will trust you. I know that until I am dead, you will not be able to betray anything ; and after that, it will be at your option, at any rate, to make that public which will endanger the life of another."
"Have no fears of me, if there is a possibility that any one may receive injury from my information." The patient, whose name was Ludovico, being satisfied with my assurance of secrecy, proceeded to give a short narration of the facts.
My brother was of a very impetuous temper, and always exercised a kind of authority over me, to which in fact I willingly acceded, from a consciousness of his superior knowledge. He had conceived some splendid project for sudden aggrandizement, which, to be carried into effect, required the aid and countenance of my father. One dark and stormy night in October, about one year since, he took me to a house in the northern part of the city, and introduced me into a room, where, by the light of a dimly-burning lamp, a half dozen men were busily engaged around a table in looking over some rude sketches and diagrams. Pieces of paper were marked over with Arabic numerical characters, and letters of the alphabet, arranged in squares, and perched upon pen-marked fabrics, which looked like houses or castles, churches, and prisons. Flags which resembled the signals of barbarian nations, were floating from the pinnacle of some lofty edifice, or planted on the summit of hills whose ranges extended off in parallel lines , or in angular courses far into the boldly-etched and pointed features of the landscape. These delineations were in correct perspective, and were evidently drawn up and embellished by a master hand, with some remote and magnificent intent, which was not perceptible to my uninitiated sense. " Principal among those around the table, was a stout greyheaded man, whose heavy frame and badly-jointed limbs, which were freely exercised, apparently with a view of setting off their ungracefulness, and the general shabbiness of his attire, showed him to be the chief spirit of the adventurers. His lean fingers, at the end of so ill-managed an arm, hardly warranted the supposition that he was the draughtsman of the elegant sketch, over whose surface he was passing his pencil, and indenting the denominative syllables on the bosom of some winding river, which cut its way between the prominent and ornamented insignia that formed a part of the file of look-outs-for such I decided them to be, after having ascertained the subject of
their deliberations. The other members of the conclave were