“Mortals--you are here to talk of my destiny, and of the events which it has involved. That destiny is accomplished, I believe, and with it terminate those events that have stimulated your wild and wretched curiosity. I am here to tell you of both!--I--I--of whom you speak, am here!--Who can tell so well of Melmoth the Wanderer as himself, now that he is about to resign that existence which has been the object of terror and wonder to the world?--Melmoth, you behold your ancestor--the being on whose portrait is inscribed the date of a century and a half, is before you.--Monçada, you see an acquaintance of a later date.”--(A grim smile of recognition wandered over his features as he spoke).--“Fear nothing,” he added, observing the agony and terror of his involuntary hearers--“What have you to fear?” he continued, while a flash of derisive malignity once more lit up the sockets of his dead eyes--“You, Senhor, are armed with your beads--and you, Melmoth, are fortified by that vain and desperate inquisitiveness, which might, at a former period, have made you my victim,”--(and his features underwent a short but horrible convulsion)--“but now makes you only my mockery. * * * * * “Have you aught to quench my thirst?” he added, seating himself. The senses of Monçada and his companion reeled in delirious terror, and the former, in a kind of wild confidence, filled a glass of water, and offered it to the Wanderer with a hand as steady, but somewhat colder, as he would have presented it to one who sat beside him in human companionship. The Wanderer raised it to his lips, and tasted a few drops, then replacing it on the table, said with a laugh, wild indeed, but no longer ferocious--“Have you seen,” said he to Monçada and Melmoth, who gazed with dim and troubled sight on this vision, and wist not what to think--“Have you seen the fate of Don Juan, not as he is pantomimed on your paltry stage, but as he is represented in the real horrors of his destiny by the Spanish writer(17)? There the spectre returns the hospitality of his inviter, and summons him in turn to a feast.--The banquet-hall is a church--he arrives--it is illuminated with a mysterious light--invisible hands hold lamps fed by no earthly substance, to light the apostate to his doom!--He enters the church, and is greeted by a numerous company--the spirits of those whom he has wronged and murdered, uprisen from their charnel, and swathed in shrouds, stand there to welcome him!--As he passes among them, they call on him in hollow sounds to pledge them in goblets of blood which they present to him--and beneath the altar, by which stands the spirit of him whom the parricide has murdered, the gulph of perdition is yawning to receive him!---- Through such a band I must soon prepare to pass!--Isidora! thy form will be the last I must encounter--and--the most terrible! Now for the last drop I must taste of earth’s produce--the last that shall wet my mortal lips!” He slowly finished the