"'_Nor am I_,' replied the magistrate, in the crushing tone of a judge pronouncing sentence of death. "Castro-Reale dropped his candle, they say, and, unconscious of what he did, stumbling at every step, went on to the end of the gallery, while the poor majordomo, frozen with fear, stood dumb and motionless at the door by which they had entered, daring neither to follow him nor to abandon him. He heard his master stumbling along in the darkness, at an uneven, hurried gait, colliding with the furniture and muttering curses; and he also heard each portrait apostrophize him as he passed with the terrible, monotonous words: '_Nor am I!_--_Nor am I!_--_Nor am I!_'--The voices grew fainter as they receded along the gallery; but all repeated the fatal sentence distinctly, and Castro-Reale was unable to escape that long series of maledictions, which not one of his ancestors spared him. It took him a long while, it seems, to reach the door at the other end. When he had passed through it and closed it violently behind him, as if he thought that he was pursued by spectres, silence reigned once more; and, so far as my knowledge goes, these portraits have never recovered the power of speech from that day to this." "Tell the rest, tell the rest, your excellency!" cried Fra Angelo, who had listened to this narrative with gleaming eyes and parted lips; for despite his intelligence and the education he had received, the ex-brigand of Ætna was too much of a monk and too much of a Sicilian not to believe it to a certain extent; "tell him that after that moment neither the steward of the palace of Castro-Reale, nor any inhabitant of the province of Palermo ever saw the Prince of Castro-Reale again. There was, at the end of the gallery, a drawbridge which they heard him cross, and as his plumed hat was found floating on the water, they concluded that he was drowned, although they searched in vain for his body." "But the lesson had a more salutary effect," added the marquis. "He fled into the mountains, organized a band of partisans, and fought there ten years, to rescue, or, at all events, to avenge his country. False or true, the story was current for a long while, and the new owner of Castro-Reale believed it in so far that he preferred not to keep these terrible family portraits, and sent them to me at once." "I do not know whether the story is authentic," said Fra Angelo. "I never dared ask the prince; but it is perfectly certain that his determination to become a partisan came to him in the manor-house of his ancestors the last time that he visited it. It is certain, too, that he experienced some violent emotion there, and that he did not like to have anybody mention his ancestors to him. It is certain, too, that his mind was never sound after that night, and that I have often heard him say, in his days of depression: 'Ah! I ought to have blown out my brains when I crossed the drawbridge of my palace the last time!'"