Volume 2 — LAST CASE OF THE SUPERNATURAL.
Reading edition
A writer in the January number of Fraser's Magazine, at the conclusion of a tale crammed with the intensest horrors, presents us with one instance in which the architect of such machinery was foiled.
When the recital was finished, and the company were well-nigh breathless with its skilfully cumulative terror, cried Tremenheere—
"Humph! that is rather an uncomfortable story to go to bed upon."
And presently—
"You have been lately in Spain, Melton; what news from Seville?"
"Oh," replied Melton, "you must have heard of Don Juan de Muraña, of terrible memory?"
"Not we," said they.
"One gloomy evening Don Juan de Muraña was returning along the quay where the Golden Tower looks down upon the Guadalquivir, so lost in thought that it was some time before he perceived that his cigar had gone out, though he was one of the most determined smokers in Spain. He looked about him, and beheld on the other side of the broad river an individual whose brilliant cigar sparkled like a star of the first magnitude at every aspiration.
"Don Juan, who, thanks to the terror which he had inspired, was accustomed to see all the world obedient to his caprices, shouted to the smoker to come across the river and give him a light.
"The smoker, without taking that trouble, stretched out his arm towards the Don, and so effectually that it traversed the river like a bridge, and presented to Don Juan a glowing cigar, which smelt most abominably of sulphur.
"If Don Juan felt something like a rising shudder, he suppressed it, coolly lighted his own cigar at that of the smoker, and went on his way, singing, Los Toros a la puerta."
"But who was the smoker?"
"Who could he be, but the Prince of Darkness in person, who had laid a wager with Pluto that he would frighten Don Juan De Muraña, and went back to his place furious at having lost?
"If you would learn more of Don Juan de Muraña, how he went to his own funeral, and died at last in the odor of sanctity, read that most spirited series of letters, De Paris à Cadix, wherein Alexander Dumas has surpassed himself. And now, Good night!"