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to his board, nor attend at their noisy wassails. Often late at night, in yon shattered tower, his lonely lamp shone still over the mighty stream, and his only relief to loneliness was in the presence and the song of his soft cousin. Months rolled on, when suddenly a vague and fearful rumour reached the castle of Liebenstein. Otho was returning home to the neighbouring tower of Sternfels; but not alone. He brought back with him a Greek bride of surprising beauty, and dowered with almost regal wealth. Leoline was the first to discredit the rumour; Leoline was soon the only one who disbelieved.

Bright in the summer noon flashed the array of horsemen; far up the steep ascent wound the gorgeous cavalcade; the lonely towers of Liebenstein heard the echo of many a laugh and peal of merriment. Otho bore home his bride to the hall of Sternfels.

This was too much for the sorrowstricken Leoline, who left the castle and took her abode in the convent of Bornhofen, which lay in the peaceful seclusion of the valley, which one could see far down from the crag on which the castle stood. Warbeck sought her at the convent, but in vain he attempted to recall her to the world. She determined to devote herself henceforth to a life of religious seclusion and good works; but Warbeck vowed that he would be avenged.

That evening, a knight in complete armour entered the banquet-hall of Sternfels, and defied Otho, on the part of Warbeck of Liebenstein, to mortal combat.

Otho, reddening, took up the gage, and the day and spot were fixed. Discontented, wroth with himself, a savage gladness seized him; -he longed to wreak his desperate feelings even on his brother. Nor had he ever in his jealous heart forgiven that brother his virtues and his renown.

At the appointed hour the brothers met as foes. Warbeck's visor was up,

and all the settled sternness of his soul was stamped upon his brow. But Otho, more willing to brave the arm than to face the front of his brother, kept his visor down; the Templar stood by him with folded arms. It was a study in human passions to his mocking mind. Scarce had the first trump sounded to this dread conflict, when a new actor entered on the scene. The rumour of so unprecedented an event had not failed to reach the convent of Bornhofen;

and now, two by two, came the sisters of the holy shrine, and the armed men made way, as with trailing garments and veiled faces they swept along into the very lists. At that moment one from amongst them left her sisters, and paused not till she stood right between the brother foes.

'Warbeck,' she said in a hollow voice, that curdled up his dark spirit as it spoke, is it thus thou wouldst prove thy love, and maintain thy trust over the fatherless orphan whom thy sire bequeathed to thy care? Shall I have murder on my soul?' At that question she paused, and those who heard it were struck dumb and shuddered. The murder of one man by the hand of his own brother!-Away, Warbeck! I command:

'Shall I forget thy wrongs, Leoline?' said Warbeck,

'Wrongs! they united me to God! they are forgiven, they are no more. Earth has deserted me, but heaven hath taken me to its arms;-shall I murmur at the change? And thou, Otho-(here her voice faltered)-thou, does thy conscience smite thee not?-wouldst thou atone for robbing me of hope by barring against me the future? Wretch that I should be, could I dream of mercy-could I dream of comfort, if thy brother fell by thy sword in my cause! Otho, I have pardoned thee, and blessed thee and thine. Once, perhaps, thou didst love me; remember how I loved thee-cast down thine arms.'

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Otho gazed at the veiled form before him. Where had the soft Leoline learned to command?-He turned to his brother; he felt all that he had inflicted on both; and casting his sword upon the ground, he knelt at the feet of Leoline, and kissed her garment with a devotion that votary never lavished on a holier saint.

The spell that lay over the warriors around was broken; there was one loud cry of congratulation and joy. And thou, Warbeck!' said Leoline, turning to the spot where, still motionless and haughty, Warbeck stood.

'Have I ever rebelled against thy will?' said he, softly; and buried the point of his sword in the earth.-'Yet, Leoline, yet,' added he, looking at his kneeling brother, 'yet art thou already better avenged than by this steel.'

Thou art! thou art!' cried Otho, smiting his breast; and slowly, and scarce noting the crowd that fell back from his path, Warbeck left the lists.

Leoline said no more; her divine errand was fulfilled. She looked long and wistfully after the stately form of the knight of Liebenstein, and then, with a slight sign, she turned to Otho, 'This is the last time we shall meet on earth. Peace be with us all.'

She then, with the same majestic and collected bearing, passed on towards the sisterhood; and as, in the same solemn procession, they glided back towards. the convent, there was not a man present who would not, like Otho, have bent his knee to Leoline.

