XLII. THE DAUGHTER OF HIPPOCRATES.

In the time of the Norman reign in Sicily, a vessel bound from that island for Smyrna was driven by a westerly wind upon the island of Cos. The crew did not know where they were, though they had often visited the island; for the trading towns lay in other quarters, and they saw nothing before them but woods and solitudes. They found however a comfortable harbour; and the wind having fallen in the night, they went on shore next morning for water. The country proved as solitary as they thought it; which was the more extraordinary, inasmuch as it was very luxuriant, full of wild figs and grapes, with a rich uneven ground, and stocked with goats and other animals, who fled whenever they appeared. The bees were remarkably numerous; so that the wild honey, fruits, and delicious water, especially one spring which fell into a beautiful marble basin, made them more and more wonder, at every step, that they could see no human inhabitants.

Thus idling about and wondering, stretching themselves now and then among the wild thyme and grass, and now getting up to look at some specially fertile place which another called them to see, and which they thought might be turned to fine trading purpose, they came upon a mound covered with trees, which looked into a flat wide lawn of rank grass, with a house at the end of it. They crept nearer towards

the house along the mound, still continuing among the trees, for fear they were trespassing at last upon somebody's property. It had a large garden wall at the back, as much covered with ivy as if it had been built of it. Fruit-trees looked over the wall with an unpruned thickness; and neither at the back nor front of the house were there any signs of humanity. It was an ancient marble building, where glass was not to be expected in the windows; but it was much dilapidated, and the grass grew up over the steps. They listened again and again; but nothing was to be heard like a sound of men; nor scarcely of any thing else. There was an intense noon-day silence. Only the hares made a rustling noise as they ran about the long hiding grass. The house looked like the tomb of human nature, amidst the vitality of earth.

"Did you see?" said one of the crew, turning pale, and hastening to go. "See what ?" said the others. "What looked out of window." They all turned their faces towards the house, but saw nothing. Upon this they laughed at their companion, who persisted however with great earnestness, and with great reluctance at stopping, to say that he saw a strange hideous kind of face look out of window. "Let us go, Sir," said he, to the Captain ;-" for I tell ye what: I know this place now: and you, Signor Gualtier," continued he, turning to a young man," may now follow that adventure I have often heard you wish to be engaged in." The crew turned pale, and Gualtier among them. "Yes," added the man, "we

are fallen upon the enchanted part of the island of Cos, where the daughter of-Hush! Look there!" They turned their faces again, and beheld the head of a large serpent looking out of window. Its eyes were direct upon them; and stretching out of window, it lifted back its head with little sharp jerks like a fowl; and so stood keenly gazing.

The terrified sailors would have begun to depart quicklier than they did, had not fear itself made them move slowly. Their legs seemed melting from under them. Gualtier tried to rally his voice. "They say," said he, "it is a gentle creature. The hares that feed right in front of the house are a proof of it :-let us all stay." The others shook their heads, and spoke in whispers, still continuing to descend the mound as well as they could. "There is something unnatural in that very thing," said the Captain: "but we will wait for you in the vessel, if you stay, We will, by St. Ermo." The Captain had not supposed that Gualtier would stay an instant; but seeing him linger more than the rest, he added the oath in question, and in the mean time was hastening with the others to get away. The truth is, Gualtier was, in one respect, more frightened than any of them. His legs were more rooted to the spot. But the same force of imagination that helped to detain him, enabled him to muster up courage beyond those who found their will more powerful and in the midst of his terror, he could not help thinking what a fine adventure this would be to tell in Salerno, even if he did but conceal himself a

little, and stay a few minutes longer than the rest. The thought however had hardly come upon him, when it was succeeded by a fear still more lively, and he was preparing to follow the others with all the expedition he could contrive, when a fierce rustling took place in the trees behind him, and in an instant the serpent's head was at his feet. Gualtier's brain as well as heart seemed to sicken, as he thought the monstrous object scented him like a bear; but despair coming in aid of a courage naturally fanciful and chivalrous, he bent his eyes more steadily, and found the huge jaws and fangs not only abstaining from hurting him, but crouching and fawning at his feet like a spaniel. At the same time, he called to mind the old legend respecting the creature; and corroborated as he now saw it, he ejaculated with good firmness, "In the name of God and his saints, what art thou ?"

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"Hast thou not heard of me?" answered the serpent in a voice, whose singular human slenderness made it seem the more horrible. I guess who thou art," answered Gualtier:-" the fearful thing in the island of Cos."

"I am that loathly thing," replied the serpent; once not so." And Gualtier, thought that its voice trembled sorrowfully.

The monster told Gualtier that what was said of her was true: that she had been a serpent hundreds of years, feeling old age and renewing her youth at the end of each century; that it was a curse of Diana's

which had changed her; and that she was never to resume a human form, till somebody was found, kind and bold enough to kiss her on the mouth. As she spoke this word, she raised her crest, and sparkled so with her fiery green eyes, dilating at the same time the corners of her jaws, that the young man thrilled through his very scalp. He stept back, with a look of the utmost horror and loathing. The creature gave a sharp groan inwardly, and after rolling her neck franticly on the ground, withdrew a little back likewise, and seemed to be looking another way. Gualtier heard two or three little sounds as of a person weeping piteously, yet trying to subdue its voice; and looking with breathless curiosity, he saw the side of the loathly creature's face bathed in tears.

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Why speakest thou, lady," said he, “if lady thou art, of the curse of the false goddess Diana, who never was, or only a devil. I cannot kiss thee," and he shuddered with a horrible shudder, as he spoke, "but I will bless thee in the name of the true God, and even mark thee with his cross."

The serpent shook her head mournfully, still keeping it turned round. She then faced him again, hanging her head in a dreary and desponding manner, "Thou knowest not" said she, "what I know. Diana both was, and never was; and there are many other things on earth, which are and yet are not. Thou canst not comprehend it, even though thou art kind. But the heavens alter not, neither the sun nor the strength of nature; and if thou wert kinder, I should