stifled me. Cospetto! I have spit blood ever since."

"It must be Zicci," whispered Glyndon.

"I knew you would say so," returned Merton, laughing.

The little party had now arrived nearly at the summit of the mountain;
and unspeakably grand was the spectacle on which they gazed. From the
crater arose a vapor, intensely dark, that overspread the whole
background of the heavens, in the centre whereof rose a flame that
assumed a form singularly beautiful. It might have been compared to a
crest of gigantic feathers, the diadem of the mountain, high arched, and
drooping downward, with the hues delicately shaded off, and the whole
shifting and tremulous as the plumage on a warrior's helm. The glare of
the flame spread, luminous and crimson, over the dark and rugged ground
on which they stood, and drew an innumerable variety of shadows from
crag and hollow. An oppressive and sulphureous exhalation served to
increase the gloomy and sublime terror of the place. But on turning
from the mountain, and towards the distant and unseen ocean, the
contrast was wonderfully great: the heavens serene and blue, the stars
still and calm as the eyes of Divine Love. It was as if the realms of
the opposing principles of Evil and Good were brought in one view before
the gaze of man! Glyndon--the enthusiast, the poet, the artist, the
dreamer--was enchained and entranced by emotions vague and undefinable,
half of delight and half of pain. Leaning on the shoulder of his
friend, he gazed around him, and heard, with deepening awe, the rumbling
of the earth below, the wheels and voices of the Ministry of Nature in
her darkest and most inscrutable recess. Suddenly, as a bomb from a
shell, a huge stone was flung hundreds of yards up from the jaws of the
crater, and falling with a mighty crash upon the rock below, split into