ADVENTURES OF AN AIDE-DE-CAMP, VOLUME I (continued 4)

"And if she consents to elope?"

"We must carry her off to a little villa I have somewhere in the Val di Demona. There she can be quietly domiciled until the uproar is over, and I can obtain a dispensation from Rome; after which she may resume her old place in society, and laugh at the authority of the Signora Abbadessa—who, I learn from her friend, Benedetto, is a regular Tartar. Now, Claude, let us march."

I buckled on my sabre, drained the decanter, and, forgetting the fatigues of the day, set forth with Santugo. We were both muffled up in our cloaks, and had our forage caps pulled over our faces to elude observation.

At the corner of the Strada Larga, I lit a cigar at the consecrated lamp before a Madonna, and we pushed on at a brisk pace, regardless of the maledictions and cries of "Eretico!" which my heedless act called forth from some Crotonians who observed it.

CHAPTER XV.

THE ABDUCTION.—A SCRAPE.

We left Crotona by an ancient archway, massive, dark, and covered with lichens; and almost hidden beneath a mass of vines and ivy. Through this gate, perhaps, had rolled the "tide of war" that swept away the host of the luxurious Sybarites. Taking the road to the old promontory of Lacinium, a quarter of an hour's walk brought us beneath the high walls of the convent, which, from the summit of a wave-beaten rock, threw a long dark shadow across the moonlit Adriatic. The wild roses and orange trees grew in luxuriance on three sides of it, and filled the air with a fragrant perfume.

"How brilliant the moonlight is!" said I, by way of saying something, for my lively friend had become unusually silent and thoughtful.

"Hush! Signor Claude; speak softly, and keep well in the shadow. As for the moon, I would that the angel of darkness stretched his wings between us. I could well spare her lustre just now. If we are observed, our walk will have been to little purpose."

"Ghieu! I believe you; ho! ho!" laughed a strange voice near us.

"Did you speak?" asked Santugo, in a fierce whisper.

"Not I," was my somewhat curt reply.

"Corpo di Baccho! then we are watched!" he exclaimed, drawing his sword, and searching about him with kindling eyes.

"Imagination, Santugo."

"Ghieu! ho! ho!" laughed the voice again, close behind me. I turned suddenly round, but saw nothing, save the massively-jointed wall. I was startled and annoyed, and instantly loosened my sabre in its sheath, keeping my sword arm free from the folds of my cloak.

Santugo's irritation was excessive; he ran his sword into every bush, searched every nook and corner, and scanned the whole walls, even at the imminent risk of being discovered, but to no purpose: whether the voice was real or imaginary was yet a mystery. We listened intently; all was still, save the soft rustle of the orange trees, and the dash of the surf, as the Adriatic rolled its waves on the basaltic cliffs beneath the convent walls. A bell, swung from a beam in the square, open-arched campanile, or steeple, tolled midnight; and a faint, flickering light was immediately seen transiently lighting the tall windows of the chapel, illuminating the bright hues of the stained glass, and burnishing the stone tracery of each in succession.

"'Tis Francesca d'Alfieri!" exclaimed the Visconte, with rapture. "She does penance alone in the chapel to-night; each sister does so in turn. I have enlisted the zitella of the convent in the service of love, and have no doubt of success." While speaking, he threw a handful of sand against a lattice, which opened, and a young female face appeared; a rose was thrown to him, and he clapped his hands twice: these were the private signals agreed upon. At that moment, I was certain I heard a growling chuckle close by us; but, without taking notice of it, I listened attentively for any sounds that might follow.

"Is all safe and quiet, Signora Pia?" asked Santugo.

"All, monsignore; but for sister Francesca's sake and our own, be cautious," replied the girl, with a trembling voice. She then unrolled a ladder of rope from the window, to the inside of which she assured us it was firmly fastened. In imitation of Santugo, I folded my cloak round the left arm, and mounting after him, scrambled to the summit of the wall, then leaping down we found ourselves standing in the garden, where our feet made terrible havoc among the abbess's flower-beds and glass-covered seeds.

"Che gioja!" said Santugo; "all is safe! a twenty-oared scampavia awaits us beneath the shadow of the convent wall: Giacomo has manned it with thirty of the most unscrupulous in the ranks of the Free Corps. But two grand points are yet to be gained; the postern must be unbarred, and the cord of the alarm bell cut; after which, we may proceed leisurely, and laugh at the rage of the Abbadessa." He walked quickly towards the chapel, and I followed, feeling somewhat piqued at the cautious manner in which he revealed to me his plans.

The zitella (or girl of the convent) led us into the chapel, every part of which was involved in deep gloom, except a little shrine, where, beneath a gothic canopy of white marble, stood a silver image of Saint Hugh. Two tapers glimmering before it served to reveal the figure of the fair devotee, as she knelt with clasped hands before the gilded rail which enclosed the object of her devotions—the shrine of the patron saint of her family. The beauty of the little edifice, and the richness of its shrines,—its columns with shafts of porphyry and capitals of marble,—its roof of gilded fresco, and floor of the most elaborate mosaic,—its alabaster tombs and gorgeous altar were all unheeded. We stole softly up a side aisle, and concealed ourselves behind the dark shadow of a monument, where I had leisure to observe Francesca and compliment Santugo on his admirable taste.

There was something in the gloomy and mysterious aspect of the place, the situation and sombre garb of the recluse, which fascinated me, not less than the beauty of her person. It was long since I had seen her, and she now seemed more lovely and more interesting than ever: and more like Bianca. Her face was pale—too pallid perhaps—but of a beautiful oval form, and possessing a regularity of feature which would have been deemed insipid, but for the lustre of her dark Ausonian eyes, and the peculiarly aristocratic curl of her lip. Luigi spoke hurriedly:—

"Signor Claude—you remember her—and the night with the conciarotti. 'Tis Francesca—my matchless Francesca, as good as she is timid and beautiful! O, Anima mia—behold me—I am here!" he added, going softly towards her; "courage, sweet one! there is not a moment to be lost. I have possession of the postern towards the sea, where a barge of twenty oars awaits us. Do not shrink from me, Francesca! The hour of deliverance and of happiness is come."

"O, never for me—on earth at least! Madonna, guide me, look upon me in this moment of doubt and agony!' she exclaimed, in tones of despair. Sinking against the altar rail, she clung to it with one hand, and covered her face with the other, sobbing heavily. The Visconte knelt beside her. Her beauty, her distress, her resemblance and near relationship to Bianca, all operated powerfully upon me, and I felt for her deeply.

"O, misery!" she exclaimed, in a low but piercing voice; "Luigi of Santugo, to what are you about to tempt me? Reflect upon the deadly sin of this act!"

"Evoe! ho! ho!" laughed a shrill voice, which awakened the thousand echoes of the hollow chapel. Francesca clung to Luigi, overcome with shame and terror; and looking up, I beheld above my head the great visage of the hunchback, peering from beneath the shadow of a gothic canopy, under which he was squatted "like a pagod in a niche obscure." A terrible grin of malice and mischief distorted his hideous lineaments. I rushed upon him, but he slid down a pillar like a cat, and eluded me. The startled Visconte silenced at once all the scruples of his cousin, by snatching her up in his arms, and bearing her into the garden; a task which evidently required considerable exertion, notwithstanding the seeming lightness of her figure. But a plump girl of twenty or so is not so easily run away with as romancers would have us to suppose. At that moment the alarm bell was rung furiously, and through the open arches of the campanile, we saw the figure of the hideous imp, Gaspare Truffi, swinging at the end of the rope, and grinning like a demon, while he danced and yelled at the top of his voice, "Evoe! ho—ho! Ghieu! Sacrilege and rescue! Ajuto! help!"

"Would to Heaven I had pistols to silence the clamours of that apostate wretch!" exclaimed Santugo, as the noise of approaching feet and the hallooing of men were heard in the distance. "The bell is arousing the paesani!" he added, drawing his sword. "Quick, signor! As my friend and brother officer, good service must you do me this night, or, by the crown of the Sicilies! you must think no more of Bianca d'Alfieri." I liked neither the words nor the tone; but pardoned them out of consideration for the anxiety of my excitable companion.

"The zitella keeps the postern beside the fountain, sparkling in the moonlight yonder, and through that door we must pass to the sea!" The poor zitella lay senseless beside the gate, weltering in her blood, which flowed copiously from a severe wound in her temple, and the key having been broken in the lock by Gaspare, our retreat was utterly cut off! The alarm and exasperation of Santugo were indescribable. The devil! what a moment it was, a forlorn hope was nothing to it!

The bell continued tolling; the whole convent was alarmed, and a mob was heard clamorously demanding admittance at the porch. The visconte's followers were as noisily enforcing ingress at the seaward gate; on which they thundered with their oars and musket butts, vowing dire vengeance if their lord was in the least maltreated. Long ere this, the Signora Francesca had fainted.

"Aprite la porta—open the gate! Beat it down! Plague of San Carlo upon it! Bravo Giacomo!" cried Luigi. "Via! it yields: strike well and together! A hundred ducats to the hand that beats down the door! Heaven be thanked, a cloud is obscuring the moon, and it will not be known which way we steer!"

"Viva la Signora d'Alfieri! Viva Monsignore Santugo! Corraggio, colonello mio!" cried the Calabresi, as they redoubled their attacks on the strong oaken postern.

"Sacrilege!" cried the shrill voice of the Abbess from a window; whence she implored the people to rescue a daughter of the church whom brigands were carrying off perforce.

At this critical moment the great gate was opened, and a mob of peasantry, mule-drivers, and fishermen, armed with clubs, rifles, ox-spears, and poniards, almost filling the garden, rushed with a yell upon us. Giacomo's boatmen at the same time had beaten the postern-door to fragments, and the light of the waning moon poured through upon the glancing bayonets and white uniforms of the Calabrian Free Corps.

