earnest supplication, as she once more flung herself upon his bosom to detain him.

"By my faith, but I must. If Hermann has spoken truly, he has ere this gone through pains and torments to vex the graves which are to yield up their pale inhabitants for my pleasure, that I dare not trifle with. Besides, would he not ever after despise me as a coward, big of speech, but faint of resolution, should I now sneak to bed, and leave to him the boast of having prepared a scene which I was too sick at heart to look upon? To-morrow, with the dawn, I shall return; and then, Adolphine-"

"And then, it will be time to tell her more, thou loitering babbler," exclaimed a voice, whose freezing breath fell upon the ear of Frederick like an icy current of the winter air. He alone heard it. He started and shivered at the mysterious rebuke. The next moment he was on his way to Hermann's dwelling in the mountains, and Adolphine was or her knees, praying fervently for his safety.

Hermann and Frederick were fellow-students in one of the German universities. It matters little what one: as little, when the compact we are describing was made; whether a century or two centuries ago. It was made-for its history is extant. Hermann, who was older by some years than Frederick, was reputed to be deeply skilled in the lore of necromancy and magic, and to have acquired the fearful power of controlling the spirits of darkness; so as to make them work his will. Whether he really possessed this power, no one knew, though every one asserted it, and Hermann himself did not deny it.

It chanced on one occasion, when he and Frederick were walking through a church-yard, the latter who delighted in strange, wild fancies, observed, as he paused to survey the tombs around them, “If a man now could bid these graves › yawn, and cast forth their dead, to be questioned of what

they once were, and what they are, and they constrained to answer truly whatsoever might be demanded of them-God of Heaven! what marvellous secrets we should learn!"

"As how?" inquired Hermann.

"Oh! think ye not we should find innocence that had bled upon the scaffold for unacted crimes? Murder, and sacrilege, and robbery, and sin of every kind, dying on beds of down, cozening to the last all but Heaven and a howling conscience? Should one not see hearts broken by secret griefs, that were never told to mortal ears? Fathers and mothers killed by their unnatural children ?—the young and beautiful withered by love's perjuries?—poison and steel shortening the years that lay between heirs and their inheritance? And all these undiscovered villanies smuggled out of the world, with certificates of old age-consumption-apoplexy-from grave physicians who are feed to give names to what they cannot cure?"

Hermann mused in silence.

"Here," continued Frederick, planting his foot upon a new-made grave-" here lies one who but yesterday was laid in the earth, perhaps. Imagine I could say to him or her, arise that I could call back speech and memory to the dull clod-that I could hold in my hand, as a book, the heart that has ceased to throb. Should I not read there something which the world had never read, during all the long years it dwelt in it?"

""Tis an odd fancy, Frederick," exclaimed Hermann; "a very odd fancy. Since when has such a notion possessed you?"

"Since my mother died," replied Frederick, emphatically. "And she died-"

"Oh, ask the doctor, and he'll tell you 'twas of atrophy, and prove it by his art. But my father died before her, Hermann; and had he lived till now, she, too, were living.

I laughed amid my tears to hear them talk; and then I first thought how the dead would answer for themselves."

"Let us go," said Hermann; and they quitted the church-yard.

Many times afterwards the two friends discoursed upon this theme, which Hermann could not banish from his thoughts; and one evening when they were passing through this same church-yard, he thus addressed Frederick : "Do you remember," said he, "our conversation here, some months ago?"

"I do;

and our frequent ones since."

"I can perform the thing you wish."

"Would you were able!" answered Frederick.

"I can do it."

"What?"

66 Lay open

these graves!"

"Pooh !" exclaimed Frederick, laughing. "Come along, Hermann; you are making sport of me.”

"Hear me," said Hermann, remaining fixed to the spot where he stood. "I am not, as you imagine, merrily disposed; but I mean to use no persuasion—no argument with you. Simply, and in plain words, I repeat, I can lay these graves open, and command the dust and ashes they contain to take forms of life! even the very shapes they bore when living."

"Thou canst do this?"

"This, and more. They shall reveal to you those marvellous secrets you spoke of."

"Hermann!" exclaimed Frederick, looking at his friend with an eye that flashed horrible delight, while his bloodforsaken cheek betrayed the workings of his mind. "Hermann! swear that you will do this; swear, by some oath terrible as the thing itself, and I will pawn my soul to the eternal enemy of man for the pledge of my part in it."

"There needs nor oath nor plight to bind the willing and the bold. I am the first; are you the second?"

"Here is my hand. When shall it be?" replied Frederick.

"We will settle that as we walk along," answered Her

mann.

They did settle it; and the night was now come in which Frederick was to be convinced (for he doubted to the last) whether Hermann could really perform this fearful feat of sorcery. He arrived at his house later than the time appointed, in consequence of the delay occasioned by Adolphine's entreaties to forego, the meeting altogether; and Hermann was looking out for him. He returned to his room, followed by Frederick.

"I had worked for nothing," said he, angrily, "had I not gone beyond the need of this night's labour, to break the spell of a fond girl. Are these matters that women should know? Adolphine is on her knees still, and her prayers have a holiness in them that thwarts and disturbs my purpose. But I can perform-I can perform!" he muttered to himself, as he rolled something in the palms of his hands that emitted sparks of a crimson hue, with a loud crackling. "I can-ha! bravely! bravely!" and he increased the rolling motion of his hands; " her eyes closeher head droops-'tis a sound sleep; it will last till the lark sings."

As he uttered these words, his hands unclosed; the palms were of a deep blood-red colour, but there was no visible appearance of any substance that had been rubbed between them.

Frederick remembered the freezing voice that had rebuked him, and no longer doubted of Hermann's power. If he could thus hold communion with the living, why might not the dead be subject to his art ?

The room was lighted by a single taper, which burned thick and duskily. On a table in the middle of it lay several open books, traced with strange characters, and encircled with the skeletons of birds, reptiles, and animals. The appearance of Hermann himself was so strangely altered that Frederick could scarcely recognise him. His face was pallid even to ghastliness, and had a wild, haggard expression; his arms were naked to the elbow; his long black hair knotted; and his tall gaunt figure enveloped in a robe made from the skin of a leopard. The girdle by which it was fastened looked like twisted snakes, for there was a constant heaving and writhing of it about his body.

Frederick noted these things while Hermann was speak'ing. When he ceased, he said, with an air of gaiety, “ I like your dress vastly, Hermann; 'tis excellent masquerade; but am not I, too, to be equipped for this great occasion?"

"There hangs thy robe," replied Hermann, pointing with his finger.

Frederick started. Was it Hermann that had spoken? or was it a voice creaked from the bony lungs of death himself? He turned round in the direction of the pointed finger. Again he started, recoiling several paces. An arm, an arm merely, joined to no body, was extended behind him, holding a winding-sheet. The flesh was upon it, but livid, and in corruption; and there it hung, suspended in mid air, balanced and supported he knew not how, offering him a shroud that had the soil of the grave upon it! "There needs nor oath nor plight to bind the willing and the bold," said Hermann, in the same unearthly tone. "I am the first; art thou the second?"

"Ay!" responded Frederick, "thou hast my word, Hermann; but—”

""Tis past questioning now," interrupted Hermann.