“Ha! I’ll get her out!”,
On the northern shore of Sicily are still to be seen the magnificent remains of a castle, which formerly belonged to the noble house of Mazzini. It stands in the centre of a small bay, and upon a gentle acclivity, which, on one side, slopes towards the sea, and on the other rises into an eminence crowned by dark woods. The situation is admirably beautiful and picturesque, and the ruins have an air of ancient grandeur, which, contrasted with the present solitude of the scene, impresses the traveller with awe and curiosity. During my travels abroad I visited this spot. As I walked over the loose fragments of stone, which lay scattered through the immense area of the fabrick, and surveyed the sublimity and grandeur of the ruins, I recurred, by a natural association of ideas, to the times when these walls stood proudly in their original splendour, when the halls were the scenes of hospitality and festive magnificence, and when they resounded with the voices of those whom death had long since swept from the earth. 'Thus,' said I, 'shall the present generation—he who now sinks in misery—and he who now swims in pleasure, alike pass away and be forgotten.' My heart swelled with the reflection; and, as I turned from the scene with a sigh, I fixed my eyes upon a friar, whose venerable figure, gently bending towards the earth, formed no uninteresting object in the picture. He observed my emotion; and, as my eye met his, shook his head and pointed to the ruin. 'These walls,' said he, 'were once the seat of luxury and vice. They exhibited a singular instance of the retribution of Heaven, and were from that period forsaken, and abandoned to decay.' His words excited my curiosity, and I enquired further concerning their meaning.,
The night came down cold. The boys were glad to bundle up into their sleeping bags and get what rest they could. The novelty and excitement could keep Bob awake for only a little while, for the danger into which he was headed did not worry him for a moment, and he was very tired. He wanted adventure and he was going to have it. Only one thing deterred him at all, and that was the thought of his father. But before he had left the hotel at the Grand Canyon he had written a letter explaining to the older Hazard what he was planning to do. He had, of course, minimized the danger. But, even so, when Mr. Hazard got the letter he was very much upset and had an impulse to get on the next train and bring his boy back to civilization, if he still had a boy to bring back..
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