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CHAPTER I.-A MIDNIGHT ADVENTURE AMONG THE RUINS OF MYCENE.

THERE is a plain, wide and extensive, beautiful as it is desolate, which lies for ever basking in the light of Eastern skies; where the soft winds, freighted with the sweet odours stolen from the far-off burning climes, pass on unheeded with their fragrance; and where no sound is heard save the faint voice of the distant waves, that seem to wail feebly like the lamenting of spirits that cannot rest. All around stands a noble rampart of lofty hills; on one side, the deep purple hue of that flowery waste seems to merge imperceptibly into the yet deeper blue of the gently undulating sea; and on the wildest and most desert spot in all that desert plain there lie the ruins of an ancient city.

Three thousand three hundred years has that ancient city lain there even as we now behold it, unchanged and undisturbed-since the hour when the progress of its ruin was mysteriously stayed, and the hand of Decay palsied in the midst of its destructive work, that these stupendous monuments might traverse, like things imperishable, the cycles of unnumbered centuries, and stand forth before each living race of men, the solemn, voiceless witnesses of an unknown past. Elsewhere over the face of this our world the waves of time have been violently sweeping, swallowing up the kingdoms, making a wreck of empires, and speeding on the generations to their doom; but here there has been no change save in the fading of the glorious day into the mild and radiant night, or the melting of the morning loveliness into the glowing light of noon. Immovable, impassible, those two great headless lions have kept their watch over the city's gates,

VOL. XXXII.-NO, CXCI.

whence none have come forth, and where none have entered, except, it may be, the mournful ghosts of the ancient departed, as they passed and repassed, to visit the habitation of their clay. And daily has the first bright sun-ray stolen down upon the giant sepulchre, where reposed the royal corpse of him, whom Homer styled the King of Men; but of living things there is none, save one huge serpent that haunts these stately ruins, and sits, coiled on a mighty pillar's base, like the emblem of that sin, for whose sake the cities of the earth are shaken from their centre, and swiftly overthrown.

To-night, the cold, bright moonbeams nestled quietly amongst these huge Cyclopean ruins, and glittered steadily upon the stupendous blocks of those mysterious structures, whose original purpose none can now explain. Those moonbeams in the East seem to have a purifying power, stolen from the sphere whence they come, which gives a fairer aspect to all things on which they beam; and they had turned the unspotted marble to a deadly whiteness, and shed a pale pure light all round that mighty tomb, as though they had veiled it in an ethereal shroud. In this, the shrine of an eternal solitude, the deep silence is less profound by night than during the sultry day; for then the beasts of prey come howling round the desert city, and the rushing wings of the night-bird disturb the quiet air. And now to these another sound is added, and the gallop of a swift horse coming near, echoes loudly on the plain; it proceeds directly from the point where, glaring redly amid the fairer moonlight, there may be distinguished a

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fire that has been kindled by human hands; and soon, approaching rapidly upon the hard, dry ground, the horse and his rider enter within the circle of the ancient ruins. They paused before the Gate of the Lions, and the horseman, dismounting, entered on foot into the City of the Dead.

He was a man in the prime of life, wearing a black uniform, with a cap, on which was impressed the symbol of a death's-head, and underneath were inscribed the words, "Liberty or Death.” The fire, which marked the spot whence he had come, had been kindled by his companions in arms; and they were the men forming that gallant and noble company, who shall live in the hearts of their countrymen, whatever may have been their name and desig. nation elsewhere, as the defenders of Greece alone! for this glorious title they won to themselves with the barter of their life, and sealed their right to it in their own blood. They were

those young men, Greeks, Philellenists, and volunteers from the various countries of Europe, all in the summer of their days, who, having devoted themselves to the cause of Greece (that beautiful slave pouring out her heart's best blood for the purchase of her freedom), had been formed into a battalion of infantry, which was termed the "Hieros Lochos," or sacred band. Once they had been five hundred strong, but four hundred lay stiff in their death-wounds, in the cold swamps of Wallachia. Still those who remained were undaunted and true, as the symbol on their caps well proved, from which they were called "Mavrophorites ;" and they were tinually reinforced by new detachments from Europe of those noble friends to Greece, who scrupled not to leave their dear homes and dearer friends, to die for a country which had no claim upon them-save that it was oppressed! He who had now traversed that lonely moor to visit the desert city, was an English Philellenist, and he had stolen these few hours of his needful rest, and left the gay society of his companions, to wander hither, because that plain was the plain of Argos, and the city was Mycena, the seat of the royal Agamemnon's power.