"Save the zitella!" cried Santugo. Giacomo bore her on board the scampavia, in the stern sheets of which Santugo deposited his cousin, and brandishing his sword aloft, gave a reckless shout of triumph. It was the last I saw of them. Enveloped in murky clouds, the moon sank behind the mountains of Isola, and the scene became suddenly involved in gloom. The assailants were too close upon me, to permit my following the Visconte's example, by springing on board; and I was compelled to stand on the defensive, slashed one across the face with my sabre, he fell shrieking into the water, where the relentless Giacomo despatched him with the boat hook. I was soon hemmed in on every side; and sinking beneath a shower of blows, was beaten to the ground. The last sound I heard was a yell of defiance and rage, as the broad oars dipped into the water, and the swift scampavia shot away like an arrow from the shore.

Supposing me slain, Luigi thought only of saving Francesca; and while his twenty rowers pulled bravely, the soldiers gave the baffled pursuers a volley from their firelocks. The Calabrian peasants never went abroad without their cartridge boxes, poniards, and rifles. The latter were in instant requisition; and a skirmish ensued, in which several were wounded on both sides before the fugitives were beyond range of musket shot.

Reckless and bold as he was by nature, perhaps Santugo would not have dared to commit such an outrage against his religion, and the prejudices of the Italian people, at any other time. But the power of the Church, shaken by the recent destruction of the (misnamed) holy office, was feeble; and such was the disorderly state of the country, then filled with armed banditti who made it the scene of perpetual rapine and warfare, that the authority of the law, at all times weak, was completely neutralized. The rank, power and wealth of Santugo's family, and his interest with Carolina and the court of Palermo, emboldened this wild young noble to plunge into what was esteemed by the superstitious and bigoted Calabrians as a deed replete with sacrilege and horror, and which could not fail to draw down the utmost vengeance of the Church and Heaven itself upon the unhappy perpetrator and his impious followers. Indeed, a short time afterwards the Papal malison was duly thundered forth against Santugo and myself, and published in the columns of the Diario di Roma; consigning us to the warm protection of his most satanic majesty.

For that I cared less than for the broken head and sore bones which were my share of this adventure. I had also the pleasant prospect of my name becoming a standing quiz at every mess in the Mediterranean when the story appeared in the Gazzetta Britannica—a gossiping, military, patriotic paper published during our occupation of Sicily, and the only public journal in the island: where the press is (or was) under the severest restrictions.

The clamours of the people at this act of sacrilege led me to expect the worst treatment at their hands. Stunned by the blow of a club, I was severely beaten while lying on the beach, and narrowly escaped being poniarded by the hunchback; from whose vindictive malice I was saved only by the intervention of a priest. Elevated on the shoulders of some herdsmen, Truffi now harangued the rabble—proposing, first, that they should tie a stone to my neck and cast me into the sea, or bind me to a tree and make me a target for their rifles at eighty paces. Resistance was vain, as they had securely bound me with my sash. But I demanded instant liberation, and that my sabre should be restored to me; and I threatened severe retribution from our general and the chiefs of the Masse should they dare to maltreat me.

Though they laughed at my threats, their effect was not altogether lost; and I was not subjected to further violence. Placed upon a sorry ass, and accompanied by a throng of shouting peasantry, I was conducted back to Crotona in ridiculous triumph, and then thrust into an iron cage at the end of the Casamatta, or ancient prison of the town, where I was left to my own reflections for the remainder of the night, or rather morning—for it was then past three o'clock. I was burning with indignation against these base ragamuffins, whose pomelling made every joint of my body ache; but nevertheless soon fell into a sound sleep on the stone floor of the cage; nor did I awake until the morning sun shone down the picturesque vista of the dilapidated Strada Larga. I arose with stiffened limbs; and at first was unable to comprehend where on earth I was. But the cries of "eretico!" "assassino!" "ribaldone!" &c., and a thousand other injurious epithets with which I had been greeted by the rabble, were yet ringing in my ears, and, together with the disordered state of my dress, brought the whole affair to my recollection. With revengeful bitterness, I remembered the many indignities I had received from Gaspare Truffi: once he had snapped a pistol in my face; twice he attempted to poniard me; and he would probably have had me despatched, but for the firm intervention of an old Basilian father. A dim recollection floated before me of having seen his gnome-like visage peering between the iron bars of the cage long after the crowd had departed—his eyes glaring with hatred and malice that made them glisten like a snake's beneath the dark shadow of his heavy brows—while he informed me, in the guttural Italian of Naples, that I would "yet feel his knife between my ribs, as he was sworn to revenge his gambling defeat at Nicastro," and the sabre-cut bestowed on his hump at the Villa of Alfieri.

"'Sdeath!" thought I, while starting up from my hard couch, "I must have this creature flogged or hung! It is too ridiculous to be persecuted by a contemptible hunchback, who follows me like an evil genius everywhere. Olà, Signor Benedetto, Cavaliere del Castagno!" I cried aloud, as that redoubtable gentleman swung himself over a window of the podesta's house and alighted in the street about a hundred yards from me. But without looking to where the voice came from—as he had evidently no wish to be recognised—he drew his hat over his eyes, threw his ample cloak over his disordered attire, and hurried down the Strada Larga. I remembered the podesta's daughter—a pretty girl, from whom I had received my billet last evening.

"Poor Ortensia!" thought I; "and thus your loving Benedict spends his tour of duty in the trenches!"

Save himself, no one seemed yet stirring in Crotona; its ruined streets were completely deserted. At times a casual patrol of our troops passed; but these were far beyond hail: and, in truth, I looked forward with dread to being discovered in the cage—knowing too well it would furnish a subject for laughter to every corps in Sicily. The idea of the general's aide-de-camp being barred up in an iron cage, like a common rogue, or a rat in a trap, was too replete with ridicule to be patiently endured: but, after a few attempts to break prison and escape, I was obliged to abandon the attempt and await my deliverance patiently.

To increase my annoyance, a few withered and sun-burned gossips gathered round the parapet of a circular well (a fountain, by-the-bye, is ever the grand rendezvous of Italian gossips), and after filling their classic-shaped jars with water, they rested them on the margin of the spring, and stared at me to their full contentment; relating to the passers-by their own version of the story, with such additions and variations as the exuberance of their fancy or hatred of a heretic suggested. To the peasant come to market in his wolf-skin jacket and leather gaiters; the hind driving his team of oxen to the field; the shepherd on his way to the mountains; to the water-carrier; the impudent, rosy-faced itinerant improvisatore with his lute; and the white-bearded Franciscan, with his greasy angular hat, snuff-begrimed cassock, and begging-box;—to each and to all who stopped at the well, did these shrivelled crones relate, with great emphasis and gesticulation, the story of the sacrilege committed at the convent of St. Catherine by the English heretic.

Vehement and ugly, as all old women in southern Italy are (the lower classes at least), they soon collected a dense crowd round the cage, and I was stared upon by a circle of hostile eyes in a manner very unpleasant to endure. I might have laughed at a predicament so ridiculous, but the petulance of the Crotonian rabble soon became annoying; their religious scruples were aroused by the malicious observations of these old gossips, and I began to expect a martyrdom like that of St. Stephen.

But relief was at hand. Cavaliere Benedetto, though he hurried off so abruptly, had recognised me, and despatched a party from the trenches to my rescue. I hailed with joy their glittering bayonets, which I soon saw flashing above the head of the mob. Bitter was the wrath of the Italian soldiers when they beheld me so unworthily treated; their musket butts were in immediate requisition, and in three minutes one side of the cage was dashed to pieces, and I was free.

Under their escort I gladly hurried to my billet, where I put my disordered uniform in proper trim for appearing before Macleod after breakfast.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE SUMMONS OF SURRENDER.

Meanwhile, Santugo and his fair companion were ploughing the waters of the Adriatic, and scudding along the coast of Calabria as fast as twenty oars and an ample lateen sail, filled by a strong Borea or breeze from the north, could carry them. With the Visconte, and still more with his cousin, the affair was not yet ended; innumerable griefs and troubles were in store for them. But I heard no more of the abduction for a time, save in the jokes of my comrades; and once in a friendly note from the general, warning me to avoid all such affairs in future, as they were calculated to prejudice the Calabrians against us, and injure the cause of Ferdinand, for whom we were fighting.

I had just completed my brief toilette, and was hastily paying my respects to hot chocolate, devilled fowl, cream cheese, marmalade, and maccaroons, when Santugo's grave friend, the Maltese knight, Il Cavaliere Marco di Castelermo, entered.

"Basta!" he exclaimed, casting aside his sword and sable cloak; "what have you and the Visconte been about last night? Broken into a convent of consecrated nuns, as if it had been a mere bordello of Naples, and carried off, by force of arms, the queen of that sainted community! It is a sad affair, signor."

"Sad, indeed, as my ribs find, to their cost, this morning: moreover, I have lost in the scuffle a splendid sabre of Damascus—the last gift of a friend who fell beneath the guns of Valetta."

"Ah! you served there? So did I. So Santugo has robbed the convent of its brightest jewel—Francesca d'Alfieri, who shone among the beauties of Palermo like a comet among the lesser stars."

"The young lady has attractions which——"

"Attractions!" exclaimed the enthusiastic Italian; "I tell you, signor, she is magnificent! Ah! had you seen her last year, when she appeared as Madonna, on the festival of the blessed Virgin! The whole country did homage to her wondrous beauty. Francesca seemed a vision of something more than mortal, as she sailed along on the lofty gilded car among clouds of gauze and silver, with a crown of diamonds blazing on her ebon tresses, wings on her shining shoulders, and incense, divine music, light and glory, floating round her. Basta! she was an angel of love! The people, as they knelt, forgot their prayers to Madonna, and offered up only praises of her beauty. I honour the Visconte for carrying her boldly off. The girl would have been destroyed in an Italian convent; where (I blush to say it) purity of heart is a wonder, and innocence a crime. But I tremble to think of the retribution which the Bishop of Cosenza may deem due for the abduction: he is a stern, relentless fellow."

