the noblemen and students were endeavouring to comfort and support the venerable old man whom the scene had so dreadfully agitated, when Antonio shouted aloud, "Death and destruction! —he was the man that did it!" He then recounted to them the terrible tale—he laid bare the hellish art and magical practices of the trembling Pietro—he told them of his own fearful interview with the dead alive Crescentia. No sooner had he finished than a storm of wrath, curses, and abhorrence broke forth on all sides against the agonized sinner; and in the blindness of their fury the people had well nigh torn him in pieces on the spot. "Away with him," they cried, "to the gallows or the rack!" At this moment the inquisitors approached: Pietro raised himself up, and his person appearing to dilate, he struck out furiously around him with a giant's strength. He strode up to the corps of Crescentia, which lay smiling before him like an image of holiness—he gazed upon it for a moment, and then, with eyes flashing fire, forced his way through the middle of the crowd. The people gave way before the terror of his presence, and he escaped into the streets. Here, however, the crowd rallied, and pursued him with yells and curses. Not being able to overtake him, they pelted him with stones; but at length the magician, bleeding and dropping with sweat, while his teeth chattered with agony, reached the threshold of his own door.
He secreted himself in the innermost chamber in his house, while Berecynth, curious to know what the disturbance was all about, went out into the street and encountered the full fury of the mob. "Seize the devil's-mask" cried they; "tear his famulus in pieces! The wretch does not know what the inside of a church is like." Berecynth was seized—his cries and entreaties were in vain. Nothing was heard on all sides but imprecations and menaces of death. "Carry me before a judge," cried the dwarf" and my innocence will be made apparent." The police upon this laid hold of him, and conveyed him to prison. The mob thronged after him. "Come along!" cried the jailer, "I have plenty of chains and fagots in readiness for you, my little man." Berecynth endeavoured to escape, but the constables kept fast hold of him. One held him by the throat, another by the arms, another by the legs, and a fourth by the head, in order to make sure of their victim. While all this tumult was going on, and while the people were thus cursing and laughing, his bearers were driven suddenly asunder—a cravat remained in the hands of some of them, a jacket in the hands of another—the third held a cap, and the fourth a shoe—but the dwarf himself was nowhere to be seen. He could not be said to have escaped—he had vanished—the people knew not how.
The mob now broke open the mansion of Abano, and found the magician lying dead and drenched in blood upon his couch. They plundered the house, and set on fire all the magical instruments, books, and other strange furniture which it contained; and now the city resounded with nothing but execrations on the man whom yesterday all had honoured as the very ambassador of God. Their abhorrence of his unheard-of wickedness was the greater on that very account.
Chap. IX.
The Hermit's Cell.
A few days afterwards, when the popular agitation had somewhat subsided, the corpse of Pietro was buried at mid night, out of consecrated ground. The body of the fair Crescentia was also again solemnly interred. Then Antonio, and his friend Alphonso, determined to leave Padua—Antonio to go to Florence, and after having settled his affairs there, to retire into a cloister for life; and Alphonso to proceed to Rome, where a great festival was about to be celebrated by command of the Pope, and to which all the neighbouring nations had been invited—and so the friends parted.
Antonio, desirous of avoiding all public notice, pursued his journey by the most unfrequented paths. One evening, about sunset, he found himself in a valley among the Apennines, where no habitation of any sort was to be seen. After wandering about for some time in the gathering darkness, he heard the sound of a hermit's bell in the distance. He walked forwards in the direction from whence the sound came, and at length reached
