at the amphitheater." And he went forth from the house. The monument in the Place Bra is the finest of its kind, after the Coliseum of Rome, and could hold fifty to sixty thousand spectators. Our archæologist was returning from the last act of artistic devotion, when his attention was painfully aroused by seeing two young persons, attended upon by an elderly female, and whom he felt certain were Cinthia and Cinelli, enter the church of San Giorgio Maggiore. He hesitated for a moment what to do; the old woman had stopped at the entrance, too, and might know him; still danger was imminent, and, hiding his face as much as possible, he got unperceived into the church. Following the couple to a sidechapel, he was soon enabled to overhear their conversation to a certain extent, but not satisfactorily so. In the first place, they spoke low, out of respect for the edifice they were in; and secondly, because they probably did not wish to be overheard. Neither, however, dreamed that the perpetual archæologist was behind a column close by. He could catch a word or two, but the theme of the conversation was inaudible. At last, to some proposal on the part of Cinelli, he heard a very distinct "Never!" in reply. "It must be done!" insisted Cinelli, with more emphasis than before. "To fly !" observed the young girl; "that would be very wicked!" This was a sad transition from the "never," and the antiquary began to shake in his shoes. But the conversation was prolonged, the one pleading and praying, the other "I am a gambler, am I! Well, why did you not say so at once? But if I have spent a night or two at the club, if I have lost a miserable sum of money, am I on that account to give up all my hopes for the future? Unless Mademoiselle Speroni herself orders me to hope no longer for her hand, I can tell you that nothing in the world would induce me to renounce it." opposing. All that Winckelmann could Cinelli, who had been all the time under distinctly make out was that Cinelli cov-restraint, broke out upon this. ered his baseness by merely proposing that Cinthia should place herself under the protection of an aunt that he had at Mantua. He admitted that he gambled, and was in difficulties; her father, he said, would oppose their union, but did they not love one another, and were they not affianced? and when once they were married under the auspices of the old aunt, parents must forgive, and all would be right, and nothing but boundless felicity in store! And so the loving girl allowed herself to be persuaded, and before they had retired the antiquary had the poignant misery of knowing that she had given her consent to an early elopement. To wait now till he saw the father at Dussau would be of no avail, so, making up his mind to a bold and definite step, Winckelmann countermanded the horses for next morning, and no sooner was it eight o'clock than he sent in his card to the young Count Cinelli. Now the said Count, who spent his nights at the club, was not in the best of humors at being disturbed shortly after he had retired to rest; but when he read the card, and found that the individual to whom it belonged was not only well known throughout Italy, but was also a particular friend of the Speronis, he so far controlled himself as to give him a polite reception, only that after the usual compliments of the day, he drifted with some impatience into what was uppermost in his mind-to what could he be indebted for this matutinal visit? Now Winckelmann, as we have before said, was an antiquary, a man of the past, not a man of this world; his only escapade of early youth was associated with certain reminiscences of more than a quarter of a century back at Gelnhausen, but a long time had elapsed since he had been wedded for good to the more simple and sole pursuit of art. He accordingly felt a proportionate reluctance on the present occasion, and he had to do far more violence to his customary habits of proceeding to come to this point than many others would have felt under the same circumstances. So it was not till after much parrying with the matter in view, wiping his spectacles over and over again, and coughing himself almost hoarse, that he ventured sundry disjointed sentences about Cinthia and the evils of gambling, almost all in a breath. "And is it," ventured the antiquary, "in order to insure success that you carry her off to-night or to-morrow morning ?" The young Count cast one of those looks at the tremulous archeologist which reminded him of the sarcophagus of Olympia. To the interpellation, however, as to what right he had to ask such a question, he plucked up moral courage sufficient to explain succinctly the conversation he had overheard the previous evening at San Georgio Maggiore. "Well, then," said the young man, "granted that you denounce us to Madame Speroni, that Cinthia is plac ed under surveillance, we love one another, and we will overcome all obstacles." "If you persist," said Winckelmann, rising from his seat, and his nature roused as much as that of a man of his pacific pursuits could ever be, "I will bring up the sarcophagus of Olympia between you and her.' "This is too much!" exclaimed the young man, jumping at the door, and turning the key twice; "simple and modest antiquary as you profess to be, you know too much to go out of this room alive." Now, our worthy archæologist did not hold by life, merely for living sake, more than other people. All persons, when it becomes a question of life and death, have some matters of business to arrange, a family to provide for-any thing but their own personal feelings are declared to be most concerned in the matter. Winckelmann had his History of Art, which was actually in the press, to see through the proofs, so he thought he had gone too far, and that he would temporize. So, seeing that Cinelli had taken possession of a very ominous-looking dagger, he observed: "I have a friend who is waiting for me at the hotel. What will you say to him when he comes here to ask after me?" "How did you become acquainted with those facts," roughly interpellated the young man," which you dare to allude to in my presence ?" "I was in the pavilion at the villa the very night the scene took place between your father and yourself." "Alone ?" "Alone." "And have you told any one of it ?" "No one; but I have left a letter in my friend's hands by way of precaution, divulging all matters, and to be given at ten o'clock to Madame Speroni, if I should fail to make my appearance." There was no truth in all this; but may not a philosopher be excused a little subterfuge, especially when it is not in the interests of science? Cinelli hesitated. All that he proposed to himself to gain by assassinating the antiquary slipped through his fingers, and he changed his tactics. "Swear," he said, "by heaven, by science, by art, by all that you hold most sacred in this world, that never a word of all this shall pass your mouth, and I will spare you!" "I swear it," replied the terrified archæologist. "Then you may go," said the Count. "But mark me! wherever you go you shall be followed, and if you break your promise you are a dead man. And more," he said, as Winckelmann was hastening away, you had better leave Verona at once, for if I was to meet you in some lonely spot, I might-darkness and isolation favoring impunity-regret my weakness. Begone!"" 