"But what will the lieutenant-colonel commanding think of Santugo abandoning his battalion—deserting in fact, with thirty rank and file of the Free Corps, with their arms and accoutrements?"

"His youth, rank, and the ideas of our country must plead for him."

"And then the sacrilege, signor: what will the people say of it?"

"Just what they please, Santugo is too spirited a cavalier to value a rush the silly scruples of a bigoted peasantry, or the idle thunders of a knavish priesthood. He will only remember, that in abducting his cousin—replete with danger though the act may be—he has done a good deed in the cause of love and humanity. Corpo di Baccho! read "The Prosecution of the Dominican Nuns of Pistoia in 1781, by the Canon Baldi," and you will see there disclosed a mass of the most corrupt female profligacy: a revelation amusing as it is horrible. Signor, you would shrink with dismay if made acquainted with one-half of what passes within the walls of our southern convents, where belladonna, the dungeon, and the poniard are too often at work. In the indictment of the Canon Baldi there is displayed a regular system of depravity, into which the young nuns are slowly initiated (after the first year of their novitiate is passed), as into a lodge of freemasonry—craving pardon of the gentle craft for a comparison so vile. Basta! manfully as I have fought for Italy and her ancient liberties, I would yet more willingly lend a hand toward the utter demolition of every convent within the land. Still, thanks to Madonna! I am a true Catholic, and commander of the Maltese cross; and as such I swear to you, signor, on the blessed badge of the isle, that no man has a better reason for being at feud with the female order of ecclesiastics than I have. I was ruined in my prospects, seared in heart, and robbed of my patrimony by the knavery of an abbess and the art of a deceitful nun. But enough of this." He paused, with a kindling eye, and his cheek coloured as if he remembered that more had been said than was quite necessary; but mastering some old recollection or inward emotion, by a strong effort, he continued, in a tone of affected carelessness, "Signor Claude, there is a relief in telling one's sorrow; and some night, when the Gioja or Lipari loosens my tongue, you may learn how it first came to pass that I shaped the Maltese cross on my shoulder. But just now we must hurry to the trenches, upon which De Bourmont has commenced his morning salute of round shot and grape."

We found the whole citadel of Crotona, and the outwork possessed by the French between it and the sea, enveloped in white smoke; amid which the dark corbelled battlements, the flames that flashed through, and the bayonets that glittered over them, were seen for a moment, and then obscured as the smoke wreaths rolled on the morning wind. The French worked at their batteries manfully, pouring showers of cannon-shot, bombs, and bombelles, on our troops; who were pretty secure behind their breastworks, and repaid them with considerable interest from an eminence on which a fascine battery was erected.

Le Moine fired salvoes by sound of bugle, and the Amphion discharged her broadsides, and with such effect that a great part of the castle wall came away in a mass from the rocks, and the unfortunate who lined it were hurled into the ditches in an instant: the well-jointed masonry rolled down like a stony avalanche, and cannon with their carriages, fragments of bodies and weapons strewed the streets below. Three hearty cheers arose from our trenches, and were echoed by the tars of the Amphion; which was hauled yet closer in shore, and poured her shot in rapid succession on the lower works of the citadel. The Sicilian gun-boats, with their thirty-two pounders and howitzers, dealt death and destruction among the sand-bag batteries and stockades: these the French soon abandoned, retiring with precipitation into the castle of Carlo V. After maintaining a brisk cannonade for nearly two hours, the fire of the enemy began to slacken; and by the material with which their guns were served—such as pieces of metal, crowbars, broken bottles, stones, bolts, and bags of nails—we perceived with satisfaction that their ammunition was fast failing. Yet they manned the breach as if expecting an assault immediately; and, even while exposed to a galling fire, worked bravely, repairing the damaged wall with fascines, bags of sand and wool, stakes and "chandeliers." They were doubtless resolved to meet any escalade with the courage of Frenchmen, and with the indomitable valour that distinguished all soldiers of the empire.

At last the fire on both sides ceased, the clouds of smoke curled away from the old towers of Charles V., the bright sun shone joyously on bastion and curtain, and we plainly beheld the sad havoc made by the salvoes of our batteries, and the broadsides of the frigate.

"Now, Dundas!" cried Macleod, scrambling out of the trenches, "as the gallant Monsieur de Bourmont has given over his morning's shooting, and as you know something of his lingo, just tie a handkerchief to the point of your sword, and go up and inquire whether or not he means to surrender the place without any more bother? If not, let him expect broken heads to be plenty before tattoo to-night. By Heaven! the Ross-shire Buffs will dye their tartans red in the best blood of his garrison, brave fellows though they be!"

"And the terms, colonel?"

"Such as Frenchmen—such as brave soldiers may accept without dishonour; but nothing more. Give this my summons of unconditional surrender; and, as they know not of the fall of Gaeta and Massena's advance, they will no doubt yield at discretion."

With a white handkerchief fluttering from the point of my sabre, and having a Corsican bugler in attendance, I departed on my mission from the trenches; where more than two hundred of our soldiers lay weltering in their blood. Most of their wounds being inflicted by cannon shot, or the explosion of bombs, were ghastly beyond description. The earthen trenches in some places were literally flooded with gore. None but those who have seen a man bleed to death from his wounds being left undressed, can imagine how much blood the human frame contains. The ensanguined mud, where corpses, wounded men, fascines, shot and shell, lay all mingled together, made our approaches frightful; and I gladly sprang out and left them behind me.

As usual, the morning was beautiful: earth and sky were bright with summer splendour. The sea of Adria shone in a blaze of yellow light, and the chain of mountains stretching away to Isola, the little white village dotting the sandy beach, and the solitary column of Juno Lacina, afar off, made up a charming landscape; the beauties of which, my mind was then too much occupied to appreciate. To bear a flag of truce is an exciting duty; and I felt my pulses quicken, on finding myself close under the enemy's cannon, yet warm with the heat of their last discharge. As I approached the old fortress, its walls shone gaily in the bright sunlight; but the blood oozing from the carved stone gargoyles, or spouts, of the battlements, told a terrible tale of the havoc made by our shot and shell.

An ample tricolour waved lazily in the warm breeze, and serried lines of bright bayonets glittered over the ramparts, while grim faces peered at me through the dark embrasures and narrow loopholes of the time-worn walls. The troops were formed in rank-entire, with arms shouldered. Poor old Bourmont was evidently making the greatest possible display of his force.

When within twenty yards of the gate, the Corsican sounded "a parley;" which was answered by beat of drum within the fortress. The rattling drawbridge descended, and a wicket opened in the gate, which was composed of enormous palisades, cramped and bolted together. (I observed everything narrowly, while they allowed me the use of my eyes.) Immediately on stepping through the wicket, we were encircled by twelve Voltigeurs, with fixed bayonets; and a young French officer, saluting me with his sabre, informed me that my eyes must be immediately blindfolded, and my orderly committed to close ward in the guard-house.

"Monsieur," I said, indignantly, "I am, as you see, a staff officer in the service of his Britannic Majesty, the bearer of a despatch to Lieutenant-Colonel de Bourmont, and not a spy!"

"My orders are strict," he replied, with equal hauteur; "since you have entered the gates, your eyes must be blindfolded, or you and the bugler will be made prisoners forthwith! I pledge you my word as a gentleman and soldier that no dishonour will be offered." We shook hands; the Corsican boy was consigned to the care of the barrier guard, while my eyes were blindfolded, and giving me his arm, the officer led me away in this ludicrous manner, I knew not whither.

On the bandage being removed, I found myself in a large vaulted room of the old castle. It was roofed with stone, and I heard the tramp of feet and rumble of gun-slides on the bartizan above. The groined arches sprang from twelve dilapidated corbels, representing the apostles. A bare wooden table, a few chairs and trunks, cloaks and sabres hanging on the wall, spurred boots, empty bottles, and cigar boxes lying in a corner, constituted the furniture of the room. The light streamed into it between the stone mullions and corroded iron bars of three deeply embayed windows; through which a view was obtained of the Gulf of Tarento stretching away to the north, and the dark wooded ridges of La Syla to the westward, rising five thousand feet above the sea's level.

Coffee, wine, cigars, French army lists, Parisian Moniteurs, and the last grand bulletin, lay on the table; at which De Bourmont, a fat but pleasant-looking old man, dressed in a blue frogged surtout and scarlet trousers, with a crimson forage cap, was seated with another officer, at breakfast.

"Monsieur le Commandant," said the officer who introduced me, "a flag of truce from the trenches—an officer of the enemy."

"Ah! they have come to terms at last!" said the little commandant, nodding with a very satisfied air to the officer who sat opposite him; and then rising, he handed me a chair. "Proud to see you, monsieur," he added, uncovering his bald head; "be seated—the wine is close to you. There is Muscatelle, or, if you like it better, far-famed Lachryma Christi and Greco, from grapes raised on the slopes of Vesuvius. We can get these things, you see, notwithstanding that the Scots colonel does push the trenches so vigorously. Mille bombes! ah, what a man he is! Yes, and we can get that which warms our hearts better than even Falernian wine or Greco—eh, Pepe?" he added, rubbing his nose, and giving a sly glance at his morose companion, who intently broke the shell of his third egg, without deigning to notice me.

"Would you prefer chocolate to wine, monsieur?" continued the colonel. "We will talk over matters during breakfast. I am glad you have come to terms—very!"

