up, and heedless of ceremony rushed into the gallery, now crowded with terrified men and women; the flashing of their weapons in the torch-light adding to the fright of the females, who had hastened from their couches to the scene of confusion. And where was she, who was most deeply concerned in this tragedy? The Queen, at the first alarm, on rushing to the door of her apartment found it barricaded on the outside; the felons who designed her husband's murder had taken such means to prevent her egress-or his flight into that place of refuge! The Hungarian maid whose appearance in the garden had dispersed the assassins, had burst open the door in her frantic terror, when she rushed to communicate the tidings; and her unhappy mistress was now in no state to meet or receive the nobles, who in confusion and dismay, entered the chamber.

The Queen lay on the floor where she had sunk in the first moment of amaze and horror-her whole frame convulsed-her face pallid as marble--her white lips quivering-her bosom, veiled only by her disordered hair, laboring with convulsive sobs, as if the overcharged heart would burst its frail prison. Suddenly, as the clanging steps of approaching intruders roused her, and the tumult of voices in the ante-chamber, she half started from the ground; a fierce and frenzied brightness gleamed in her eyes-while her unconscious fingers grasped her locks wildly.

"Traitors!" she shrieked-in notes of fearful intensity;-" traitors--ye would slay your Sovereign! I am beset in mine own palace--aid-aid--for the love of the Holy Virgin! Bid our trusty Raimond hither-he will face them all for my rescue! Will none give aid? Will none save the Queen! Or give me but a swordourself will hold them at bay till succor come!" And she flung her white arm aloft as in defiance.

"Be calm, gracious mistress," said one of the knights; "here are none but your loyal servants, who would die for your safety!"

But words could not lay the phantoms her excited imagination had conjured up. "What! kill the King!" she cried in a voice of heart rending despair. "Louis-Louis-was this thy work? Vaunt thy love to a Queen! O false and traitorous, who hast stung the bosom that cherished thee! Set thy foot in blood to mount a throne! The storm is awake, and dearly, dearly, shalt thou abye this day!"

The sensation her words excited was evident in the sudden movement among the knights and barons. "Heard you, heard you?" muttered the iron Count of Lucera, a brother of the house of Pipini, who had been favored by Andrew; "by the rood—but her madness savors of reason!"

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"But the Prince is in Florence-" suggested Raimond de Baux. "Tush, thou speakest like a fool!" returned the Count; you not how remorse is struggling at her soul? Look, how her

fingers clutch at nought, and the foam gathers on her lip! Doth sorrow thus demean herself?"

"Stand back!" cried the deep voice of Philippa, the Catanese, who now pressed forward, signing with an air of command the barons to retire; "stand back, gentlemen, for very shame, if not for courtesy and seemliness! Stand ye there to gaze upon your sovereign, thus disarrayed, and in the abandonment of grief and terroras though she were some serving damsel? My Lord of Lucera, what list ye to read in the convulsed brow and quivering lip of one distraught with agony? "Tis a fair spectacle, certes, and a fitting. one! For shame!"

"Proud dame!” replied the other, angered by her taunt, "it doth behoove thee to tremble at the revealings of yonder wretched lady's frenzy! I wot well thou wast her counsellor!"

The aged dame turned her dark eyes full on the speaker, they flashed such majestic scorn as called the flush of shame even to his bold brow.

"False knight!" she cried, "discourteous gentleman! Hence! repeat thy base words hereafter, if thou darest, in presence of the majesty thou hast insulted! Would, would I were a man, but for ten minutes' space! But it shames me to be moved, even to righteous anger, by such as thou!"

"I espouse the quarrel!" exclaimed the impetuous Francis de Baux, eagerly advancing; "against him who dares fling dishonor on our royal and hapless mistress! Count of Lucera, in presence of this company, for the words thou hast spoken, I declare thee a false and disloyal cavalier!--and am ready to make good my cause against thee with sword, or lance, or dagger, on foot or on horseback! And God show the right!"

"Peace!" interrupted the Catanese, "peace, foolish boy! Take back thy gauntlet-is this a time to vaunt thy chivalry? An thou wouldst do good service-withdraw these men, that I may aid my mistress!"

They were interrupted by a shriek from the Queen, so wild and loud that the vaulted apartment rang, as it pierced like a sword the ears of every one present. The Queen sprang to her feet with sudden impulse, her brow flushed, her arm extended, her eyes flashing with excitement, like those of some youthful Pythoness full of the oracular presence. "Goes it thus?" she cried; "then we will forth on the instant! Hoa! saddle us a steed! we ride this night for Naples ! Ourself will lead the brave troops. Ha! deem ye this sight of blood had unnerved us? Iron as ye are―Joanna fears less than ye!"

She tottered a few paces forward, but the strength inspired by frenzy was already gone; her color faded; her arm dropped heavily to her side, and she swooned in the arms of her attendants.

In a hasty council held among the nobles, it was determined to convey the sovereign with all speed to Naples; that preparations might be commenced without delay for the interment of the unfortunate Andrew, with the ceremonies due to his rank; and investigations set on foot by the proper authorities for the discovery of his murderers.

The gray tints of dawn were stealing over the eastern sky, when the company, escorted by a train of armed vassals, left Aversa on their mournful progress to the capital. Joanna had only recovered from her swoon to be racked by keener mental agonies; and again to find relief in temporary insensibility. "Stunned by grief, I had well nigh died of the same wounds," are the words of her own letter to the King of Hungary, referring to the occasion; and they well describe her situation. As the procession moved on-the attendants closely surrounding the covered litter that bore the half lifeless form of the Queen-the unnatural silence that prevailedbroken only by the monotous tramp of their steeds, but, save at intervals, by not a single human voice-showed what deep dismay, what dark apprehensions, had taken possession of their bold hearts. Numbers of the peasantry watched them as they left the convent; one of this class, a tall, spare figure, who leaned against the outer wall, was accosted by a ragged veteran, as the cavalcade disappeared.