66 Winckelmann did not wait for the mandate to be repeated. With as many bounds rather than steps he regained his hotel, and, to his friend's infinite delight, he or dered the horses to be at once put to. "Ah! my friend!" he said to the sculptor Cavaceppi, "you have saved my life!" "Saved your life!" exclaimed the astounded chiseller. "How have I done that ?" "Oh! that is a mystery," replied the antiquary; "but let us be off. If the ruins of Thebes and of Delos, of Agrigentum and of Persepolis, of Cyzicus and of Mytilene, of Babylon and of Nineveh were placed at my disposal, I would not stay in this city another hour. I have had nothing but troubles since I came into it." The young Count, having removed all obstacles by this coup d'état, was not long in availing himself of the field thus left open to him, and after pleading his cause twice more at San Giorgio Maggiore, with an eloquence all the more vehement, inas much as love was backed by fear and the prospect of gain, the unfortunate Cinthia was prevailed upon to allow herself to be removed clandestinely to the protection of the so-called aunt at Mantua, but which lady was, in reality, a creature in the Count's pay, whose antecedents it would be any thing but instructive or delectable to dwell upon. As to Winckelmann, he did not go to Dussau. He crossed the Alps and visited Augsburg, Munich, and Vienna, from which latter city he gloomily retraced his steps to Trieste, whilst the companion of his travels wended his way to Berlin. Several times he felt that he ought to go and see M. Speroni; he was so much indebted to him that he ought to divulge all he knew; he had taken an oath, it was true; but then again, such an oath, where such interests were at stake, and wrought from him under fear of death, ought not to be binding. However, apprehensions of a sinister description would come over him, and he wished himself at his books and works of art in the Vatican, away from the turmoils and corruption of the world. His apprehensions were not a little sustained by having observed that throughout his travels he was accompanied by a man who followed him like his shadow, watching his every movement, and listening even to the words that fell from his lips, like the spy of the Council of Ten, so admirably depicted by Victor Hugo in his Angelo. This man called himself Count Archan geli. The two had got down at the Albergo della Villa at Trieste, and Winckelmann had ordered dinner. "Does monsieur's son dine with him ?" inquired the gracious host. "What son?" asked the archæologist. "I beg you pardon," bowed the host, " but really there is such a striking resemblance. Yet, now I remember, how stupid of me, monsieur's name is Winckelmann, and the young man calls himself Archangeli." "Archangeli!" exclaimed the antiquary, and reminiscences long exploded came back with none the less freshness and effect from not being frequently indulged in. "The young man may dine with me if he likes," he hastened to add ; and when, after a cursory toilette de voyage, he took his seat at the dinner-table, he found the gentleman who had so long dogged his footsteps occupying a chair opposite to him. Our worthy archeologist sat and scanned his fellow-traveler's features with a degree of curiosity which at first amused and then seemed to very much annoy the individual who was subjected to this scrutiny. "Twenty-seven years ago," said Winckelmann to himself, "and that is about his age. And then, again, I had a letter from Wilhelmina," he added, with a sigh. "Your name," he at length said, breaking a long silence, "is Archangeli ?" "Count Archangeli, of the Castle of hum-in Moravia, descendant of the counts of that name, at your service," vouchsafed his excellency. "That will never do," thought the single-hearted antiquary; "my friend was a doctor a little bit of a quack, perhaps but this is a count." An acquaintanceship had, however, been established between the two which made, as before said, rapid progress. The Count, since he must watch the antiquary, could do so with much greater facilities under the cloak of friendship than otherwise, so he was only too ready to favor the advances made by the archæologist, who, despite every thing, could not disembarrass himself of the impressions first received. Winckelmann never dreamt that the Doctor's diploma and the Count's pedigree were of precisely the same authenticity. In order the better to forward his obBut he was not to be put down at once.jects, the adventurer pretended to a great There was something about the young man's appearance, something in his features, added to his age and name, that made him feel sure that he was on the right track. And then, again, had not the host a disinterested witness-testified to his paternity? So Winckelmann was only the more obsequious the more his noble friend was haughty and distant. Intimacy went on, indeed, so rapidly, that at length he ventured to inquire if the Count had ever been at Gelnhausen. love for art and antiquity, and it was together that they visited the Museum of Antiquities, the cathedral, Santa Maria Maggiore, San Antonio Nuovo, and the frescoes of Grigoletti. In the warmth of his affection, the old man hoped to win over the young one to the same pursuits as himself, and to obtain a place for him in the Vatican. All doubts as to his origin had been dissipated by seeing a letter come for Archangeli with the postmark of Gelnhausen. He made him the confidant even of his secret, and told him, without divulging names, of the one which most oppressed his conscience, and in which he said he was soon determined to do what he considered to be his duty, no matter at what cost. He even wrote a letter, in order, as he said, to pass the Rubicon, proposing to himself to follow it up by a personal visit to M. Speroni at Dussau. Archangeli, by kindly offering to take the letter to the post, secured the missive, and sending it to Cinelli, the latter came to Trieste to hold counsel with his emissary, and they met, as afterward came out in the trial, at the Caffe della Stella Polare on the seventh of June, 1768, and where they conversed for two hours, the young Count returning afterward to his pretended aunt's. |