I accepted his invitation; but could not resist smiling at the complacent manner in which the Frenchman spoke of besiegers coming to terms with the garrison of a place which their cannon had almost reduced to ruins.

"How did your free Calabrians like the way we scoured the trenches the other night?" asked Captain Pepe, while handing me coffee.

"You taught them a good lesson. The marmalade? Thank you. An hour in the trenches has given me quite an appetite."

"And how did your old tub of a frigate, and her fry of gun-boats, like the chain-shot, the cross-bars, and stang-balls we favoured them with this morning?"

"Monsieur, I did not come here to answer insolent questions, but to deliver this despatch to Colonel Bourmont; who I have the pleasure to perceive is a French officer of the old school—a gentleman, and not a Parisian bully."

A quiet smile spread over Bourmont's face, as he bowed and took Macleod's letter; while Pepe, like a cowed bravo, bit his white lips and glared at me with ill-concealed malice and animosity: but I continued to help myself with perfect composure.

Exasperated by this cutting contempt—"By heaven and hell!" he exclaimed, "were it not that I must hold sacred the white flag you carry—mille baionettes!—I would cut you in two!" and starting from the table, Pepe retired into a recess of the window; where he affected to observe the saucy Amphion, which was riding with her broadside to the shore, the union-jack waving from her mizen peak—a striking feature in the view, but ill-calculated to soothe the wrath of the irritated Gaul. I could read the history of this repulsive man in the coarse features and strong lines of his sunburnt visage.

The French army at that time possessed many such spirits. Raised from the dregs of the people during the anarchy which followed the Revolution, many of the actors in those frightful tragedies and massacres that disgrace the nation became—rather by the force of circumstances than their own deserts—commanders in the armies of Buonaparte. Savage and black-hearted, furious and sour republicans, thus found themselves marching beneath the banners of an emperor; and some of them obtaining honours in that profession which numbers all the kings and princes of Europe among its members. But the true Parisian rabble, without one spark of the generous spirit of the soldier, were destitute of that chivalry which distinguished the old French armies in the time of the Bourbons. A knowledge of the men they fought against, caused our troops to regard the soldiers of the Revolution with equal detestation and contempt: this latter feeling, however, soon became changed when they encountered them as the army of Napoleon; who restored France to that honourable place among the kingdoms of Europe, from which she fell in 1792. The sanguinary rabble who hailed with yells of triumph the axe as it descended on the neck of the queenly Marie Antoinette—who clove in two the head of the beautiful Princess Lamballe, and dragged her naked body for days about the kennels of Paris, were forgotten when contemplating the glories of Napoleon, the long succession of his victories, the devotion of his soldiers, and the chivalric enthusiasm of the old guard. But to proceed.

De Bourmont looked over Macleod's letter in various ways, but could make nothing of it; upon which he asked me to translate it. So far as I can remember, it ran thus:—

"Trenches before Crotona, July 1806.

"SIR,—Further resistance on your part being now in vain, I give you until sunset to send away all the women and children; after which, if the citadel be not surrendered, your garrison shall be buried in its ruins.

"I have the honour to be, &c. &c,

"PETER MACLEOD, Lieut.-Col. "Commanding Ross-shire Buffs.

"Lieut.-Col. DE BOURMONT,

"Knt. Grand Cross of the Iron Crown, "and Commandant of Crotona."

"Sur ma vie!" said the little colonel, reddening with indignation, and turning up his eyes on hearing this blunt message. "Poof! what say you to this, Pepe, my boy?"

"Guerre à mort!" growled the polite Captain Pepe. "Bedieu! I would slit the bearer's nose, and send him back to the writer, as a fitting answer. Or what think you to summon a file of the guard and cry à la lanterne, as of old? Mille bombes! I have served many an English prisoner so in Holland: but that was in the days of Robespierre."

"Halt! silence, monsieur!" said Bourmont, angrily; "remember that you are among the soldiers of Napoleon the First, not the rabble of the Fauxbourgs of Paris." The captain bit his nether lip and again retired to the window, while the colonel continued:—

"I shall not surrender; having good reasons for fighting to the last: and you, monsieur—monsieur——"

"Dundas"—I suggested.

"Ah! Dundas; yes: pardon me. You are too much of a soldier not to be aware of them."

"Colonel, I know not to what you refer. General Regnier has taken up a position at Cassano, from which he will inevitably be driven with immense slaughter by the chiefs of the Masse and the leaders of the brigands, who are all drawing to a head in that direction; so from him you can expect no succour. Monteleone by this time must have yielded to Colonel Oswald; and, Scylla excepted, every fortress has opened its gates to us. Of a force of 9,000 men who encountered us at Maida, 3,000 only march under the standard of Regnier. In the upper province, your troops have melted away before the Italians alone. Our shipping cut off all retreat by sea; our troops by land. You must capitulate: resistance will be madness, and a useless sacrifice of your brave soldiers; therefore permit me to entreat you to think well over the answer which I am to bear to an antagonist so fiery and determined as M'Leod."

"Monsieur aide-de-camp, I thank you for the advice; but I hope French soldiers will not be cowed by Scot or Englishman," said the colonel. "Remember, that in the service of the Emperor, to be unfortunate once is to be for ever lost. Do you pretend ignorance of the fact that Gaeta was surrendered lately by the Prince of Hesse Philipstadt to Massena, who is now pushing on to our relief, and is by this time within a short day's march of Regnier's position at Cassano?"

"I know that the strong fortress of Gaeta has surrendered, after a gallant resistance," I replied, equally surprised and chagrined that he too was aware of the circumstance; "but who ever informed you that Marshal Massena was in the frontiers of Calabria Citra, told that which is false! His division is still at Gaeta, nearly two hundred miles from Cassano."

"Then I have been deceived!" exclaimed Bourmont, bitterly. This intelligence seemed to fall upon him like a thunderbolt. After a little reflection, he said, "Monsieur, if you pledge me your word of honour that the marshal is so far off, I will yield Crotona within an hour; reserving permission for the garrison to march out (through the breach, if we choose) with all the honours of war—with bag and baggage, colours flying and drums beating—the officers, of course, retaining their swords; and the whole force to be permitted to march to the camp of Cassano without farther hostility."

"Impossible, monsieur! who can answer for the barbarous banditti and lawless soldiery of the Masse? Remember the escape of Monteleone, and the massacre of his regiment at La Syla!"

"True, true!" he muttered, bitterly. "Mon Dieu! we are but a handful!"

"As a gentleman, as an officer, I pledge you my word, colonel, that Massena's division has not yet left even the Terra di Lavoura."

"Enough, monsieur: Crotona is lost; and with it the faithful services of many an arduous year! Arcole, Lodi, Marengo—O my God!" he covered his face with his hand.

"Ghieu! ho! ho!" croaked the voice of the everlasting hunchback, as he emerged from a recess in the thick wall, where he had been coiled up unseen by me. "I tell you, Signor Colonello, that the Prince of Rivoli's advanced guard was at Latronico in Basilicata, three days since!"

"Now, by heavens! crookback again: and here even!" I exclaimed, bestowing a black look on Truffi, whose false assertions were calculated to stagger De Bourmont. "This wretch, then, is the channel of your intelligence, monsieur? If my pride would permit me condescending so far as to defend myself against the idle contradictions of such a despicable opponent, I have in my sabretache a letter which proves where the marshal was three days ago. It was found among the papers of an officer, killed by a cannon-shot, when our fleet fired on Reamer's line of march by the Adriatic."

"A letter: bravissimo!" croaked Gaspare, while he snapped his fingers like castanets, and grinned so hideously that I burst into a fit of laughter. "Ghieu! Era scritto in tiempo del scirrocco!" (Fie! it was written in time of the sirocco.)

"No, Signor Canonico, you mistake," observed Captain Pepe, who could not resist giving us the vulgar Italian joke. "The letter, I have no doubt, was indicted at the trenches yonder, and may be right after all. You know that a pig and an Englishman are the only animals insensible to the effects of the scirrocco."

"Excellent," roared the hunchback, his hump heaving with laughter.

"Captain Pepe will oblige me by retiring to his quarters, and Frà Gaspare by quitting the room," said De Bourmont, indignantly. "In my presence, no British officer shall be wantonly insulted. Montaigne, send here the Captain de Viontessancourt; I will confer with him on this matter."

Pepe and Truffi disappeared together, and Montaigne, the officer who had introduced me, and who had hitherto remained silent, in a few minutes ushered in a tall, elderly man,—one of those kindly-looking old fellows that gain one's good will at first sight. He wore a light green uniform, and the medals on his breast, together with the keen, determined expression of his eye, announced him a thorough soldier; while his politeness and urbanity declared him to be every way the reverse of Mr. Pepe: in fact, he was one of those high-minded chevaliers of old France who had weathered the sanguinary storm of the Revolution. His hair was white as snow; and he seemed to be about sixty years of age. Bourmont introduced him to me, saying—

"Captain de Viontessancourt, 23rd Voltigeurs of the Emperor—Lieutenant Dundas, of the British service. My friend Viontessancourt has grown grey under his harness; and with him I will consult on this matter: it is useless to ask council of any of my other officers; whose continual cry is 'guerre à mort!'"

Giving me a file of Moniteurs to peruse, and pushing a brace of decanters towards me, he drew the tall chevalier into one of the deep recessed windows, where they remained in earnest confab for nearly half an hour. Bourmont then seated himself at the table at which I was sitting, and wrote to Macleod; offering to surrender the citadel, if the garrison were permitted to evacuate it with the honours of war and march without molestation to the French camp at Cassano.

CHAPTER XVII.

MARCHING OUT WITH THE HONOURS OF WAR.

