The Arkansas advocate., 1830-12-22


 and in the ripping of the calm green sea, that fec! upon his whitening heart like dew upon the parched earth. How he gazcd, and panted, and still clung to bis hold! sometimes hanging by one hand, sometimes by the other, and then graspng the bars with both, as loath to quit inc smiling paradise outstretched before him; till exhausted, ,and bis hands swollen and benumned, he dropped helpless down, and lay stunned for coa- siderable time by the fall.
 When he recovered, the glorious vi- h;ss. ;;s.;;isiie,. lie was in dark ness. He doubted whether it was not , dream that had passed before his sleeping fancy but gradually his scatter cd thoughts returned. and with them came remembrance. Yes! he had look cd once again upon the gorgeous splen- aour of nature! Once again his eyes had trembled beneath their yelled lids, Ut the suns radiance, and sought re- pose in the soft ycrdure of the olivetree, or the gentle swell of undulatng waves. Oh, that he were a mariner, exposed upon those waves to the worst fury of storm and tempest; or . very wretch, ioathsome with disease, plague stricken, and his body one leprous contagion from crown to sole, hunted forth to gasp out the remnant of infectious life de meath those yerdant trees, so he might shun the destiny upon whose edge he fottered!
 Vain thoughts like these would stea! over his mind from time to time, ia spite of himself; but they scarcely moved it from that stupor into whichit had sunk, and which kept him, during the whole night, like one who had been dragged with opium. He was equally -insens- hle to the calls of hunger and of thirst, though the third day was now common cing since even drop of water had passed his lips. He remained on the ground, sometimes sitting, sometimes lying at intervals, sleeping heavily and when not sleeping, silently breeding over what was to come, or talking a. loud, indisordered speech, ofhis wrongs, of his friends, of his home, and of those gssle loved, wifi, confused ::si;lgiins of all
 In this pitiable condition, the sixth and last morning dawned upon yiyen- zio, if dawn it might be ealled-the dim obscure light which faintiy strug- gled through the ose solitary window of his dungeon. He coald hardly be said to notice the melancholy token. And y yet he did noticeit, for us he raised his eyes aad saw the portentous sign, there was Il slight convuisive distortion of his cot Go a5iii,ttrililnce. But what did attract his notice, and at the sight of which his agitation was excessive, was the change his iron bed had undergone. 1t was bed no longer. It stood before him the visible semblance of funeral couch or bier! When he beheld this, he started from the ground; and, in raising him self suddenly struck his head against the roof, which was now so low that he could no longer stand upright. aGod's will De done!n was all he said, as he crouched his body, and placed his hand upon the bier; for such it was. The iron bedstead had been so contrived. by the mechanical lart of Ludoyieo Sterza, that as the advancing wells came in con- tact with its head and foot,a pressure was produced upon concealed springs, which, wheu made to play, set in mo- lion very simple though ingeniously contriyed machinery, that effected the transformation. The object was, of course, to neighten, in the closing scene of this horrible drama, all the feelings of despair and anguish, which the pre- ceding ones had aroused. For the same reason, the last window was so made as to admit only a shadowy kind of gloom rather than light, that the wretched captive mighgt besurrouneed, ,asit were, with every seeming preparation for ap- preaching death.
 Viscnzio seated himself on his bier. Then he knelt and prayed fervently, and sometimes tears would gush from him. The afr seemed thick, and he breathed with difficulty ;or it might be that he fancied 1t was so, from the hot sand narrow limits of his dungeon, which were now so diminished that he could neither stand MP naslie sdiowr, at lis :iiii ii length. But his wasted spirits and op- pressed mind no longer struggled with in him, he was past hope,and fear shook him no more. Happy ii thus revenge had struck its final blow; for he would