"Corpo di Dio! It is well I see thy face at last, Rodolfo!" "And wherefore?" returned the hitherto mute figure.

"I had but now taken out mine image of San Giuseppe, and was fain to touch thy cloak with it to see an 'twere not some goblin that stood there, so motionless and deaf to all questioning!"

"It has been a fearful night," murmured his abstracted companion, "and will bring a fearful chastisement on the land! A deed less horrible than this hath God deeply avenged in our city, in times past." "Of what speakest thou?"

"The death of the young and noble Conradin! Know you not that when he stood on the scaffold, soon to be crimsoned with his guiltless blood-guiltless of aught save royalty--he bequeathed his vengeance to the skies? I have heard my grandsire repeat the tale. The day on which the courier reached Naples with the tidingsand Charles of Anjou feasted with his barons--throughout the city then was heard an horrible clamor-and a gloom deeper than that of night overspread the face of Heaven! Save the roaring that seemed to issue from the bowels of the earth, there was no voice heard; the birds fled affrighted to their nests; the very dogs poured forth such piteous wailings, as moved the heart to hear! When evening came, the dense cloud that veiled the stars shot forth vivid lightnings, and deafening thunders pealed in the howlings of the blast. The ground shook as in an earthquake; and the form of a monster*

This superstition is still current in some parts of Sicily.

was seen to rise, amid lurid smoke, from its cloven bosom. Many palms was his height; his face glowed like heated steel; he stood on a car drawn by fierce beasts, that moved slowly through the city, their eyes emitting fire, like volcanic sparks, chasing a crowd of terrified citizens, who rushed on all sides towards the temples, imploring the succor of the Holy Saints. Onward moved the fiend, regardless of their fear, till he reached the Capuan hill, and the Monarch's palace, on the walls of which he wrote with fiery finger, ere he vanished, these terrible initials."

A group had collected round the speaker; he paused impressively before he proceeded

"M. N. M. P. V. D. Slumber visited not that night the King's couch; for he saw, and trembled at that mysterious warning, which none of his sages could interpret,-when a lady of strange visage, whose lineage none could tell, majestic and of exceeding beauty, declared she would unfold the writing, if Charles had heart to listen to the prophecy. "Why should I fear what must be, O maiden?" said the King.

"The letters signify," answered she, "thy destiny--la tua Morte Non sarà Morte, ma Principio di Vita di Dolore !” *

"Terrible and righteous are the judgments of the Lord! Remorse and desperation dwelt thenceforth in the breast of the monarch;-for is it not written-Their sword shall enter into their own heart, and their bow shall be broken.'"

A NIGHT-SONG.

FROM THE GERMAN

OF MAHLMANN.

Earth sleeps,-Heaven watches,-take thy flight

My soul, and thither rove;

The world of angels, glorious, bright,
With solemn grandeur through the night,

Draws man above.

Longings their heavenward flight assay,
From grovelling cares of time;

Hope cheering cries, life's weary way
Leads upward through the stars' array,
To glory's clime.

The angel that by dust is checked,

Doth to his brethren haste,

Oh, land of home, with splendor deck'd,

Thou giv'st, when all earth's hopes are wreck'd,
Peace, strength, at last!

Thy death shall not be death, but the beginning of a life of pain.

POLITICAL PORTRAITS WITH PEN AND PENCIL.

(No. III.)

JOEL R. POINSETT.

(Concluded from page 368.)

FINDING his health considerably impaired by this long and fatiguing journey, during which he had encountered many privations, he determined to visit Tæplitz, in Bohemia, celebrated for its hotsprings. In the course of his journey thither, he passed through Königsberg, where the Prussian Court resided during the occupation of Berlin by the forces of Napoleon. He was presented to the King and Queen, who occupied a small country house in the neighborhood of the city, and, indeed, continued to live there until the French troops had retired from their capital. The Queen had the reputation, at that period, of being among the most beautiful women of Europe, and was celebrated for her accomplishments and engaging manners. She did not hesitate, in her interviews with the young American traveller, to express the mortification she had suffered, and her deep humiliation, at having been compelled to sue in person to the French Emperor, for the terms of peace to which he consented to accede, in their remarkable interview at Tilsit. "It had been supposed," she said, "that her personal intercession might obtain from the elated conqueror better terms for Prussia ;— and considering herself as having been the chief instigator of the war, which had ended with such deep disaster to her country, she could not refuse to use her best endeavors, to avert some of the evils which her partisans at court had contributed to bring upon her subjects." Mr. Poinsett observed, that it had been rumored at St. Petersburg, that she had experienced uncourteous treatment on the occasion, from Napoleon. This she promptly denied ;-she had not succeeded in her suit, but she said that in no other respect could she complain of the personal conduct of the Emperor towards her. As the King walked after dinner through the limited grounds that surrounded their retreat, he recurred, with apparent interest and emotion, to the same scene,-and among his other remarks observed, that although he could not have expected to terminate a disastrous war by an advantageous peace, he had yet a right to complain of his ally, the Emperor Alexander, who accepted from Napoleon a portion of the territory of Prussia, though he had previously encouraged, by every means, the war party in that kingdom;—" a party," added the monarch, with a sigh, "to which I did not be