On the occasion that I speak of, the company was a large one, and I outdid myself in my pains to succeed. I even brought down with me the identical portmanteau, and actually appeared in the veritable hat and coat of the original adventure. My audience was an excellent one; they laughed where I was droll, and positively shrieked where I became pathetic. I had sent round little water-colors of the scenery, and was now proceeding to describe the inn of the Frate, and my first arrival there. “I will not affect to declare,” said I, “that it was altogether without some sense of anxiety--I might even say fear--that I approached the room where this man of crime and bloodshed awaited me. Stoppa! a name that brought terror wherever it was uttered, the word that called the soldiers to arms from the bivouac, and silenced the babe as it sobbed on its mother's breast. I entered the room, however, boldly, and, advancing to the bed where he lay, said in a careless tone, 'Capitano,'--they like the title,--'Capitano, how goes it?'” Just as I uttered the words, a heavy hand fell on my shoulder! I turned, and there, there at my side, stood Stoppa himself, dressed exactly as I saw him at Rocco. Whether it was the terrible look of the fellow, or some unknown sense of fear that his presence revived, or whether it was a terror lest my senses were deceiving me, and that a wandering brain alone had conjured up the image, I cannot say; but I fainted, and was carried senseless and unconscious to my room. A doctor was sent for, and said something about “meningitis.” “I had overworked my brain, overstrained my faculties, and so forth;” with rest and repose, however, I should get over the attack. I had a sharp attack, but in about a week was able to get up again. As all were enjoined to avoid strictly any reference to the topic which it was believed had led to my seizure, and as I myself did not venture to approach it, days passed over with me in a half-dreamy state, my mind continually dwelling on the late incident, and striving to find out some explanation of it. “Mr. St. John, sir, wishes to pay you a visit,” said the servant one morning, as I had just finished my breakfast; and as the man retired, St. John entered the room. “I am sorry I gave you such a start the other evening,” he began. But I could not suffer him to proceed; for, clutching him by the arm, I cried out, “For Heaven's sake, don't trifle with a brain so distracted as mine, but tell me at once, are you--” “Of course I am,” said he, laughing. “You don't fancy, do you, that you are the only man with a gift for humbug?” “And it was to you I paid the ransom?” gasped I out.