my own dwelling, amid those immeasurable deserts where only my story may be communicated. Do you consent to accompany me?"
Leoni answered by taking the hand extended towards him. Even as he touched it, a vapour filled the room; he felt himself raised with a sudden and dizzy velocity; he leant back; the cloud was as the wave on which a swimmer floats, borne by no effort of his own; and a pleasant sensation of sleep came over him. He was roused by the light touch of his companion, and startled into consciousness. They were standing on the top of a mighty tower; one of those, whose height, seen from below, seems to reach even unto the heavens—but the summit once gained, we only find what an immeasurable upward distance remains. A hot, bright noon filled the air with light, but not with fertility; for far as the eye could reach—and the clear colourless atmosphere seemed to extend the sight even to infinity—spread an arid desert, as if sand were an element, and only shared its empire with the sky. But immediately around the tower lay the giant ruins of a once glorious city; one of those built when the world was in the strength of its youth, and reared buildings which were the work of centuries, and yet but the work of a life: the cradle and the grave were then far apart. Now the shadow of the last rests upon the first, and all life groans beneath the weight and darkness thereof. Then the marble of the quarry and the gold of the mine lay on the
