Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 443 | Page 8

betray my intention; and when I am there, nobody will ask for a radical paper. When you appeared, my worthy friend, I at first thought I had found the right man, and I was impatient--for I had been waiting for more than three hours for a reader of the National or of Figaro. How glad I am that I at once discovered you to be no friend of such infamous papers! How grieved should I be, if I had had to do with you instead of with that young fellow!' For my part, I was in no mood even for self-felicitations. At that time, I was a reckless young fellow, going through the conventionalisms of society without a thought; but the event of the morning had made even me reflect.
'Do you think he will die, captain?' I asked: 'is the wound mortal?'
'For certain!' he replied with a slight smile. 'I have a knack--of course for Jacobins and Bonapartists only--when I thrust en quarte, to draw out the sword by an imperceptible movement of the hand, en tierce, or vice versa, according to circumstances; and thus the blade turns in the wound--and that kills; for the lung is injured, and mortification is sure to follow.'
On returning to my hotel, where L---- also was staying, I met the physician, who had just visited him. He gave up all hope. The captain spoke truly, for the slight movement of the hand and the turn of the blade had accomplished their aim, and the lung was injured beyond the power of cure. The next morning early L---- died. I went to the captain, who was returning home with the abbé. 'The abbé has just been to read a mass for him,' he said; 'it is a benefit which, on such occasions, I am willing he should enjoy--more, however, from friendship for him, than out of pity for the accursed soul of a Jacobin, which in my eyes is worth less than a dog's! But walk in, sir.'
The picture, a wonderfully lovely maidenly face, with rich curls falling around it, and in the costume of the last ten years of the preceding century, was now unveiled. A good breakfast, like that of yesterday, stood on the table. With a moistened eye, and turning to the portrait, he said: 'Thérèse, to thy memory!' and emptied his glass at a draught. Surprised and moved, I quitted the strange man. On the stairs of the hotel I met the coffin, which was just being carried up for L----; and I thought to myself: 'Poor Clotilde! you will not be able to weep over his grave.'

THE TREE OF SOLOMON.
Wide forests, deep beneath Maldivia's tide, From withering air the wondrous fruitage hide; There green-haired nereids tend the bowery dells, Whose healing produce poison's rage expels.
The Lusiad.
If Japan be still a sealed book, the interior of China almost unknown, the palatial temple of the Grand Lama unvisited by scientific or diplomatic European--to say nothing of Madagascar, the steppes of Central Asia, and some of the islands of the Eastern Archipelago--how great an amount of marvel and mystery must have enveloped the countries of the East during the period that we now term the middle ages! By a long and toilsome overland journey, the rich gold and sparkling gems, the fine muslins and rustling silks, the pungent spices and healing drugs of the Morning Land, found their way to the merchant princes of the Mediterranean. These were not all. The enterprising traversers of the Desert brought with them, also, those tales of extravagant fiction which seem to have ever had their birthplace in the prolific East. Long after the time that doubt--in not a few instances the parent of knowledge--had, by throwing cold water on it, extinguished the last funeral pyre of the ultimate Phoenix, and laughed to scorn the gigantic, gold-grubbing pismires of Pliny; the Roc, the Valley of Diamonds, the mountain island of Loadstone, the potentiality of the Talisman, the miraculous virtues of certain drugs, and countless other fables, were accepted and believed by all the nations of the West. One of those drugs, seldom brought to Europe on account of its great demand among the rulers of the East, and its extreme rarity, was a nut of alleged extraordinary curative properties--of such great value, that the Hindoo traders named it Trevanchere, or the Treasure--of such potent virtue, that Christians united with Mussulmen in terming it the Nut of Solomon. Considered a certain remedy for all kinds of poison, it was eagerly purchased by those of high station at a period when that treacherous destroyer so frequently mocked the steel-clad guards of royalty itself--when poisoning was the crime of the great, before it had descended from the corrupt and crafty court to the less ceremonious cottage. Nor was it only