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It seems strange to turn from the contemplation of ruins such as these, fragments from the great wreck of

the past, in which, as in hieroglyphics, it has written over the face of this earth the history of its remotest days, to talk of the deeds and sufferings, the hopes and sorrows, of the living generation, that now for so short a time are located in the habitation of this world. But in the records of eternity, the comparative value of all things is measured by a computation very different from ours. We, with our past of but a few short years, and our finite minds that cannot grasp a morrow, are no judges of the greater or the less. We are unable to trace in the present glory or power, the fruit of past events which seemed of little moment, or in the words and deeds of to-day, the germ of future might; we cannot see how much greater is the seed from whence hereafter shall spring a stately tree, than the noblest oak that ever spread its branches to the sky, if it is withering at the heart, and decay in secret sapping its life. If the narrow sphere where one great man a while was seen to move, became the centre of a mighty empire, so might the petty state, where a few thousands gave their lives for freedom, be the focus whence liberty should emanate to many nations. Therefore we may talk of the Greek revolution among the ruins of Mycenæ, and tell how, at the period of which we speak, the sympathies of all Europe were stirred for those brave sons of Greece, still at this hour slaves, at least in name, who had so nerved themselves to this one noble struggle.

Two years and more they had wrestled for their freedom-how bravely and how gloriously, they only can tell, yet living who witnessed it, or those who, having since wandered over that restored country, have read the records of its strife in the myriad graves of its soldiers, or the broken hearts of the survivors; but though not one spark of their generous ardour had been quenched by the blood of their brethren so lavishly shed, still at this juncture Greece seemed destined to be but the altar whereon a mighty sacrifice was offered up to liberty, day by day, and life by life. Yet with one heart had they risen to struggle in that worthy cause, and not the cold hand of death itself could still the throbbing of that universal pulse. Corinth was in the hands of the infidel

-but they struggled on. The bravest of their heroes, Marco Bozzaris, had fallen in the first disastrous siege of Missolonghi; but they called on all to follow his example, and struggled on. Troop after troop arrived from Turkey to replace those which they had swept away. The Vizier Mahmoud Pasha had only now come, followed by countless numbers, to conduct the war, and the Greeks had no means of reinforcement. They could not call back from their graves those who had already given up their lives. Men, even for Greece, could die but once ; but they armed the women and children, and dragged out the old men in their extremity, to strike a last blow as they expired and so they struggled on!

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It is not to be wondered at, that such a spectacle as this should have aroused men, even strangers to the land, to come forward and proffer their most needful aid; and from all parts of the world they were now arriving, to enlist under this noble banner. Byron was already in the Ionian Islands, and on him the highest hopes were placed. Vasili, an Olympian, had by proclamation gathered round him a hundred and fifty Philellenists, among whom was included the shattered fragment of the Hieros Lochos, and this was the company now encamped on the plain of Argos. although, amongst these volunteers, who were principally Swiss, German, and English, many were really actuated by that which was the ostensible motive of all-a generous desire to succour the oppressed; yet not a few were lured hither by very different hopes, and reasons less pure, than these. Some came with views of personal ambition, and they had their reward, for the tombs wherein their senseless dust is laid are decked with laurels even now; some came from motives of cupidity, and they, too, bad their recompense, for in most cases their gold perished with them; and there were others, over whose young lives some shadow had past so dark and deep, that it had rendered that life an intolerable burden, from which they had here an opportunity to escape, they were most thankful to accept, though they dared not rid themselves of it by their own immediate act. There seems to be for such a strange

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fascination in the scene of some great convulsion, like the mysterious impulse which goads men to fling themselves into an abyss, or allow themselves to be sucked into the vortex of a whirlpool; and many among them would have said, in the words of the most illustrious of them all

"If thou regrett'st thy youth, why live?
The land of honourable death

Is here-up to the field and give
Away thy breath!

