The table was quickly covered with luxurious provisions, and orders
were given that the duke's people should be admitted, and taken care
of. He was regaled with a variety of the finest wines, and at length,
highly elevated by monastic hospitality, he retired to the apartment
allotted him, leaving the Superior in a condition which precluded all
ceremony.
He departed in the morning, very well pleased with the accommodating
principles of monastic religion. He had been told that the enjoyment
of the good things of this life was the surest sign of our gratitude
to Heaven; and it appeared, that within the walls of a Sicilian
monastery, the precept and the practice were equally enforced.
He was now at a loss what course to chuse, for he had no clue to
direct him towards the object of his pursuit; but hope still
invigorated, and urged him to perseverance. He was not many leagues
from the coast; and it occurred to him that the fugitives might make
towards it with a design of escaping into Italy. He therefore
determined to travel towards the sea and proceed along the shore.
At the house where he stopped to dine, he learned that two persons,
such as he described, had halted there about an hour before his
arrival, and had set off again in much seeming haste. They had taken
the road towards the coast, whence it was obvious to the duke they
designed to embark. He stayed not to finish the repast set before
him, but instantly remounted to continue the pursuit
. To the enquiries he made of the persons he chanced to meet, favorable
answers were returned for a time, but he was at length bewildered in
uncertainity, and travelled for some hours in a direction which
chance, rather than judgment, prompted him to take.
The falling evening again confused his prospects, and unsettled his
hopes. The shades were deepened by thick and heavy clouds that
enveloped the horizon, and the deep sounding air foretold a tempest.
The thunder now rolled at a distance, and the accumulated clouds grew
darker. The duke and his people were on a wild and dreary heath, round
which they looked in vain for shelter, the view being terminated on
all sides by the same desolate scene. They rode, however, as hard as
their horses would carry them; and at length one of the attendants
spied on the skirts of the waste a large mansion, towards which they
immediately directed their course.
They were overtaken by the storm, and at the moment when they reached
the building, a peal of thunder, which seemed to shake the pile, burst
over their heads. They now found themselves in a large and ancient
mansion, which seemed totally deserted, and was falling to decay. The
edifice was distinguished by an air of magnificence, which ill
accorded with the surrounding scenery, and which excited some degree
of surprize in the mind of the duke, who, however, fully justified the
owner in forsaking a spot which presented to the eye only views of
rude and desolated nature.