to fix the thoughts that chased each other through his mind like the
shapes of a monstrous dream. Night was in his soul, but every now and
then light flashed across the darkness, and over the gloomy background
of his despair passed gilded figures fleeing from him with smiles of
mockery. In his ears buzzed voices from the other world; he saw a long
procession of ghosts, like the conspirators whom Nicholas of Melazzo had
pointed out in the vaults of Castel Nuovo. But these phantoms each held
his head in his hand, and shaking it by the hair, bespattered him with
drops of blood. Some brandished whips, some knives: each threatened
Charles with his instrument of torture. Pursued by the nocturnal train,
the hapless man opened his mouth for one mighty cry, but his breath was
gone, and it died upon his lips. Then he beheld his mother stretching
out her arms from afar, and he fancied that if he could but reach her
he would be safe. But at each step the path grew more and more narrow,
pieces of his flesh were torn off by the approaching walls; at last,
breathless, naked and bleeding, he reached his goal; but his mother
glided farther away, and it was all to begin over again. The phantoms
pursued him, grinning and screaming in his ears:--

"Cursed be he who slayeth his mother!"

Charles was roused from these horrors by the cries of his brothers, who
had come to embrace him for the last time before embarking. The duke
in a low voice asked their pardon, and then fell back into his state of
despair. The children were dragged away, begging to be allowed to share
their brother's fate, and crying for death as an alleviation of their
woes. At length they were separated, but the sound of their lamentation
sounded long in the heart of the condemned man. After a few moments, two
soldiers and two equerries came to tell the duke that his hour had come.