eyes shone out from their hollow orbits, unnaturally enlarged and fatally
bright. Thus, in ghastly contrast to his former splendour of youth and
opulence of life, Margrave stood before me.

"I come to you," said Margrave, in accents hoarse and broken, "from the
shores of the East. Give me shelter and rest. I have that to say which
will more than repay you."

Whatever, till that moment, my hate and my fear of this unexpected
visitant, hate would have been inhumanity, fear a meanness, conceived for
a creature so awfully stricken down.

Silently, involuntarily, I led him into the house. There he rested a few
minutes, with closed eyes and painful gasps for breath. Meanwhile, the
driver brought from the carriage a travelling-bag and a small wooden chest
or coffer, strongly banded with iron clamps. Margrave, looking up as the
man drew near, exclaimed fiercely, "Who told you to touch that chest? How
dare you? Take it from that man, Fenwick! Place it here,--here by my
side!"

I took the chest from the driver, whose rising anger at being so
imperiously rated in the land of democratic equality was appeased by the
gold which Margrave lavishly flung to him.

"Take care of the poor gentleman, squire," he whispered to me, in the
spontaneous impulse of gratitude, "I fear he will not trouble you long.
He must be monstrous rich. Arrived in a vessel hired all to himself, and
a train of outlandish attendants, whom he has left behind in the town
yonder. May I bait my horses in your stables? They have come a long
way."