To this proposal Macleod was half inclined to accede; but the captain of the frigate, a sturdy and impatient sailor, whom he consulted on the occasion, advised his accepting of nothing but an unconditional surrender. The colonel, who perfectly understood the punctilious ideas of military honour which animated De Bourmont, was inclined to spare that gallant Frenchman the disgrace of a complete capitulation; but yet, being resolved to get possession of Crotona, he had recourse to a curious military quibble, which has been resorted to on more than one occasion: particularly when General Ferrand, in 1793, surrendered the town of Valenciennes to our troops, under H.R.H. the Duke of York.

I returned to the citadel with Macleod's answer, and the high-spirited Bourmont, yielding to the pressure of circumstances, was obliged to consent to the dictated terms: these were—that his troops should march forth from the gates of Crotona, with all the insignia of military parade to the banks of the Esaro, where, at a given place, they were to halt, pile arms, yield themselves prisoners of war; surrendering arms, colours, drums, cannon, and everything except their baggage. After some troublesome diplomacy, and journeying to and fro between the trenches and the citadel, I got the whole affair arranged, and the articles of capitulation signed and sealed by both commanders, within an hour of sunset; by which time Bourmont's garrison was paraded, for the last time, in heavy marching order, and ready to evacuate the place.

The sun was setting behind the mountains when the frigate fired a gun; and before the white smoke had curled away through her lofty rigging, the tricolour had descended from the ramparts of Crotona. The gates were thrown open, and the drawbridge descended with a clatter across the ditch.

"It is the signal-gun: they come now!" cried Macleod, as he leaped on his horse. "Mr. Dundas, the brigade will come to 'attention' and 'shoulder.' Drumlugas," he added, addressing a strong, broad-chested, and red-whiskered captain of his regiment; "march your company to the gates, and the moment the last Frenchman has left them, hoist the standard. But, in the first place, march in and receive over the posts."

The tall captain touched his bonnet, and giving the order—"Grenadiers, threes right, quick march!" his company, with the band in front, marched up to the guard-house, where the French guard was under arms; and where, after all the usual formula, the whole of the sentries and posts were relieved by the Highlanders.

After delivering Macleod's order to the different battalions of his brigade, I selected from the ranks of the Calabrese corps, Luca Labbruta (or blubber-lipped Luke), a ferocious follower of Santugo, to watch for Gaspare Truffi (who, not being a French subject, was not included in the capitulation), and to seize the hunchback the moment the garrison marched out. He touched his knife with a grim smile of intelligence, and left me.

The British forces, consisting of the 78th Highlanders, Les Chasseurs Britanniques, a small party of artillery, and the marines of the Amphion, formed two lines from the gate, facing inwards; and through this lane the garrison of Crotona were to march. In the rear were drawn up the ranks of the Free Corps, scowling darkly and handling their murderous poniards with a sternness of intent and ferocity of manner which declared how little they relished the modern laws of war, or understood that chivalric courtesy which brave men may yield to each other with honour, and which the soldiers of Britain and France can so well appreciate. Behind these dark-visaged battalions crowded the people of Crotona; while every window, nook, and corner, were filled with faces, eager to get a glimpse of their dreaded enemies, on whom they showered maledictions and abuse without cessation. The picturesque costumes of the crowd lent additional interest to the scene: the madonna-like profiles of the women, shaded by their linen head-dresses falling gracefully on the shoulders, or crowned by luxuriant dark hair secured by a gilt arrow, agreeably contrasted with the aspect of the well-mustachioed contadino, grim and swart, half bandit and half peasant, clad in his shaggy doublet and high hat flaunting with ribands and the red cockade of Ferdinand IV.; a dagger and horn in his belt, and the long rifle sloped on his shoulder, as we see him depicted in the spirited etchings of Pinelli. The buffalo herdsman with his long pole or glittering ox-goad, the bearded canon with dark robes and shaven scalp, and a thousand other striking figures made up a scene such as a painter or romancer would love. A battalion of the Chasseurs Britanniques—a corps composed of men of every nation—were drawn up opposite the Ross-shire Buffs; the garb of the latter nearly resembling that of the imperial legions whose swords had laid all Europe and part of Asia at the feet of Rome.

Filling up the background of this novel and picturesque scene, on one side rose the dark citadel, with its heavy ramparts and macciolated battlements, in the style of the middle ages; on the other, lay the little Italian town, with its balconies, verandahs, and terraces—its flat roofs of wood or tile, and its little square towers open on four sides, and covered with broad projecting roofs—one-half in light the other in deep shadow, as the setting sun poured its ruddy lustre from the summits of the distant hills. Beneath the castled rocks shone the glassy gulf, where cape and headland, breasting the rolling waves, stretched away to the horizon in dim perspective, till the soft blue of the ocean blended with that of the evening sky, and some white shadowy sail alone indicated the line where air and ocean met.

Immediately after the gun was fired from the Amphion, the French drums were heard beating, and the garrison came forth about six hundred strong; having two field pieces in front, with two tumbrils of ammunition, and two of baggage. They marched in subdivisions, with bayonets fixed, the right in front, the field officers mounted, with colours flying and brass drums beating; the gunners carried their linstocks lighted at both ends, and a ball was placed in the mouth of each piece of ordnance. Their tout ensemble was peculiarly service-like and soldierly; their dark greatcoats enlivened by red worsted epaulettes and scarlet trousers, and the bear-skin caps surmounting bronzed visages with rough wiry mustachios. Many of them were veterans of the empire, with hair grey as their goatskin knapsacks. The hoarse rattle of their brass drums, the sharply sonorous trumpets and clashing cymbals—a not unharmonious clangour of metallic music—loudly resounding as they marched through the archway of the citadel, lent additional spirit to the scene, as they advanced with all the order and steadiness of a review on the Champ de Mars. Their bayonets, brass-feruled musket-barrels, and the gilt eagles on their caps, gleamed in the rays of the setting sun, and the heavy silken tricolour flapped in the breeze, as it was up-borne above the marching column by Bourmont's only son, a mere boy, fitter for his mother's side than the harrowing scenes of war.

"Portez vos armes!" cried Bourmont, lowering his sabre on passing the first stand of colours.

"Brigade—present arms!" answered Macleod, with a voice loud and clear as a trumpet; and our double line 'presented,' the officers in front saluting with their swords, while our bands struck up the grand national air of the Bourbons, "Vive Henri Quatre." The French would perhaps have preferred the 'march' of Napoleon; but I perceived a flush cross the face of the old Chevalier de Viontessancourt, when the first burst of the air fell upon his ear. The animosity on both sides had evaporated; our hearts were full, and the generous "hurrah" so hard to be restrained, rose to every man's lips as the Frenchmen passed us.

The moment the last file had cleared our ranks, we "shouldered arms;" and, followed by a wing of the Buffs—to prevent the revengeful Calabrians from assaulting them—the French continued their march to the tomb of Croton (which, as old Ovid tells us, was the origin of the city), where, by the articles of capitulation, they were to be deprived of all their military insignia. Macleod, with the remainder of his brigade, took possession of the citadel—marching in with the Amphion's marines in front; the right being the post of honour generally assigned to that maritime corps. Drumlugas hoisted the British flag, which was saluted by the heavy ordnance of the frigate, thundering over the still waters of the gulf while the echoes of the Strada Larga were yet ringing to the music of the French band.

The Maltese knight, the Duca di Bagnara, and Cavaliere del Castagno, mounted on true Neapolitan steeds—small, strong, compact, large-headed, and bull-necked, perfect prototypes of the horses in ancient Roman bassi-relievi—brought up the rear with their battalions of the free corps; which immediately broke ranks, and dispersed over the fortress in search of plunder: we had the utmost difficulty in rescuing from their bayonets and daggers the numerous wounded soldiers whom De Bourmont had left behind.

On reaching a pile of ruins called by tradition the Tomb of Croton, and situated near the banks of the Æsaris of the ancients, the French troops halted and piled arms; the officers dismounting, and the whole marching to a certain distance from the stands of muskets, they surrendered their cannon, colours, and drums, without scathe or damage, to the Ross-shire Buffs, commanded by Major Ferintosh. It was a humiliating act; but the honour of France was saved—the garrison having, in the fullest sense of the term, marched out with "the honours of war."

The swords of the officers were restored to them, and, with the soldiers, they were permitted to retain their baggage; but the whole were immediately embarked on board the Amphion, where they were in safe enough keeping within "the wooden walls of old England." They were sent to Messina; but were soon after exchanged, and transmitted by cartel to France.

Fra Gaspare—whom I was now more than ever eager to capture, having discovered that he acted the treble part of spy, assassin, and traitor—was not to be found within the fortress. All the efforts of Luca Labbruta, who, encouraged by my promised reward, searched every nook and corner of the fortress—the secret passages, stair-turrets, cells, and dungeons (the architect had provided enough of them all)—were in vain. I was provoked by his want of success. The hunchback certainly had not come forth when the garrison marched through the gates; and I could not feel quite at ease under the idea that this vindictive miscreant might still be lurking in one of the numerous holes or hidingplaces in the old citadel.

A writer on Italy remarks, that it is a national trait of the Calabrian provincials to be inflamed with the deadliest animosity against any person who discovers or reveals their secret villainy. I was well aware of this; and knew that Gaspare Truffi was to be dreaded rather than despised. But Cavaliere Benedetto soon discovered that De Bourmont, who found the little wretch useful as a spy, had connived at his escape in one of the covered waggons.

"I knew that he was not within the citadel," said Benedetto; "my fellows have searched every hole that would hide even a mouse: not a place between bartizan and dungeon-floor has escaped them; and I could have sworn by our Mother of Loretto—ay, and the miraculous grot of Capri to boot—that they would find him. But, per Baccho! we shall have the cursed gnome in our clutches some other time; and meanwhile, signor, consider yourself safe."

