[Illustration: Don Pedro and Seraphina thank Zambullo]
"Well! while he is hesitating," added the Cripple, "let us get out of this smother into a place more favourable for continuing our observations." And so saying, away he flew with the Student to the top of a high church filled with splendid tombs.
OF THE TOMBS, OF THEIR SHADES, AND OF DEATH.
Asmodeus now said to the Student: "Before we continue our observations on the living, we will for a few moments disturb the peaceful rest of those who lie within this church. I will glance over all the tombs; reveal the secrets they contain, and the feelings which have prompted their elevation.
"The first of those which are on our right contains the sad remains of a general officer, who, like another Agamemnon, on his return from the wars found an Ægisthus in his house; in the second, reposes a young cavalier of noble birth, who, desirous of displaying in the sight of his mistress his strength and skill at a bull-fight, was gored to death by his furious opponent; and in the third lies an old prelate who left this world rather unceremoniously. He had made his will in the vigour of health, and was imprudent enough to read it to his domestics, whom, like a good master, he had not forgotten: his cook was in a hurry to receive his legacy.
"In the fourth mausoleum rests a courtier who never rested in his lifetime. Even at sixty years of age, he was daily seen in attendance on the king, from the levée until his majesty retired for the night: in recompense for all these attentions the king loaded him with favours." "And was he, now," said Don Cleophas, "the man to use his influence for others?" "For no one," replied the Devil: "he was liberal of his promises of service to his friends, but he was religiously scrupulous of never keeping them." "The scoundrel!" exclaimed Leandro. "Were we to think of lopping off the superfluous members of society,--men that like tumours on the body politic draw all its nourishment to themselves, it is with courtiers like this one would begin."
"The fifth tomb," resumed Asmodeus, "encloses the mortal remains of a signor, ever zealous for the interests of his country, and jealous of the glory of the king his master, in whose service he spent the best years of his life as ambassador to Rome or France, to England or Portugal. He ruined himself so effectually by his embassies that he did not leave behind him enough to defray the expenses of his funeral, which the king has therefore paid out of gratitude for his services.