Alvira: The Heroine of Vesuvius

Fl

f her young. The Government feared the popular cry, and proved its zeal by offering immense rewards for the arrest of the delinquent banker. The country around the city was guarded, every suspicious vehicle examined, and strangers ran the risk of being mobbed before they could prove their identi

ls and torrents with a speed that rivals the swoop of the sea-bird were unknown. The rickety old

ned, he was attracted towards Geneva, already famous as the hot-bed of secret societies and the rallying-point of infidelity. He would reach it by a circuito

side where the news of the capital had not reached. Time inured them to danger an

d from village to village; they found themselves on the track of an old man and two beardless y

nside was unbroken, save by the music of wild birds and the roar of a torrent that leaped through the moss-covered rocks towards the valley. The wild flowers gave aromatic sweetness to the mountain-breeze, and the orb of day, slowly sinking in a bank of luminous crimson clouds in the distant horizon, made the scene all that

ook through the trees, and with a thril

to the terrified girls; he bit his lip, drew his sword close to him, and prepared

they galloped in a cloud of dust along the plain. The hill was long and heavy before the weari

ilful general in the critical moment when victory and defeat hang, as it were, on the cast of a die, he conceived inst

lf behind an oak-tree and calmly awaite

n seemed to glow in a deeper crimson, the breezes sighed a mournful cadence through the waving foliage. On the troopers came up the side o

seize the prey-to be the first captor of the delinquent fugitive. Fatal indiscretion! Plunging along at desperate speed, and dreaming of gold and renown, the

ad not been accustomed to deeds of violence and bloodshed. But the combat has now but commen

ed his horse, dismounted, and came with drawn sword to mee

, burnished blades. The silence of deep resolve wrapt the features of the combatant in fierce rigidity. Again and again they struck and parried, struck and parried, until wearied nature gave feeble response to the maddened soul. The aged Cassier felt, from his a

meteor. The hapless but brave soldiers of justice lie in their armor on the field of battle; the fresh blood gurgles from the gaping wounds, and the madness of defeat is fiercely st

the road, steeped with blood, is covered with fresh earth; the scene that witnessed the tragedy is fair and beautiful

ting moments of the deadly strife that had just been concluded. Neither of them saw the perilous situation

France, threading the passes of the Alps, and away