Seek out-less often sought than found-
A soldier's grave, for thee the best;
Then look around, and choose thy ground,
And take thy rest."*

Of these latter was Lester, the Englishman who now stood among the ruins of Mycena. His previous history may be told in very few words. He was a man of independent fortune, an only son, whose parents had died while he was in his infancy. Cast on the world, with no special aim or purpose in life, and without a single tie to bind him, he naturally chose out for himself an object on which to expend those instinctive affections, which must somewhere find an aliment. Of this object he made an idol, and therefore was his idol taken from him. Before the fair young bride, who was to him what nothing merely human ought to be to an immortal soul, had become the wife he thought to cherish with a love imperishable, he was called upon to lay her down out of his own arms, powerless to retain her, in her quiet, early grave, and as the coffin lid closed over the serene face, lovely in its holy peace, it shut in also for ever the light of his mortal existence.

Lester was a man of generous impulses, and reflective mind; nor was he altogether without principle, although he was, indeed, very far from knowing ought of that glorious independence, that unspeakable calm with which earthly sorrow and earthly joy alike are met by the soul which is, as it were, enshrined in one immutable, eternal hope. Thus, though his mind had so far a right bias that he could perceive, in an act of self-destruction, a most deadly crime; yet he did but compromise the matter, by turning resolutely to this "land of honourable death," there to yield up the life, doubtless given for some holy purpose, which he thought he thus

Poem by Lord Byron, written at Missolonghi shortly before his death.

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might sacrifice with impunity. the ruins of Mycena he had been attracted by the influence of his classical associations; but as he stood amongst them, in the sublime quiet of that starlit night, thoughts more solemn and oppressive took possession of his mind, when slowly his soul began to tread back on her pilgrimage through the past, making a stepping-stone of each generation, where millions had lived, struggled, and perished, to reach a period so remote, that it was like a dream to look on the monuments which were its tangible vestiges. Then there came over him that indescribable awe -that crushing sense of utter insignificance of weakness, of nothingness, which bows to the very dust the mortal holding by so frail a tenure, so vapour-like an existence-when, for one moment, he is enabled to catch a comprehensible glimpse of the workings of the stupendous scheme of the universe, the mighty system of ever-perishing, ever-renewing life.

Lester was stricken with shame, as he stood gazing on those marble blocks, whose triangular form, representing the sun's rays, was symbolical of the mysterious creed of the ancient fire-worshippers, and thus opened out to him a field of bewildering thought; he was stricken with shame, to think that he, a stray leaf, blown by the breath of eternity-the unseen winds of destiny-over this mortal shore, should have dared to call in question the mercy of any heaven-sent decree affecting his own transitory being, or used the great words of despair, and utter misery and desolation, because of the perishing of one ephemeral hope in his most ephemeral existence. The thought was salutary, for before he retired from that ancient city, he had determined, while his brief life lasted, rather to seek to do what good he, even he, might accomplish in his generation, than longer to allow despondency to grow, like mildew, over his soul, whilst he brooded hopelessly over the one blighting vision that had ever risen up before him, alike in the darkness of the night or glory of the noonday, in the burning desert or the fairest landscapes-the sad vision of the old Gothic arch, which formed the portico of his village church, with one green, lowly mound, raised close beside it, where the long grass waved so gently in the sighing wind, and the dews

lay night and day so thick and heavy in the shade of the waving trees. Repulsing that mournful recollection, and earnestly purposing to live henceforward as one whose life, having been corroded by misery, had devoted the residue of it to relieve the sufferings of others, Lester left the ruins, and turned towards the tomb of Agamemnon, little thinking how soon his good and wise resolution was to be put to the test. He approached that imposing sepulchre (by some supposed, and on no good grounds, to be rather the treasury of Atreus), and guided by the starlight, he passed down the steep entrance hewn in the rock which led to it, and entered through the door, formed by three blocks of most extraordinary magnitude.

This vast and most kingly tomb is a conical vault some fifty feet in height, and the same in diameter, round whose dim walls, which no sunbeam has ever touched, has gathered the mould and the rust of three thousand years. Strange echoes seem to float within its still, thick air-strange ashes are beneath the feet of those who tread within it-ashes that were instinct with life, and thought, and passion, and feeling, in the days when the sun was worshipped at his rising and his setting, and the moon adored as she walked in her brightness, and idols honoured in their gorgeous temples, and dreadful sacrifices offered in the mystic groves; and beyond this vault there is an inner recess, where, doubtless, stood the royal sarcophagus, beneath the light of everburning lamps. Groping in the darkness, Lester was about to strike a light, that he might penetrate into this inner chamber, when suddenly, from the narrow doorway, a long ray of light shot pale and quivering, and cast a faint glare over the huge dark stones of that mysterious structure. At that still hour, and in this spot, ever so profoundly desolate, this was a most startling occurrence; and Lester as he wandered through the Cyclopean city, had been holding such close communion with the ghostly population of the past, that he was strongly predisposed to the indulgence of superstitious feeling; indeed, in that vast, cold sepulchre, the presence of one departed would have seemed more real and natural than the stir of a living thing, warm with human passion, so that for a moment he felt inclined to

