



Produced by Charles Bowen from page scans provided by the
Internet Archive (The Library of Congress).











Transcriber's Notes:
     1. Page scan source: The Internet Archive
        https://archive.org/details/creatureofnighti00hume_0
        (The Library of Congress.)
     2. Chapter XVII. (Nemesis) is misnumbered as  XV. in this
        edition.






A CREATURE OF THE NIGHT





A CREATURE OF THE NIGHT
_AN ITALIAN ENIGMA_

BY
FERGUS HUME
AUTHOR OF
"THE MYSTERY OF A HANSOM CAB," "MADAME MIDAS,"
"MISS MEPHISTOPHELES," "MONSIEUR JUDAS"




   Yea, out of the womb of the night
        For evil a rod,
   With vampire wings plumed for a flight
        It cometh abroad,
   The mission to curse and to blight
        Permitted by God.




NEW YORK
JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY
150 WORTH ST., COR. MISSION PLACE






Copyright, 1891,
BY
UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY
--------

_All rights reserved_.






TO
GRAHAM PRICE,
IN REMEMBRANCE OF ITALIAN IDLINGS,
SPRING, 1891.







CONTENTS


CHAPTER.

I.       The Ghoul.
II.      A Boccaccian Adventure.
III.     The Feast of Ghosts.
IV.      The Angello Household.
V.       Lost.
VI.      A Haunted Palace.
VII.     At the Teatro Ezzelino.
VIII.    The Phantom of Lucrezia Borgia.
IX.      Fiore della Casa.
X.       A Voice in the Darkness.
XI.      The Marchese Beltrami.
XII.     Death in Life.
XIII.    "Down among the Dead Men."
XIV.     The New Lazarus.
XV.      Found.
XVI.     An Interrupted Honeymoon.
XVII.    Nemesis.
XVIII.   A Last Word.






CREATURE OF THE NIGHT.




CHAPTER I.
THE GHOUL.


I think it is Lord Beaconsfield who, in one of his brilliant stories,
makes the clever observation that "adventures are to the adventurous,"
and certainly he who seeks for adventures even in this prosaic
nineteenth century will surely succeed in his quest. Fate leads him,
chance guides him, luck assists him, and although the adventure
supplied by this trinity of circumstances may be neither so dangerous
nor so picturesque as in the time of Borgia or Lazun, still it will
probably be interesting, which after all is something to be grateful
for in this eminently commonplace age of facts and figures. Still,
even he who seeks not to prove the truth of Disraeli's aphorism, may,
after the principle of Mahomet's mountain, have the adventure come to
him, without the trouble of looking for it, and this was my case at
Verona in the summer of 18--.

The Cranstons were always a poor family, that is, as regards money,
although they certainly could not complain of a lack of ancestors; and
when it came to my turn to represent the race, I found that my lately
deceased father had left me comparatively nothing. Not having any
fixed income, I therefore could not live without doing something to
earn my bread; and not having any business capacity, I foresaw failure
would be my lot in mercantile enterprise. I was not good-looking
enough to inveigle a wealthy heiress into matrimony; and as, after a
survey of my possessions, I found I had nothing but a few hundred
pounds and an excellent baritone voice, I made up my mind to use the
former in cultivating the latter with a view to an operatic career.

Italy, living on the traditions of the days of Rossini, of Donizetti
and of Bellini, has still the reputation of possessing excellent
singing-masters, so to Italy I went with a hopeful heart and a light
purse, and established myself at Milan, where I took lessons, in
singing, from Maestro Angello. Milan is a detestable city, hot and
arid in summer, cold and humid in winter; and as a year after I
arrived in the land of song the end of spring was unusually
disagreeable, Maestro Angello went to Verona for a change of air, and
thither I followed him with no small pleasure at escaping from that
dreary commercial capital of the north which has all the disagreeables
of Italian life without any of the compensating advantages of romance
and beauty.

But Verona! ah, it was truly delightful