TO

MY DEAR MOTHER

CONTENTS

The Race of Orven

The Stone of the Edmundsbury Monks

The S.S.

THE RACE OF ORVEN

Never without grief and pain could I remember the fate of PrinceZaleski—victim of a too importunate, too unfortunate Love, which thefulgor of the throne itself could not abash; exile perforce from hisnative land, and voluntary exile from the rest of men! Having renouncedthe world, over which, lurid and inscrutable as a falling star, he hadpassed, the world quickly ceased to wonder at him; and even I, to whom,more than to another, the workings of that just and passionate mind hadbeen revealed, half forgot him in the rush of things.

But during the time that what was called the 'Pharanx labyrinth' wasexercising many of the heaviest brains in the land, my thought turnedrepeatedly to him; and even when the affair had passed from the generalattention, a bright day in Spring, combined perhaps with a latentmistrust of the dénoûment of that dark plot, drew me to his place ofhermitage.

I reached the gloomy abode of my friend as the sun set. It was a vastpalace of the older world standing lonely in the midst of woodland, andapproached by a sombre avenue of poplars and cypresses, through whichthe sunlight hardly pierced. Up this I passed, and seeking out thedeserted stables (which I found all too dilapidated to afford shelter)finally put up my calèche in the ruined sacristy of an old Dominicanchapel, and turned my mare loose to browse for the night on a paddockbehind the domain.

As I pushed back the open front door and entered the mansion, I couldnot but wonder at the saturnine fancy that had led this wayward man toselect a brooding-place so desolate for the passage of his days. Iregarded it as a vast tomb of Mausolus in which lay deep sepulchred howmuch genius, culture, brilliancy, power! The hall was constructed inthe manner of a Roman atrium, and from the oblong pool of turgidwater in the centre a troop of fat and otiose rats fled weaklysquealing at my approach. I mounted by broken marble steps to thecorridors running round the open space, and thence pursued my waythrough a mazeland of apartments—suite upon suite—along many a lengthof passage, up and down many stairs. Dust-clouds rose from theuncarpeted floors and choked me; incontinent Echo coughed answeringricochets to my footsteps in the gathering darkness, and addedemphasis to the funereal gloom of the dwelling. Nowhere was there avestige of furniture—nowhere a trace of human life.

After a long interval I came, in a remote tower of the building andnear its utmost summit, to a richly-carpeted passage, from the ceilingof which three mosaic lamps shed dim violet, scarlet and pale-roselights around. At the end I perceived two figures standing as if insilent guard on each side of a door tapestried with the python's skin.One was a post-replica in Parian marble of the nude Aphrodite ofCnidus; in the other I recognised the gigantic form of the negro Ham,the prince's only attendant, whose fierce, and glistening, and ebonvisage broadened into a grin of intelligence as I came nearer. Noddingto him, I pushed without

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