1831.] a Milanese Legend. 495 



packet hath given thy foe a power over thee that no fear of future 

 retribution now checketh. I do divine that his vengeance only slum- 

 bereth until he hath seen the messengers of thy ruin on their way to 

 our despot rulers. O ! Alberto, there are high thoughts in my soul ! 

 Could that fatal packet only be obtained, thy hours on earth might, per- 

 chance, be prolonged until a way of escape, or even aid from thy unhappy 

 parent, appeared for thy salvation. My dread kinsman hath passed from 

 thy apartment to his own. This is his brief hour of midnight repose. 

 The fearful packet lies in his chamber." " But what power, my gentle 

 Portia, can remove the bars that inclose us in mine ?" asked the knight 

 " how may I reach the chamber of my guileful foe ?" Portia sprang 

 lightly and softly to the window, and standing within its deep niche 

 looked, in the pale light, like some etherial sprite that had glided on 

 moonbeams through the casement. She softly opened it. " Behold 

 here, sir knight," she said. He rose to the place where she stood. She 

 pointed to a strong stone parapet, or breast-work, which terminated the 

 first and main wall of the edifice, and seemed designed partly to 

 strengthen and partly to ornament the castle. Above the parapet and 

 only a few inches removed from it arose a second range of building, 

 containing innumerable chambers, some of whose long and narrow case- 

 ments opened on the kind of breast-work just described. This parapet 

 offered but a precarious pathway to the slenderest foot, even where the 

 projection ran parallel with the straightest and most continuous portions 

 of the edifice ; but it became fearful, indeed, where it rose and descended 

 according to the inequalities of the wall, or sharpened into acute angles 

 in doubling the minuter turrets. t( In mournful and romantic mood," 

 eaid the lady, " I have often, unknown to the savage dwellers of this 

 gloomy castello, loved to tread this dangerous path, meditating some 

 wild and impracticable scheme of escape from the hands of my dreaded 

 guardian. I now thank the God above, who hath turned the mad act of 

 a desperate maiden to some sober account. I thank him, too, that care 

 and woe have made this young frame spare and slender. Seest thou the 

 casement of that farthest turret ? The lamp within it throws its red 

 light on the lake beneath us, and disturbs the peaceful moonbeams. 

 There sleeps my kinsman. The weather is sultry his lattice is not 

 closed. Bars like these, which forbid not the passage of such slender 

 frame as mine, alone defend his chamber. God of mercy and justice, 

 strengthen me ! I implore thy aid. Farewell, sir knight pray for me, 

 I am adventuring on a deed of danger/' She glided through the strong, 

 vertical bars of the window, as she spoke stept out on the parapet 

 and, ere the astonished knight could arrest her progress, disappeared 

 from the casement. As she passed away, he endeavoured, by seizing 

 her garment, to draw her from her dangerous enterprize : he was too 

 late. He tried to thrust himself through the bars, in order, at least, to 

 share her fate ; but the interval was only calculated to admit the passage 

 of a fairy form, and defied the utmost efforts of the knight to push his 

 stalwart frame through such a narrow interstice. He pulled stoutly at 

 the bars, and endeavoured to wrench them from their fastenings ; but 

 they were too closely articulated to yield to his grasp. He could only, 

 with beating heart and dizzy brain, watch the progress of the devoted 

 maiden. 



For some time, her way lay along a straight line of building that con- 

 nected the knight's tower with a cluster of turrets, in the farthest of 



