"And why should the subject animals be wiser than their king? But to
return: you would like to have my youth and my careless enjoyment of
youth?"

"Can you ask,--who would not?" Margrave looked at me for a moment with
unusual seriousness, and then, in the abrupt changes common to his
capricious temperament, began to sing softly one of his barbaric
chants,--a chant different from any I had heard him sing before, made,
either by the modulation of his voice or the nature of the tune, so sweet
that, little as music generally affected me, this thrilled to my very
heart's core. I drew closer and closer to him, and murmured when he
paused,--

"Is not that a love-song?"

"No;" said he, "it is the song by which the serpent-charmer charms the
serpent."




CHAPTER XXVI.

Increased intimacy with my new acquaintance did not diminish the charm of
his society, though it brought to light some startling defects, both in
his mental and moral organization. I have before said that his knowledge,
though it had swept over a wide circuit and dipped into curious,
unfrequented recesses, was desultory and erratic. It certainly was not
that knowledge, sustained and aspiring, which the poet assures us is "the