Periander returns towards Rome with the News of his Brother Maximin's Arrival. Serafido his Tutor, and Rutilio meet with him.

The pain and sensation of a fresh wound is hardly felt in the moment of anger and hot blood, which, after it becomes cold, causes an agony that is almost unendurable to the sufferer. It is the same with the passions of the mind; in allowing them time and space to be dwelt upon, and considered, they will often nearly vex you to death.

Auristella said all she wanted to Periander, and satisfied with having declared her desire, she expected its accomplishment, trusting to the perfect submission of Periander, who, after as we have already narrated, listening to her in silence, and by silence only, replying, quitted Rome, and the events we have related happened to him.

He recognized Rutilio, who told the history of the Barbarous Isle to his former tutor, Serafido, and added his suspicions that Auristella and Periander might prove to be Sigismunda and Persiles. He also said that they were sure to be found in Rome, and that from the first beginning of his acquaintance, he had seen that they were travelling on some secret business, and were only pretending to be brother and sister. He then questioned Serafido abundantly upon the condition and manners of the inhabitants of those distant isles, of which Maximin and the peerless Auristella were sovereigns; and Serafido again repeated how this island of Tile or Thulé, which is now vulgarly called Iceland, was the most northerly of all the islands in those seas, the other being a little further south, which, as he before said, was called Friseland, and which Nicholas Temo (Note 13), a Venetian, discovered in the year one thousand three hundred and eighty. It was as large as Sicily, and, until then, unknown by the ancients. Eusebia is its queen, the mother of Sigismunda, whom I seek. There is yet another island nearly as important, and almost always covered with snow, called Greenland, at one corner of which there is a monastery, founded under the name of St. Thomas (Note 14), and where there are monks of four nations, Spaniards, French, Latin, and Tuscan. They teach their different tongues to the principal people of the island, that when they leave it, they may be understood wherever they go. As I said before, the island is buried in snow; and at the top of a small mountain there is a fountain, a great wonder, and worthy to be known: it throws out and pours forth a quantity of water of such heat, that when it reaches the sea and mingles with its waves, it not only thaws the frozen water, but warms it so that in that part an incredible variety of fishes are found, which fish form the chief sustenance of the monastery and the island in general, which derives thence her revenues and profits (Note 15). This fountain also engenders stones of a glutinous quality, of which an adhesive cement is made, with which they build houses, as if they were of the hardest marble.

"Other things I could tell you," said Serafido to Rutilio, "of these isles, which you would scarcely believe, and yet which are quite true."

All this Periander did not hear. Rutilio told it to him afterwards, and he believed the truth of all that he related, from his own knowledge of so many of the facts stated.

The day was now come, and Periander had just reached that magnificent temple and church, almost the largest in Europe, of St. Peter, when he saw coming towards him a little troop of persons on horseback and on foot; and as they came near he knew them to be Auristella, Felicia Flora, Constance, and Antonio, and also Hippolyta, who, having heard of Periander's disappearance, would not leave the pleasure of finding him to others, and so followed Auristella, taking the road pointed out b............