the room with frantic delight, which, however, gave place to fury, when Oswald desired him to get out of the window. But finding persuasion fruitless, and seeing that the fatal element was fast extending its ravages, he clasped the struggling maniac in his arms; and, while the smoke prevented his seeing where to step, leaped from the last bars of the ladder, giving the rescued man, who still contended with his benefactor, into the hands of persons whom he charged to guard him carefully. Oswald, with his locks disordered, and his countenance sweetly, yet proudly animated by the perils he had braved, struck the gazing crowd with an almost fanatical admiration; the women, particularly, expressed themselves in that fanciful language, the universal gift of Italy, which often lends a dignity to the address of her humblest children. They cast themselves on their knees before him, crying--"Assuredly, thou art St. Michael, the patron of Ancona. Show us thy wings, yet do not fly, save to the top of our cathedral, where all may see and pray to thee!"--"My child is ill; oh, cure him!" said one.--"Where," added another, "is my husband, who has been absent so many years? tell me!" Oswald was longing to escape, when d'Erfeuil, joining him, pressed his hand. "Dear Nevil!" he began, "could you share nothing with your friend? 'twas cruel to keep all the glory to yourself."--"Help me from this place!" returned Oswald, in a low voice. A moment's darkness favoured their flight, and both hastened in search of post-horses. Sweet as was the first sense of the good he had just effected, with whom could he partake it, now that his best friend was no more? So wretched is the orphan that felicity and care alike remind him of his heart's solitude. What substitute has life for the affection born with us? for that mental intercourse, that kindred sympathy, that friendship, formed by Heaven to exist but between parent and child? We may love again; but the happiness of confiding the whole soul to another--that we can never regain. [1] Lord Byron translated this paragraph in the fourth canto of Childe Harold, but without acknowledging whence the ideas were borrowed:-- "Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean--roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; Man marks the earth with ruin--his control Stops with the shore;--upon the wat'ry plain The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain A shadow of man's ravage. * * * * * * * Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow-- Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now." See stanzas 179 and 182.--TR. [2] Ancona is not much better supplied to this day. CHAPTER V.