"Sam": or The history of mystery./ By C. W. Webber.

10 SAM:" OR, THE HISTORY OF MYSTERY.
With him fell the courage of the besieged. They yielded,
and the victors entering the town, found the wounded officer,
and kindly sent him to his father's castle, which was not far
distant. Here he endured all the agonies which generally
attend gunshot wounds, and an inflammatory fever which
supervened, brought him to the verge of the grave-when,
"0 O! miracle!" exclaims his biographer, "it being the eve
of the feast of the glorious saints Peter and Paul, the prince
of the apostles appeared to him in a vision, and touched him,
whereby he was, if not immediately restored to health, at
least put in a fair way of recovery." Now the fact is, that
the patient uttered not a syllable regarding his vision at the
time; nevertheless, we are gravely assured that the miracle
was not the less a fact. Be this, however, as it may, Ignatius undoubtedly recovered, though slowly.
During his long convalescence, he sought to beguile the
tedious hours of irksome inactivity passed in the sick chamber by reading all the books of knight-errantry which could
be procured. The chivalrous exploits of the Rolands and
Amadises made a deep impression upon -his imagination,
which, rendered morbidly sensitive by a long illness, may
well be supposed to have been by no means improved by such
a course of study. When these books were exhausted, some
pious friend brought him the Lives of the Saints. This
work, however, not suiting his taste, Ignatius at first flung
it aside in disgust, but afterward, from sheer lack of better
amusement, he began to read it. It presented to him a new
phase of the romantic and marvelous, in which he so much
delighted. He soon became deeply interested, and read it
over and over again. The strange adventures of these
saints-the praise, the adoration, the glorious renown which
they acquired, so fired his mind, that he almost forgot his
favorite Paladins. His ardent ambition saw here a new
career opened up to it. He longed to become a saint.
Yet the military life had not lost its attractions for him.
It did not require the painful preparations necessary to earn
a saintly reputation, and was, moreover, more in accordance
with his education and tastes. He long hesitated which course
to adopt-whether he should win the laurels of a hero, or
earn the crown of a saint. Had he perfectly recovered from
the effects of his wound, there is little doubt but that he
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