snoring aloud. Shutting the door, therefore, securing the bolts, and placing my bed close against the hinges, I tossed it up well, and lay down upon it. At first, indeed, I lay awake some time through fear, but closed my eyes at last a little about the third watch.*

For as

“I had just fallen asleep, when suddenly the door was burst open with too great violence for one to believe that it was robbers; ray, the hinges being entirely broken and wrenched off, it was thrown to the ground. The bedstead, too, which was but small, wanting one foot, and rotten, was thrown down with the violence of the shock, and falling upon me, who had been rolled out and pitched upon the ground, completely covered and concealed me. Then was I sensible that certain emotions of the mind are naturally excited by contrary causes. tears very often proceed from joy, so, amid my extreme fear, I could not refrain from laughing, to see myself turned, from Aristomenes, into a tortoise.† And so, while prostrate on the floor, peeping askance to see what was the matter, and completely covered by the bed, I espied two women, of advanced age, one of whom carried a lighted lamp, and the other a sponge and a drawn sword. Thus equipped, they planted themselves on either side of Socrates, who was fast asleep.

"She who carried the sword then addressed the other, 'This, sister Panthia, is my dear Endymion,‡ my Ganymede,§ who by day and by night, hath laughed my youthful age to scorn. This is he who, despising my passion, not only defames me with abusive language, but is preparing also for flight-and I, forsooth, deserted through the craft of this Ulysses, just like another Calypso, am to be left to lament in eternal loneliness.'

"Then extending her right hand, and pointing me out to her friend Panthia; And there,' said she, 'is his worthy counsellor Aristomenes, who was the proposer of this flight, and who now, half dead, is lying flat on the ground beneath the bedstead, and is looking at all that is going on, while he fancies that he is to relate disgraceful stories of me with im

* Third watch.]-The beginning of this would be midnight.

+ Into a tortoise.]-From his bed and bedstead being turned over him. My dear Endymion.]—Alluding to the secret of Diana and the shepherd Endymion, on Mount Latmus.

§ My Ganymede.]-Called Catamitus' in the text; by which name he is also called in the Menæchmi of Plautus.

punity. I'll take care, however, that some day, ay, and before long too, this very instant in fact, he shall repent of his recent loquacity, and his present inquisitiveness.'

"On hearing this, wretch that I was, I felt myself streaming with cold perspiration, and my vitals began to throb with agitation; so much so, that even the bedstead, shaken by the violence of my palpitations, moved up and down upon my back. "Well, sister,' said the worthy Panthia, shall we hack him to pieces at once, after the fashion of the Bacchanals, or, shall we bind his limbs and deprive him of virility?'

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"To this, Meroë replied-for I perceived from the circumstances, as well as from the narrative of Socrates, how well that name fitted her*- Rather let him live, if only that he may cover with a little earth the body of this wretched creature.' Then, moving the head of Socrates to one side, she plunged the whole sword into him up to the hilt, through the left side of his throat, carefully receiving the flowing blood into a small leathern bottle, placed under it, so that not a drop of it was anywhere to be seen. All this did I witness with my own eyes; and, what is more, the worthy Meroë, that she might not, I suppose, omit any due observance in the sacrifice of the victim, thrusting her right hand through the wound, into the very entrails, and groping among them, drew forth the heart of my unhappy companion; while, his windpipe being severed by the thrust of the weapon, he emitted through the wound a voice, or rather I should say, an indistinct gurgling noise, and poured forth his spirit with his bubbling blood. Panthia then stopped the gaping wound with the sponge, exclaiming, 'Beware, O sea-born sponge, how thou dost pass through a river.'

"When she had thus said, they lifted my bed from the ground, and squatting astride over my face, discharged their bladders, until they had entirely drenched me with their most filthy

contents.

• How well that name fitted her.]—Ausonius, Epigram xix., explains this allusion:

Et tu sic Meroë: non quod sic atra colore,
Ut quæ Niliaca nascitur in Meroë;
Infusum sed quod vinum non diluis undis,

Potare immixtum sueta merumque merum,

You are named Meroë, not because you are of a swarthy complexion like one born in Meroë, the island of the Nile; but because you do not dilute your wine with water but are used to drink it unmixed and concentrated.-K.

"Hardly had they passed over the threshold, when the door resumed its former state; the hinges resettled on the pannels; the posts returned to the bars, and the bolts flew back once more to their sockets. But I, left in such a plight, prostrate on the ground, scared, naked, cold, and drenched in chamber-lye, just like some babe that has recently emerged from the womb of its mother, indeed, I may say, half dead, but still surviving myself, and pursuing, as it were, a posthumous train of reflections, or, to say the least, like a candidate for the cross, to which I was surely destined: 'What,' said I, 'will become of me, when this man is found in the morning with his throat cut? Though I tell the truth, who will think my story probable? You ought at least, they will say, to have called for assistance, if you, such a stout man as you are, could not resist a woman. Is a man's throat to be cut before your eyes, and are you to be silent? How was it you were not likewise assassinated? Why did the barbarous wretch spare you, a witness of the murder, and not kill you, if only to put an end to all evidence of the crime? Inasmuch, then, as you have escaped death, now return to it.'

