that moment the statue fell prone in a thousand pieces, the lamps were extinguished, and they saw in the east the grey of dawn. As the sun rose they beheld they were in the midst of the ruins of an ancient Roman city, and their feet stood in the courts of a marble temple, broken and decayed, o’ergrown with high grass and rankest weeds. This had been the fair hall where they feasted,[33] and all around were scattered the fragments of the statue of the Lady Pelagia. So they bent the knee in prayer and in thanksgiving that they had been delivered from the wiles of the Temptress, and anon they passed on their way lauding Christ in sweet hymns and melody of many canticles.
A Chinese story which is referred to the eighteenth century tells us of a Tartar family living at Peking, a house of the highest importance, whose son was betrothed to a lady of lineage equally aristocratic and equally ancient. Upon the wedding day, as is the Chinese custom, the bride was brought home in the ceremonial sedan-chair and this according to wont was carefully curtained and closed. It so happened that just as they were passing an old tomb there sprung up for a moment a sharp breeze which raised a cloud of thickest dust. When the cortège reached the bridegroom’s house there stepped out of the sedan two brides identical in every detail both of feature and dress. It was impossible at that point to interrupt the nuptials, but later in the evening the most piercing screams were heard from the bridal chamber. When the door of the room had been quickly broken open the husband was stretched unconscious on the ground, while one of the brides lay with her eyes torn out and her face covered with blood. No trace of the second bride could be seen. But upon search being made with lanterns and torches a huge and hideous bird, mottled black and grey, armed with formidable claws and a beak like a vulture was discovered clinging to a beam of the roof. Before they could fetch weapons to attack it, the monstrous thing disappeared with exceeding swiftness through the door. When the husband recovered his senses he related that one of the brides had suddenly struck him across the face with her heavily embroidered sleeve and that the jewels and passementerie stunned him for the moment. A second afterwards a huge bird swooped upon him and pecked out his eyes with its beak. So this horrible Vampire blinded