believe that even yet a watcher came by night to mourn over the ashes of the heathen monarch, and shed around that strange and flickering light; for he well knew that to affections which outlive the tomb (if such there be, and aught that is stained with earthly passion can escape the purifier, death) no lapse of centuries could bring decrease or change. But this wild thought vanished, when from that illuminated chamber there came a sound of lamentation the sound of human lamentation, which, long before these stupendous blocks were raised by hands whose strength seems not of this world, had grown to be the very voice of earth herself, because each one of her children fails not to swell the mournful chorus.

He drew near and looked within. The light proceeded from a taper, fixed on the angle of a large rough stone; the voice of mourning from an aged woman, prostrate before it in an attitude of intense devotion, who at intervals lifted up her shrivelled hands in supplication, and cried out, weeping, "Cyllene, oh, Cyllene." Lester had acquired a very sufficient knowledge of the Greek language in the Ionian islands, and knowing that this word "Cyllene" implied the moon, he was once more almost staggered into the belief that he saw before him one of the ancient fire-worshippers, the emblems of whose mysterious faith were all around him; but as she continued to lament, and he to listen, he perceived that she mourned that which it is at once fittest and most anomalous should be mourned by a human being— the loss of one subject to decay and fragile as herself. Cyllene was evidently a being whom she had loved and lost, for she continued to call on heaven with passionate entreaty to restore to her the treasure of her soul. "My bosom was her cradle," she exclaimed, with bitter tears," and where does she lay her fair head now? My fond heart was her home, and who is now so desolate and lonely. My love was round her like an adamantine wall, to guard her from one breath of sorrow, and yet my gentle one alone hath met the deadliest blasts of evil. Oh, Cyllene, Cyllene, what can I say more to prove mine agony unspeakable, than this? Thou wert my only child, and I have lost thee. Ye holy saints, who on this earth, like us, have loved and suffered, pray for me, that a deliverer

may be sent, or this fierce grief, which is as fire at my heart, will consume my very life away." And as the aged woman wept and prayed, Lester felt his warmest sympathies so strongly moved towards her, that he forgot to wonder how it chanced that this feeble, helpless being, was in so strange a place at such an hour. He believed that, like himself, she sorrowed for one who, in unwilling egotism, had early turned from this troubled sphere to seek the blessed rest which cannot fail; and seemed in her vivid oriental expressions to describe so perfectly his own feelings, that he hastily advanced towards her, impelled by that deep interest which springs from a community of sorrows. As his shadow darkened the threshold, it was her turn to start and shriek aloud in terror, imagining, as he had done, that none but a supernatural being could haunt that abode of gloom at dead of night.

"Ipage opiso mou, Satana! (get thee behind me, Satan)," she exclaimed, crossing herself with trembling hands; "it must be a vampire or a ghoul in human form."

"No," said Lester, softly; "do not fear; I am mortal like yourself, and, like yourself, I mourn for one beloved and lost. Do not tremble so; I am a living man."

"A living man," she said, while the terror imprinted on her countenance gave way to a wondering awe no less superstitious. "Can it be that heaven has heard my prayer and sent me a deliverer? A living man in the giant tomb at such an hour-it is-it must be so; the saints have prayed for me, indeed, and therefore is he sent. Oh, deliverer," she continued, rushing towards him, with the vehemence of feeling so peculiar to the Greeks, "heavensent deliverer, delay not, but restore to me my child."

"Poor mother," said Lester, compassionately, "your bitter sorrow has bewildered you. I cannot give you back your child. If human love could ever have recalled the dead, I had not stood alone before you now, for I thought that heaven, from its wealth of angels, might well have spared me one."

"But my daughter is not dead,” shrieked the aged woman, grasping his hands," and you can restore her if you will, for you have youth and strength, and doubtless riches also;

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