"I am surprised at being so fortunate in escaping his malice so long! He has had so many opportunities, when a shot——"

"No, no, signor," said Castagno, waving his hand disapprovingly; "I may say with something akin to national vanity, that a Calabrian—though monks and scholars will tell you that he is but a mongrel of Greek, Latin, Lombard, and Saracen blood—can strike with his poniard surely and deeply at close quarters, but would scorn the act of shooting even his bitterest enemy from a distance."

"Our friend the friar is an exception to this rule: I have had ocular demonstration of the fact. It is cowardly assassination any way—a distinction without a difference."

"But old superstition has rendered it the fashion nowadays," he rejoined, with a jaunty, careless air; as, bowing, he replaced his cigar, and left me.

That night we had a joyous househeating in the citadel. Our foragers came unexpectedly upon a stock of choice old wine, which De Bourmont had been reserving in some of the cool, dark cellars—probably for his own particular use. He had doubtless come by them as lightly as we did; his soldiers having plundered every house in and about Crotona. But Macleod, his successor, set the casks abroach; and the wine flowed as from a fountain.

His own officers, accustomed to the potent aquavitæ of their native hills, were seasoned topers, and imbibed the juice of the "Tuscan grape" and the light wines of Cyprus and Sicily as if it were water; but most of the Chasseurs Britanniques and the Amphion's men lay beneath the table when the morning sun peeped in upon the scene of their orgies.

CHAPTER XVIII.

ANOTHER DESPATCH.

On the evening of the next day Macleod put into my hand a despatch for the general, containing an account of the capture of Crotona, with a list of the prisoners, stores, and casualties. With this document I had to set out forthwith for the castle of Scylla, where Sir John Stewart, with the brigade of Colonel Oswald, was pushing the siege in person against a French garrison, which made a most resolute defence. The French soldiers were commanded by the Marchese di Monteleone, who, by some unaccountable means, had passed the piquets of the Masse, and contrived to reach the fortress from the distant camp at Cassano; his known bravery well entitled him to assume the command.

At first I was chagrined at the idea of a journey of more than a hundred miles through such an extraordinary country; but, understanding that Marco of Castelermo had offered to be my guide and companion by the way (and on my return, if necessary), I looked forward to the long ride as a probable source of pleasant and exciting adventures; for every day brought forth something new and stirring during our campaign in these turbulent provinces, and every rood of ground over which we marched was rich in the recollections of the past.

The morning gun aroused me next day by dawn, and with alacrity I quitted my couch, which consisted of nothing more luxurious than a wooden bench and my horse-cloak.

Through the open iron lattice the brightening east gave promise of another glorious Italian day; a cold, grey light spread over the sky, distinctly revealing the most distant points of the scenery even so far as the peaks of Santa Severina, (famous for that wine which Pliny of old so much commended), and the little city of Strongoli perched on the summit of a lofty mountain rising up abruptly from the shores of the Ionian sea. The sun was yet far below the horizon, and the streets of Crotona, the dark courts and blood-stained walls of the citadel, were yet gloomy, silent, and still. Masses of shattered masonry, splinters of shells, scattered shot, broken gun-carriages, with here and there a corpse which our fatigue parties had not yet removed, and coagulated pools of blood crusted on the pavement of platform and parapet, yet met the eye, attesting the valour of the garrison and the slaughter of the siege. With his plaid and feathers fluttering on the breeze, a sentinel of the Ross-shire Buffs trod to and fro by the flag-staff, and the hour being early, and no one stirring, he chanted a song to cheer his lonely post; he sang of a land which had more charms for him than bright Ausonia, and his thoughts were amid the pathless glens and savage solitudes of Ross.

The clatter of hoofs on the pavement, as our horses were led into the court, and the appearance of the tall figure of il Cavaliere di Malta, muffled in an ample black cloak with a scarlet cross, and booted and spurred for the road, made me hurry forth to meet him.

"Now, signor," said Marco, as he put his foot in the stirrup, "look well to your girths and pistols, for we may have often to trust more to our horses' heels and a flying shot than to downright valour. Many a mile of wild wood, deep morass, mountain gorge and desert plain, must be passed between this and Scylla; and it is very unlikely that we shall be permitted to travel so far without having a brawl of some kind."

"I trust your provincial gentlemen of the road will not find us quite unprepared, at all events," said I, leaping into my saddle, and examining my holsters.

"Basta! for myself I care little, being able to keep any man at arm's length; but in a gorge like la Syla, hedged by the rifles of a thousand banditti, the wisest policy is to take off one's hat. The country through which we must pass swarms with the followers of Scarolla, Frà Diavolo, Benincasa, Gaetano Mammone, and lastly, the terrible Francatripa, the king of St. Eufemio."

"And on each of these matchless vagabonds, the court of Palermo has bestowed the star of St. Constantino, and a colonel's commission!"

"On all, save the horrible Scarolla."

"But Francatripa is said to be chivalrous and brave, and a perfect hero of romance, though a mountain robber."

"You may chance to find him an incarnate fiend!" said Castelermo, as we rode off: "ay, worse than a fiend if it suits his humour; and as for chivalry, basta! I cannot see any in a bearded capobandito, with satan in his heart, and a belt round him garnished with poniards and pistols. Yet Francatripa's actions are formed after a noble model: it is his greatest pride to be considered like poor Marco Sciarra, Re-della Campagna."

"He was a prince among Italian bandits! I remember having read that once in the mountains of Abruzzo, his band plundered a poor wayfarer, whom they bound with cords and brought before him.

"Well, signor," said the robber king, "what are you?"

"Only a poor poet, Messer Marco."

"Good!" replied the other, his frown relaxing.

"Your name?'

"Torquato Tasso of Sorrento."

"What! the author of——"

"Gierusalemme Liberata," said the prisoner, bowing profoundly. A shout of acclamation burst from the band, and the 'king of the open country' knelt on the sod, kissed the hand of the poet, and restoring to him his baggage, escorted him in person beyond the dangerous passes of the mountains.

"All this, and much more, I have heard in the nursery; but as neither of us happen to be a Tasso, and king Marco has long since gone to the shades, any adventure we may have with his successors and imitators will not terminate so pleasantly. Look there, signor, and behold a competition of minstrels! Hark! we shall hear music equalling the pipe of Hermes!"

Under the vine-covered verandah of a cantina, sat six or eight of the Chasseurs Britanniques, and Free Calabrians, who, by the red appearance of their eyes, had evidently been carousing all night, and were yet dreaming over their half-drained flagons; while the empty jars, cards and dice scattered on the board, informed us that they had enjoyed the night so merrily that they were not yet inclined to separate.

An itinerant performer on the zampogna, or Italian bagpipe, was playing for the entertainment of the drowsy revellers, when a gigantic Scot in dark tartan, one of Macleod's regimental pipers, passed by on his way to the Strada Larga, to play a rouse for the soldiers billeted there. Stopping before the cantina, the Scottish piper surveyed with surprise and curiosity the little chanter and inflated skin of the Calabrian's primitive bagpipe; while at the music of this feeble reed, the face of the Highlander gradually contracted, from a ludicrous expression of wonder, to a formidable scowl of Gaelic contempt. He threw the three long drones of the great war-pipe over his left shoulder, and puffing up its mighty bag, in an instant poured forth the wild northern pibroch of the race of Seaforth. The strange variations and tremendous din of the Highland bagpipe astounded the poor little zampognatore, whose notes were lost amid the shrill and sonorous tempest which poured forth so volubly from the pipe of the Highlander; whom he regarded for a time with a droll look of silent wonder, and then slank away, retreating backwards, while his stalwart rival strode after him, taking step for step, and blowing fiercely, as he literally "walked into" the discomfited Italian.

Discordant as the "war-note" of clan Kenneth must have been to the nice Italian ear of Castelermo, he would fain have stayed to listen; but his fiery Neapolitan horse had no such inclination: after snorting and prancing, it set off at a speed which soon left far behind the towers and ramparts of Crotona.

During the cool morning our ride was a very pleasant one, as the road lay through a level part of the country, covered with rich crops and studded with little villages and olive groves, interspersed with lofty elms and clumps of pale green willow overhanging gurgling rivulets; but the scene changed as we penetrated among the mountains, where we rode on for miles without encountering a human being, save perhaps some smoke-begrimed charcoal-burner, or bandit-like peasant, in pursuit of the red deer which abound in those wild places. At times the road wound between the green and solitary hills, through gorges like the bed of a dried up river, where the rocks frowned grimly, rising up on each side like walls of basalt or iron: but they were not devoid of beauty, for in their clefts flourished the daphne and the rhododendron, blue monk's-hood, pink fox-glove, and the whortle-berry; while the bronze masses of dark Italian pines shed their sombre influence over the scene from the summit of the cliffs above.

The scorching heat soon compelled us to take shelter in the hut of a shepherd during the sultry noon. We met him on the lonely mountains with his flock of goats, the tinkle of whose brass bells awoke the echoes of the hollow valley whence they were ascending. He walked lazily in front, playing drowsily on the zampogna, and the herded flock followed in close order behind, drawn after him either by the charms of his pipe, or by the dread of a sharp-nosed sheepdog with long white hair, who formed the rear guard, and watched his fleecy charge with red ferret-like eyes. His poor cabin could afford us nothing more than a morsel of coarse cake, a handful of olives, and the manna or congealed dew, which in the morning is gathered on the mulberry leaves in Calabria; in lieu of wine we had a draught of the limpid water that gurgled from a rustic fount, supplying the duct or hollowed tree that lay before the door, and was half buried in the turf for the convenience of his flock.

The shepherd was clad in a doublet and waistcoat of rough undressed skins with the wool outside, fastened by ties of thong or horn buttons, red cotton breeches, and a broad-leafed hat of plaited straw adorned with a clay image of the Madonna; long uncombed locks waved in sable masses on his brawny breast and muscular neck, which like his legs and feet were sunburnt and bare; a pouch and knife hung at his girdle, and his face, which perhaps had never been touched by a razor, was fringed by a short and thick black beard. In ideas and manners he was perhaps little different from the shepherds who inhabited these very mountains when the trumpets of Hannibal awoke their echoes; only he prayed not to "thundering Jove" but to Madonna, believed in the miracles of St. Hugh and the holy Eufemio instead of the amours and valorous deeds of Pan, and kept Lent in lieu of the Lupercalia of the Latins.

"Everything here seems centuries behind northern Italy, in the march of civilization," I observed to my friend and cicerone.

"Truly we have got amongst fauns and satyrs here," replied Castelermo, as he drank from a pitcher of cold water with no very satisfied air. "Basta! was the Arcadia of Virgil like this? Hark you, Signor Menalcas (if that be your name), does not the villa Belcastro lie somewhere near these wild mountains?'

"Yes, illustrissimo," replied the poor rustic, quite abashed by the hauteur of the Maltese knight; "about a league beyond the Tacina, among the wooded hills."

"Good! I hope we shall procure better quarters and entertainment than this poor den can afford."

"I have been often plundered by the French marauders, signor," said the goat-herd humbly.

"And this villa Belcastro: do you know the way to it?"

"Yes, Signor Cavaliere; but a thousand golden ducats would not bribe me to be your guide thither!"

"Why so, fool?"

"My shoulders ache at the recollection of the scurlada. The Cavaliere di Belcastro——"

"Has a very bad name in the neighbourhood. Ah! I heard that even at Palermo. And so, Signor Sylvanus——"

"My name is Renzo Grolle," said the herd, angrily. "The sbirri at the villa allow no one to approach within rifle shot of the gates; as the noble signor makes the French war a pretext for many an act of oppression. I was scourged like a mule for leading a poor monk of Cassano there a few days ago: and yet, perhaps he proved no unwelcome guest. Whom think you he was, illustrissimo? Why, the great Marchese di Monteleone in disguise; and on his way to Scylla! Madonna! I discovered that afterwards, when he was beyond the reach of my knife! His excellenza of Belcastro can act the robber, as well as the king of St. Eufemio: but, perhaps, the less I say the safer for myself, and I trust to your honour in being scatheless for what I have said already. His dungeons are deep; and I am but a poor peasant, whom he might crush by a word."

"At this age of the world, can such things be?" asked I, touched by the poor man's terror and humility. "A devil of a fellow this: we will pay him a visit out of pure spite. What say you, Signor Marco?"

"By all means," replied the cavalier, as we took the road again. "His sbirri will scarcely dare to fire on me; and we can make our quarters good in the king's name. Basta! let Signor Belcastro look to himself, if swords are drawn: I believe I have met him before, and if my suspicions are just, I shall not spare steel on him."

"There is then some story connected with him?"

"And to the old tune,—Italian jealousy. He is said to be married to a beautiful Neapolitan, whom he espoused during a sudden love-fit; but in consequence of some trifling affair when residing at Venice during the carnival, he became inflamed with jealousy, like an old fashioned husband of the "Ancient Tales," and poniarded an officer of the Dogale Guard. Bringing his lady into this wild country, he has ever since kept her a close prisoner, and held himself in such strict seclusion, that his residence was unmolested by the French; but only because it was unknown to them: or perhaps he is an ally; for Buonaparte, anxious to root out from Italy the last traces of the feudal system, has given Regnier orders to demolish every castle and fortified villa in the Calabrias. In one of these ancient dwellings, which can easily be made a strong place for defence, Belcastro keeps his beautiful wife a close captive. I doubt not but she has been perfidious: in the course of my intrigues with the sex, I have found more than one woman so!"

"I have always heard, signor, that you were somewhat too sarcastic on the good faith of your dark-eyed countrywomen."

"By Sant Ermo! I have cause to be so," he replied, while his dark brows contracted, as they always did when he was in the least excited, and his eyes sparkled fire from beneath the shade of his black velvet baretta or forage cap, which was adorned with the Maltese cross, and the letters, I.H.S. in red enamel. "There was a time," he continued, half communing with himself, "when I was the gayest cavalier on the Corso of Naples, or the Marina of Palermo. It was generally allowed that none dressed more gaily, rode more gracefully, played and drank more deeply than Marco of Castelermo. No man's opinion went further in all matters of taste, fashion, or dissipation; whether it was given on a new collection of antiques or paintings, a choice of wines, a racehorse, a new carriage, or the belle of the season. My word was a fiat in the fashionable world. Basta! I was not then a commander of Malta. God and St. John forgive me! if it was rather in a sinful spirit of revenge and chagrin than a holy sentiment of veneration and religion, that I girded on the sword and mantle of that most sacred brotherhood. There is a pleasure, a morbid one though it be, in telling one's griefs; and since you have half acknowledged to me your passion for the fair cousin of my friend Santugo" (I had never told this sharp-sighted Italian a word about it), "I should not behave with more reserve to you."

He paused for a moment: old recollections, long forgotten but once-cherished sentiments, hopes and fears arose in quick array before him; and his dark and noble features became flushed, as with that lively frankness which so often characterizes the better classes of his countrymen, he commenced as follows.

CHAPTER XIX.

NARRATIVE OF CASTELERMO.

It was in the church of the Holy Spirit at Naples, during vespers, that I first beheld Despina Vignola, then in the first year of her novitiate. It is said that the beauty of our Italian women soon fades; it may be so: I am no traveller and cannot judge; but all must acknowledge that their charms, while they last, are often truly dazzling. Such were Despina's. To me she seemed a personification of all that is lovely in woman: her bright brown hair was gathered up behind in many an ample braid, while a mass of glossy ringlets clustered round her high pale forehead and waved on her fair neck. A robe of white satin fell in deep broad folds around her figure, leaving her polished shoulders and taper arms uncovered from the braceleted wrist to the dimpled elbow. The graces of her person were displayed to the utmost advantage by the richness of her attire; for it was not the custom of the fashionable convent of Santo Spirito to robe the novices in the grim paraphernalia of the cloister: until the vows were taken, they always appeared at mass in full dress.

Despina was formed for love and life, not for the nun's veil and cloistered cell; to which, according to a custom too common in Italian families, she had been vowed in infancy by her parents. It was my fate to love her passionately and truly, when few others would have dared to look impurely upon the affianced bride of Heaven: one from her childhood vowed to Madonna. She was an orphan, and her guardians—an avaricious aunt, and Ser Vignola, a rascally notary of the Strada di Toledo—to procure the reversion of her little patrimony, kept before her continually the enormity of not fulfilling the vows of her parents.

In Italy, one is more prone to fall in love at church than any other place: this may perhaps account for the numerous intrigues of our female ecclesiastics. There is a mysterious influence in our religious service—a mixture of heavenly aspirations and earth-born delights, which powerfully awakens the better feelings of our nature; softening the heart and rendering it more sensitive to tender and lasting impressions. Was it not at church that Petrarch first beheld the bright-haired Laura, whose beauty shed a light on his pilgrimage through life for twenty years after? Ah, signor! our holy religion belongs to the days of poetry and romance!

None but an Italian can know what a first love is to an Italian heart; or how ardently and wildly the tender passion burns beneath these sunny skies. In those days I was a young alfiero (or ensign) in Florestan's Battalion of the Guards, and my daily attendance at the church of Spirito Santo soon became a standing jest at our mess and a topic for laughter to my gay companions; who were quite at a loss to comprehend the reason of such sudden and rigid attendance to the duties of religion. An aged aunt of mine, who departed about that time in all the glory of virginity, out of her admiration of my piety put a codicil to her will by which 50,000 ducats became mine, instead of being poured into the treasury of the Greek Padri of St. Basil, as she had first intended.

While kneeling beside the envious iron grille which separated me from Despina, and kept all profane sinners from the vicinity of the fair vestals, I felt happiness even at being so near her—to hear her soft breathing, her low responses, and the rustle of her satin dress—to watch the heaving breast, the long lashes of the downcast eye, and the beauty of those auburn ringlets, which seemed "interwoven by the fingers of love!" as Petrarch has it. O, Madonna mia! these were the pure aspirations of a young and gallant heart. But alas! how were they responded to?—how requited? I will not trouble you with much more of this; though love quickens a fertile imagination, and I could relate a thousand devices formed to gain the attention of the beautiful novice: which all proved vain. She kept her long eye lashes cast down and her bright eyes obstinately fixed on the monotonous pages of her mass book; which she affected to prefer to the gayest cavalier on the corso: for such I considered myself in those days of youth and vanity; and certainly my cap had the tallest feather, my belt the longest sword, and my uniform the smartest cut in all Naples. We all know how passion is inflamed by difficulty; and from the time she left the church after vespers, until the moment of beholding her again at matins, ages seemed to elapse: but they were ages of scheming, contrivance, and stratagem.

The abbess, who was Despina's near relative, soon suspected the object of my devotion was an earthly, and not a heavenly virgin; she was an acute Calabrian and watched me attentively: in short, the fair novice appeared at matins, mass, and vespers no more.

