"'Staked and lost everything,' replied Castro-Reale, heedlessly. 'However, there are a few articles which I am able to redeem, and my successful adversary will not haggle over them. Let us look at these family portraits! I have forgotten all about them. I used to admire them at a time when I knew nothing about such things. If there are some which have merit, I will set them aside and make some arrangement with their new owner. Take a light and follow me.' "The steward, agitated and trembling, followed his master through the dark and deserted palace. Castro-Reale strode before, with arrogant assurance; but they say that he had drunk immoderately on arriving at his palace, in order to provide himself with a store of stoicism or recklessness that should last to the end. He himself opened the rusty door, and seeing that the hand trembled in which the old majordomo held the light, he took it in his own and held it on a level with the face of the first portrait in the gallery. It was a fierce warrior armed from top to toe, with a broad ruffle of Flemish lace over his iron cuirass. See! here he is, Michel, for the same pictures which play a part in my narrative are here before your eyes; they are the same which were sent from Palermo to me, as the last heir of the family." Michel looked at the old warrior and was impressed by his masculine features, his bristling moustache, and his stern appearance. "Well, your excellency," he said, "that decidedly unamiable and ungenial face gave the _dissoluto_ food for reflection, I doubt not?" "Especially," replied the marquis, "as the face became animated, the eyes rolled angrily in their dark orbits, and the lips uttered these words in a sepulchral voice: '_I am not pleased with you!_' Castro-Reale shuddered and recoiled in terror; but, deeming himself the dupe of his own imagination, he passed to the next portrait and looked it in the face with an insolence bordering on madness. It was an ancient and venerable abbess of the Ursulines of Palermo, a great-great-aunt, who died in the odor of sanctity. You can see her, Michel, yonder on your right, with her veil, her gold cross, her yellow face wrinkled like parchment, her piercing and imperious eyes. I fancy that she says nothing to you; but when Castro-Reale raised the candle to her face, she blinked her eyes as if dazzled by the sudden light, and said to him in a strident voice: '_I am not pleased with you!_' "This time the prince was frightened; he turned to the steward, whose knees were knocking against each other. But, determined to struggle on against these warnings from the supernatural world, he suddenly confronted a third portrait, that of the old magistrate, whom you see beside the abbess. He put his hand on the frame, not daring to look too long at the ermine cloak which is hardly distinguishable from the long white beard; but he tried to shake him, saying: '_And you?_'