“And so the son’s to be slaughtered to break the father’s heart,” she muttered,--“and he thinks that I am savage as himself, and that I will aid him in his deed of blood. Alas! he little knows that woman’s first love can never be obliterated. Five and twenty years have passed. I saw him recently; for the impulse was irresistible, and I crossed the sea to gratify the wish. Time had blanched his hair, the stoop of years had slightly bent his lofty carriage; and an empty sleeve told that he had been mutilated on the battle field. He passed me carelessly; but when I spoke, turned, as if the voice that fell upon his ear had been once familiar. He replied to me in kind accents, and gave me some silver as he walked away. Did I see him then as he was? Oh, no; I only saw the bold and handsome soldier, who, in the mountain glen, taught me first to love; and could I harm him because he trifled with a heart that never loved another; and, like an infant’s toy, threw it from him when the newness of the gift was over? No; Denis O’Hallo-ran, thy boy shall be preserved; or she whom you wooed, and won, and deserted, will perish in the effort. Ha! I hear the tiger’s foot upon the stair; and now to deceive him.” All that the scoundrel proposed, the gipsy warmly assented to--and I was placed under instant _espionage_. The thing of legs and arms, ycleped Frank, watched my outgoings from the hotel.--Hacket, through the hunchback’s agency, settled with the resurrection men the price of my destruction--and all required, was a fitting opportunity to accomplish it. Two modes presented themselves--secret murder or open violence. The first was infinitely preferable, had my habits been irregular, and that consequently I could have been seduced into some of the convenient slaughter-houses, with which the metropolis then abounded. Places there were enough; but the difficulty was, how should I be gotten there? Women were employed, but Isidora proved a counter-charm. Scented billets, couched in ardent language, reached me daily; but the assignations were disregarded. Could letters be credited upon ladies’ hearts, I had done prodigious execution but I acted like “a man of snow,” and out-josephed Joseph. To Mr. Hartley I even submitted these amatory effusions, and in his company I actually kept two or three appointments. It was observed, probably from some blinded window, that another person was in my company, and that no attempt could be made upon me with success; and like Hotspur’s spirits “none did come, though we did call for them.” Unknown to each other, Hacket and I played a deep and desperate game, the stake was life, and--as the cards turned up--I won it. Why that a regular Emeralder like me, whose native soil is known to be favourable to the growth of gallantry as it is unfriendly to that of reptiles, should play deal-adder to the call of beauty in the streets, the following chapter may possibly account for. CHAPTER XXI. MY TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY.