CHAPTER XXIII.
The Gordon then his bugle blew, And said, awa, awa; The House of Rhodes is all on flame, I hauld it time to ga'.
-- OLD BALLAD.
When Julian awaked the next morning, all was still and vacant in the apartment.

The rising sun, which shone through the half-closed shutters, showed some relics of the last night's banquet, which his confused and throbbing head assured him had been carried into a debauch.
Without being much of a boon companion, Julian, like other young men of the time, was not in the habit of shunning wine, which was then used in considerable quantities; and he could not help being surprised, that the few cups he had drunk over night had produced on his frame the effects of excess.

He rose up, adjusted his dress, and sought in the apartment for water to perform his morning ablutions, but without success.

Wine there was on the table; and beside it one stool stood, and another lay, as if thrown down in the heedless riot of the evening.

"Surely," he thought to himself, "the wine must have been very powerful, which rendered me insensible to the noise my companions must have made ere they finished their carouse." With momentary suspicion he examined his weapons, and the packet which he had received from the Countess, and kept in a secret pocket of his upper coat, bound close about his person.