Beautiful Rienzi; or, The secret vendetta — page 264: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

BEAUTIFUL RIENZLI. 259 tempered dream; my brain was thick—the wheels of thought so clogged that I seemed to lack the strength to wield such unwieldy machinery; fatigue, past excitement, and pre- monitory symptoms of disease were weighing heavily on me, and everything was vague and dim around me. But still I was sensible of one interruption to our homeward course, which often occurred to me afterward with vivid distinctness. As we passed the camp of the gipsies [ saw hghts moving hither and thither through the trees, while shrill cries re- sounded eerily from near and far. ‘‘ What is the matter? Are they calling us?’ exclaimed Pemberton. The carriage stopped, and he thrust his head out of the window. ‘What’s the commotion about?” he asked of a young gipsy who ran up to the side of the coach. ‘‘Baree, Baree!” came shrilly to my ears from the heights beyond. ‘““Did you meet an old woman in a scarlet cloak and black silk kerchief on her head?” asked the young man, eagerly. « A gipsy? No!’ cried the driver from the box; ‘‘not one.’ ‘«* Baree is lost, then,” said the fellow, moving away. And‘again came the piercing cries from sear and rocky cliff: ‘‘ Baree! Baree! Baree!”’ We drove on after this interruption, and reached Silverlea at six o’clock in the morning. There was woe to the hopeful mother and anxious young husband. Ah, what a cup of anguish was that to place to their craving lips. And yet, in my dull, half-stunned condition, I could only watch sadly, and wipe my mother’s woeful tears with mute pity. Words were of no avail, and I did not try them. And to the stricken husband what comfort dared I whis- per? Gone, gone, gone were his flowery hopes. Oh, bury them deep—stifle them for evermore. Yet it was he who first took Cecil Beaumont’s hand, and looked into his burning eyes with the glance of heavenly sympathy. ‘‘ Bear it bravely, Brother Cecil,” he murmured, softly. CORNUCG OOO S (©)