life made still more hideous and repulsive.  After several days thus occupied, he sketched in various attitudes the imposing figure of the old woman, and endeavoured to fit this beautiful Torso with a head not unworthy of it.  But herein, after many attempts, he failed.  His excitement, so long indulged, had risen into fever.  His diseased fancy controlled his pencil, and blended with features of the highest order of beauty so many touches of the old woman’s ghastly visage, that he threw down his pencil, and abandoned all further efforts in despair.

CHAPTER II.

THE CAVERN.

The shores of Austrian Dalmatia south of the port of Fiume, are of so rugged and dangerous a nature, that although broken into numerous creeks and bays, there are but few places where vessels, even of small dimensions, dare to approach them, or indeed where it is possible to effect a landing.  A long experience of the coast, and of the adjacent labyrinth of islands which block up the gulf of Carnero, is necessary in order to accomplish in safety the navigation of the shallow rocky sea; and even when the mariner succeeds in setting foot on land, he not unfrequently finds his progress into the interior barred by precipices steep as walls, roaring torrents, and yawning ravines.

It was on a mild evening of early spring, and a few days after the incidents recorded in the preceding chapter, that a group of wild-looking figures was assembled on the Dalmatian shore, opposite the island of Veglia.  The sun was setting, and the beach was so overshadowed by the beetling summits of the high chalky cliffs, that it would have been difficult to discover much of the appearance of the persons in question, but for an occasional streak of light that shot out of a narrow ravine opening among the rocks in rear of the party, and lit up some dark-bearded visage, or flashed on the bright barrel of a long musket.  High above the ravine, and standing out against the red stormy-looking sky behind it, the outline of a fortress was visible, and in the hollow beneath might be distinguished the small closely-built mass of houses known as the town of Segna.

This castle, which, by natural even more than artificial defences, was deemed impregnable, especially on its sea face, was the stronghold of a handful of hardy and desperate adventurers, who, although their numbers never exceeded seven hundred men, had yet, for many years preceding the date of this narrative, made themselves a name dreaded throughout the whole Adriatic.  The inhabitants of the innumerable Dalmatian islands, the subjects of the Grand Turk, the people of Ancona—­all, in short, who inhabited the shores of the Adriatic, and were interested in its commerce, or in the countless merchant vessels that skimmed over its waters—­trembled and turned pale when the name of these daring freebooters was mentioned in their hearing.  In vain was it that the Sultan, who in his sublimity scarcely deigned