Once more Otho plunged into the wild revelry of the age; his castle was thronged with guests, and night after night the lighted halls shone down athwart the tranquil Rhine. The beauty of the Greek, and the wealth of Otho, attracted all the chivalry from far and near. Never had the banks of the Rhine known so hospitable a lord as the knight of Sternfels. Yet gloom seized him in the midst of gladness, and the revel was welcome only as the escape

from remorse. The voice of scandal, however, soon began to mingle with that of envy at the pomp of Otho. The fair Greek, it was said, weary of her lord, lavished her smiles on others: the young and the fair were always most acceptable at the castle.

He

At last the false woman fled back to her own southern clime with one of his pages; and the unfortunate Otho was seized with a long delirious illness. When he recovered he was an altered man. He now sought his brother's company, and they conversed much of the past, and of the gentle nun, who was now lost to both of them. Otho died first, and still in the prime of youth, and Warbeck was now left companionless. In vain the imperial court wooed him to its pleasures; in vain the camp proffered him the oblivion of renown. stedfastly remained a recluse. Many years afterwards, a band of lawless robbers, who ever and anon broke from their mountain fastnesses, to pillage, and to desolate the valleys of the Rhine, laid waste the territories round Bornhofen, and demanded treasure from the convent. The abbess, of the bold lineage of Rudesheim, refused the sacrilegious demand; the convent was stormed; already the gates were forced, when a knight, at the head of a small but hardy troop, rushed down from the mountain side, and turned the tide of the fray. Wherever his sword flashed, fell a foe. Wherever his war-cry sounded, was a space of dead men in the thick of the battle. The fight was won; the convent saved; the abbess and the sisterhood came forth to bless their deliverer. Laid under an aged oak, he was bleeding fast to death; his head was bare and his locks were grey, but scarcely yet with years. One only of the sisterhood recognised that majestic face; one bathed his parched lips; one held his dying hand; and in Leoline's presence passed away the faithful spirit of the last lord of Liebenstein!

THE MOSLEM FAITH,

AND ITS

FOUNDER.

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A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE AND LABOURS.

AHOMET was of the tribe of Koreish, and the family of Hashem, illustrious among their countrymen as the princes of the holy city of Mecca, and the guardians of its famous temple the Caaba. His birth. according to the most probable chronology, is placed at Mecca, A.D. 569. His grandfather, Abdol Motalleb, was a wealthy and generous citizen, the father of thirteen sons. One of these, Abdallah, accounted the handsomest among the youth of his tribe, married Amira, and died while his son Mahomet was an infant. As he left a very small property, the child was brought up first by his grandfather, and after his death by his eldest uncle, Abu Taleb.

This relation instructed the youth in his own profession of a merchant, and took him with him at an early age on a commercial journey to Syria.

How soon the idea of founding a new religion occurred to him we do not know, but it was not till he was forty years old that he opened his pretended mission. His first convert was his wife Khadijah, to whom he communicated an interview with the angel Gabriel, declaring him the apostle of God. Mahomet's servant Zeid, and his young cousin the ardent Ali, were his next converts. A very important one succeeded in Abubeker, a man of respectable character and great influence in the tribe of Koreish, who brought over ten of the principal citizens of Mecca. All these were privately instructed in the tenets of Islamism (by which name

the new religion was distinguished), of which the fundamental dogma was, "There is but one God, and Mahomet is his apostle." Its precepts were pretended to be successive communications of the divine will by means of Gabriel; and of these, collected and written by his disciples, was composed the Koran, or the Book, which is the civil and religious code of the Mahometans. Three years were consumed in silent progress. In the fourth, assembling his kindred of the race of Hashem at a banquet, he openly announced to them his prophetic mission, and asked which among them would accept the office of his vizir or first minister. No answer was returned, till the youthful Ali, with all the fiery zeal of enthusiasm, declared his willing acceptance of the post, and his resolution to fall upon any one who should dare to oppose his master. Abu Taleb, the father of Ali, and uncle of Mahomet, endeavoured in vain to persuade the new prophet to desist from his proselyting attempts; but though he himself remained unconverted, he was of the greatest service in protecting his nephew against his enemies, and affording him a refuge in times of danger. For it was not long before his preaching excited the opposite zeal of those who were attached to the ancient idolatry; and for many years, fanaticism on one side, and bigotry on the other, equally agitated the fiery spirits of the Arabians. In the seventh year of the mission, ninety-nine converts of Mecca were obliged to retire into Ethiopia to avoid the storm of persecution. Mahomet himself was frequently assailed by open force or secret conspiracy, and constrained to shift his habitation. He often, however, had the satisfaction of making converts

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