"Oh, Albion!" sighed Clotilde, "decidedly thou must be the queen of cities. Thy gallant outlaws and highwaymen will with joy the bride of Guzman greet; for, rather than wive the Rosicrucian Murkenhole, I will throw myself off Mount Damthopovit, or into the monastery of St. Kussanblastre." "My lovely pupil," said Ketura, "had far better accompany me to the munchen-hall, where the kooken-vrow is already serving up the duntarags." Clotilde followed her friend. What, then, was her amaze at finding the phorontrom filled with armed men, headed by the rejected and vindictive Wooden! To seize his victim; to place her in the fatal trot-joggeur; to drive across the extensive crags of Smashaltobitz; to consign her to the dungeons of Glumanough,--was the work of a moment. It was not long, however, ere Fidgita apprised the Chevalier Guzman of his lady's peril: that nobleman, we may well imagine, lost no time in attempting to succour. We must now return to the chateau. Between those fated women stood the unforgiving one. "Mothers both!" he uttered, pointing jocosely. "Mother, traitress to your son, we part no more. Mother, rival to your daughter, Jewess or Gingaree, you have lost your Clotilde. Vainly, like your sires, may you wander crying Chloe! Chloe! till she too is old Clo--till--" But we draw the curtain o'er his savage joy. Poison and poignard had been pacific penances to those he dealt the Duchess, ere, with delirious haste, he ascended with his wretched parent in the aërial car. The Lady Ketura, meanwhile, fled to her skiff, which, but for the incantations of the wizard Gorius, she could not have steered, her wrists being yet stiff from the thumb-screws applied to extort her unutterable secret. Thus for weeks did they buffet,--one with ether, the other with the waves,--without touching even earth, much less any more palatable food. Their squalid tatters spread pestilence around, and the rage of hunger gnawed them both. It was now that the volcano began to spout in tragic lines of liquid fire: a furious tempest added shipwreck to the scene. A flaming brand from the irruption lighted on the sail,--the conflagration spread,--a spiral blaze darted on high,--the roar of combustion announced that it had ignited the infernal gas, and the accursed aëronaut was precipitated on the shore. Ketura now remembered how she _had_ loved, and crawled to kiss the dear perfidious Murkenhole. Bats, toads, lemurs, owls, snails, spiders, and other reptilous vermin, slimily beset her loathsome way, gibbering with too intelligible triumph; but, leaning her back against a rock, and firmly placing her foot before, she shouted, "Come one, come all! this rock shall fly from its firm base as soon as Ketura!"