"These remarks I repeated to myself, over and over again, while the night was fast verging towards day.

"It appeared to me, therefore, most advisable to escape by stealth before daylight, and to pursue my journey, though with trembling steps. I took up my bundle, and putting the key in the door, drew back the bolts. But this good and faithful door, which during the night had opened of its own accord, was now to be opened but with the greatest difficulty, after putting in the key a multitude of times.

"Hallo! porter,' said I, 'where are you? Open the gates of the inn; I want to be off before break of day.'

"The porter, who was lying on the ground behind the door of the inn, still half asleep, replied, "Who are you, who would begin your journey at this time of night? Don't you know that the roads are infested by robbers? Ay, ay, though you may have a mind to meet your death, stung by your conscience, belike for some crime you have committed, still, I haven't a head like a pumpkin, that I should die for your sake.'

"It isn't very far from day-break,' said I; and besides, what can robbers take from a traveller in the greatest poverty? Are you ignorant, you simpleton, that he who is naked cannot be stripped by ten athletes even ?'

"The drowsy porter, turning himself on his other side, made answer, And how am I to know that you have not murdered that fellow-traveller of yours, with whom you came hither last night, and are now consulting your safety in flight? And now I recollect that just at that hour I saw the depths of Tartarus through the yawning earth and in them the dog Cerberus, looking ready to devour me.'

"Then truly I came to the conclusion that the worthy Meroë had not spared my throat through any compassion, but that she had cruelly reserved me for the cross. Accordingly, on returning to my chamber, I thought about some speedy mode of putting an end to myself: but as Fortune had provided me with no weapon with which to commit self-destruction, except the bedstead alone-' Now, bedstead,' said I, 'most dear to my soul, who hast been partner with me in enduring so many sorrows, who art fully conscious, and a spectator of this night's events, and whom alone, when accused, I can adduce as a witness of my innocence, do thou supply me, who would fain hasten to the shades below, with a welcome instrument of death.'

"Thus saying, I began to undo the rope with which the bed was corded, and throwing one end of it over a small beam which projected above the window, and there fastening it, and making a strong slip-knot at the other end, I mounted upon the bed, and thus elevated for my own destruction, I put my head into the noose. But while with one foot I was kicking away the support on which I rested, so that the noose, being tightened about my throat by the strain of my weight, might stop the functions of my breath; the rope, which was old and rotten, broke asunder, and falling from aloft, I tumbled with great force upon Socrates (for he was lying close by), and rolled with him on to the floor.

"Lo and behold! at the very same instant the porter burst into the room, bawling out, Where are you, you who were

* Saw the depths of Tartarus.]-Of course in a dream. Just at that hour-He knows all about it, even to the precise time. The promptitude with which the porter decides from the evidence of his dream that the murder had been actually committed, and at the very moment when the dream occurred, is a fine touch of nature.-K.

† For the cross.]-The cross was the instrument of punishment for slaves and foreigners, especially in cases of murder.

in such monstrous haste to be off at midnight, and now lie snoring, rolled up in the bed-clothes?'

"At these words, whether awakened by my fall, or by the discordant notes of the porter, I know not, Socrates was the first to start up, and exclaim, Assuredly, it is not without good reason that all travellers detest these hostlers. For this troublesome fellow, intruding so impertinently, with the intention, no doubt, of stealing something, has roused me out of a sound sleep, by his outrageous bellowing.'

"On hearing him speak, I jumped up briskly, in an ecstasy of unhoped-for joy: Faithfullest of porters,' I exclaimed, 'my friend, my own father, and my brother, behold him whom you, in your drunken fit, falsely accused me of having murdered.' So saying, I embraced Socrates, and was for loading him with kisses; but he, being assailed by the stench of the most filthy liquor with which those hags* had drenched me, repulsed me with considerable violence. 'Get out with you,' he cried, 'for you stink like the bottom of a sewer,' and then began jocularly to enquire the cause of this nasty smell. Sorely confused, I trumped up some absurd story on the spur of the moment, to give another turn to the conversation, and, taking him by the right hand, 'Why not be off,' said I,' and enjoy the freshness of the morning on our journey?' So I took my bundle, and, having paid the innkeeper for our night's lodging, we started on our road.

"We had proceeded some little distance, and now every thing being illumined by the beams of the rising sun, I keenly and attentively examined that part of my companion's neck, into which I had seen the sword plunged. Foolish man,'

said I to myself, buried in your cups, you certainly have had a most absurd dream. Why look, here's Socrates safe, sound, and hearty. Where is the wound? where is the sponge ? where, in fine, is the scar of a wound, so deep, and so recent ?' Addressing myself to him, 'Decidedly,' said I, 'skilful doctors have good reason to be of opinion that it is those who are stuffed out with food and fermented liquors who are troubled with portentous and horrible dreams. My own case is an

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*Those hags.]-Lamia' were enchantresses, who were said to prowl about at midnight to satisfy their lustful propensities, and their fondness for human flesh. They correspond very nearly with the Ghouls' mentioned in the Arabian Nights' Entertainments.