But the ingenuity of Monsignore Cupid, is fully a match for all the cold precautions of guardians and enemies. Daily and nightly I came with my friend Santugo (then a joyous student, fresh from the University of Naples) to survey the lofty walls, the iron portal, and grated loopholes of the convent with the faint hope of beholding her; but, corpo di Baccho! we might as well have looked down the crater of Vesuvius, the flames from whose summit often lighted up our nightly patrols. In short, signor, with a key of gold I gained over the portress, who conveyed to Despina a most elaborately written letter: a ring, bearing her initials, D.V., was my only answer. Croce di Malta! Even at this distant hour, the recollection of the joyous moment when I first received it, stirs up a tumult within me! After that we used to meet in the convent garden every night, but only for a few moments.

Dupe that I was to believe this creature loved me! But ah! the happiness of those brief visits will never pass away from my memory. I found Despina as attractive in mind and manners as she was charming in person; she was a joyous donzella, who knew better the poems of Alfieri and Gorilla than the doggrel hymns of the Padri; and while we enjoyed our tête-à-tête in an arbour, Santugo kept watch, perched on the summit of the garden-wall. Often we cursed the villain notary who lent all his influence to crush the blossoms of so fair a flower: but at last my passion took a more noisy turn.

By Santugo's advice, I engaged all the improvisatori in the city to celebrate Despina. I mustered twenty with mandolins, twenty choristers, as many bell-ringers and scrapers on the viol, with all our regimental drums and cymbals. O, what a jovial company! Every other night we entertained the sisterhood with a grand serenade, making all Naples echo with bursts of joyous music; until the abbess, deeming her "commandery" disgraced by our clatter and chorussing, procured a guard of sbirri from the Bishop of Cosenza (whose palace unluckily stood in the adjoining street), and on the first night after this reinforcement we were greeted by a volley of blunderbuss-shot, which was within a hair's-breadth of sending us all to the banks of the Styx. Three choristers were killed, and several wounded. Santugo escaped unhurt, but I was peppered with slugs so severely, that for the next two months I was confined to my apartments; and in the interval Despina took the veil! She either supposed I was dead of my wounds, or deemed me inconstant. Perhaps it was dire necessity, as the last day of her novitiate had expired; and, after a short residence at the house of the notary, to take a last view of the world (as the custom is), she returned to offer up her vows. All the bells of Naples were tolling on the occasion: several novices were to take the veil that day, and the fashionables flocked to the church of the Holy Spirit, as to some great festival of joy.

"O, Madonna!" exclaimed poor Marco, beating his breast with true Italian energy, "will the bitter recollections of that infernal morning never pass away? The Princess of Squillaci, a damsel old in years, wickedness, and fashionable dissipation, was also to take the vows; and all the foolish city, from Portici on the east to Misenum on the west, held it as a day of universal joy.

While all this was going on, you cannot imagine the agony of mind I endured: weaker than a child, I was prostrated upon a sickbed by a long and wasting illness. My brain was dizzy. I wondered how the sun could shine so joyously on the bay and the city, which lies so magnificently along its spacious margin: to me it was a day of gloomy horror! The bells seemed to toll for the funeral of Despina. My mind was a chaos, and I would have hailed an eruption of Vesuvius, an earthquake, or any horrible convulsion which would have overwhelmed the whole city: but neither came to pass, and I lay stretched on my fever-bed, helpless, forgotten, and miserable. I drank cup after cup of wine; but there seemed a fire within me, which all the waters of the bay would not quench. The pain of my wounds, the wine I drank so rashly, and the fever of mind and body, soon made me delirious, and Santugo alone restrained me from sallying, sword in hand, into the crowded streets, to search for some imaginary foe.

That night, while yet the fever raged within me, and my brain whirled with the champagne I had drank, I arose, dressed, and armed myself, and issuing forth soon found my way to the closed gates of the convent. The streets were silent and dark; my thoughts were strange: even while my head swam and my knees tottered I imagined that I had the strength of a Hercules. Aware that I was mad with fever and wine, my pranks had some of the caution of sanity in them, and I shrank beneath the deep shadow of the cloisters when a passenger approached, or the moon streamed its light between the fleecy clouds which the south-west wind piled in gleaming masses over Naples.

At times I laughed bitterly; anon I wrung my hands, and cried aloud, "Despina—Despina! Anima mia!" and chanted some of our merry madrigals, till the hollow cloisters and the long vista of the empty street, gave back the ravings of folly and despair.

A new fit seized me; I became gloomy, and fled from the city to wander among the ruins of Queen Joanna's palace: a place rendered terrible to the superstitious fishermen by the tales of horror connected with it. From thence I wandered as far as that dreaded valley the Forum Vulcani; a spot filled with fabled terrors from time immemorial, and shunned by the vulgar of Naples. The superstition is that it is haunted by fiends and spirits, who toil and shriek through caverns of fire, watching that hidden gold, which (by day) the wretched lazzaroni have sought for centuries. At times the ground is covered with burning sulphur, and rent with chasms belching forth pitchy smoke, flames, or boiling water; which the fabled giants who are buried there vomit up from hell. Petrius Damianus supposes that purgatory lies beneath it, and tells of frightful noises, groans, and shrieks, issuing from clefts in the rocks; whereon sat monstrous shapes of birds and men, who, on the croaking of a gigantic raven, plunged headlong into the chasms, and appeared no more, at least not for many days.

At night, when viewed by the light of a setting moon or the flame of Vesuvius, the Forum Vulcani, with only its natural terrors, is gloomy enough: hemmed in by rocks of basalt, from the clefts of which the burning bitumen flashes forth at times, or white steam curls on the breeze—the ground thick with sulphur, and trembling with the throes of the mighty volcano in the distance, it has horrors enough for ordinary men; but that night it had none for me, and I startled the echoes of its rocks with my cries of "Despina!"

I again found myself beneath the convent walls of Spirito Santo, just as the city clocks were telling midnight; I was alone, and a strange thought occurred to me. I tore down a lamp, and demolishing a wooden railing, poured oil on the painted pales, and piling them against the door, set them on fire, laughing, and shouting "Despina!" as I fanned the flames with my hat; and when the blaze increased apace, I folded my arms within my mantle, and watched its rapid progress with the most intense satisfaction. Aim or object I had none: I was mad!—and yet I can remember the whole like some wild dream. The forked tongues of flame shot upward, and licked the wooden balconies and projecting eaves of the old convent, which was likely to be soon enveloped in fire. Its magnificent oratory, with columns of jasper and dome of marble—its shrines, tombs, and relics—the miraculous crucifix which spoke to Thomas Aquinas, the true cross, the Virgin's petticoat, and Heaven knows what more—now stood in greater peril than ever they did during the outrages of the mad fisherman of Amalfi.

The lazzaroni came yelling in thousands from every point; the whole Strada di Toledo was red with the blaze, and the Piazza di Mercato, and the façade of the Royal Palace, were all gleaming in light: even the starry vault above was sheeted with sparkling fire. Basta! how I laughed at the roaring flames and the clanking engines, from which the hissing water poured in streams—at the shrieking nuns, the shouting mob, and all the mingled dismay and uproar I had so suddenly caused. But, being soon discovered to be the author of the mischief, I was carried off by the Neapolitan guard, and lodged in prison; where three months' close confinement, with no other fare than hard crusts and cold water, cooled my blood so completely, that I came forth an altered man, and so heartily ashamed of my late extravaganza, that I resigned to the Duca di Florestan my commission in his battalion of the guards, and left the service.

With liberty, all my love for Despina returned; and circumstances which followed soon after raised my passion to its former height and ardour. One morning, on awaking, I found a little coloured billet laid on my pillow; tearing it open with hurried and trembling hands, I found it to be an invitation—from whom?—the Signora Abadessa of Spirito Santo, to visit her at my earliest convenience. How the little pink note came there, no one knew; and I was too much fluttered to inquire. There was an air of mystery in the affair that pleased me; and love and hope sprang up again. But aware that I had the treachery and revenge of a Calabrian woman to dread, together with the wrath of her gossip and well-known admirer the famous Bishop of Cosenza, I went well armed, taking a matchless poniard of Bastia steel in addition to my concealed pistols. Happily, however, such precautions were needless. I found the gay abbess an agreeable little woman; she gave me her hand to kiss, and welcomed me with a pleasant talkative manner which quite won me to her purpose. After rebuking me gently for my sacrilegious attempt to fire her convent, she bade me kneel to receive her blessing. I listened to her rebuke and received her benison in silence and distrust, wondering the whole time how so unusual an interview was to end. I thought of the bishop's sbirri, and the dungeons of the convent below us, and kept one hand in my bosom grasping my poniard.

The reverend lady began by a long preamble on the risk she ran in the disclosure she was about to make regarding the sister Brigida, as she named Despina; and then, making a long pause, she kept me on thorns of expectation, while observing with a keen glance the expression of my care-worn visage. I could not love Despina (the abbess continued) more than I was beloved in return; and taking pity upon me, she had consented to quit the convent, and become my bride, the moment I procured her a dispensation from those vows which bound her to the church—vows offered up on the expiry of her novitiate, and in an agony of sorrow for my supposed death. Blessed words! But they were my ruin! My brain whirled and my heart leaped with delight; throwing myself at the feet of the abbess, and pressing both her hands to my lips, I declared her my best friend—my good angel, and bestowed on her a thousand of those titles which flow so smoothly from an Italian's tongue, when his heart is overflowing with gratitude.

She rang a hand-bell, and the light form of Despina appeared at the iron grating of the parlour. I sprang towards her, but she averted her face: at first it was very pale, and seemed more lovely beneath the dark hood which shaded it; but a mantling blush overspread her cheek as she gave me her hand through the grating to kiss.

"Ah, Despina! had you trusted more to Providence, how much sorrow might have been spared us both!"

"True, dear one," said she, wafting me a kiss through the grate.

The superior hurried me away, and I left the convent giddy with delight at the sudden turn fortune had taken in my favour. Within the hour, I wrote to my uncle, the great Cardinal Ruffo, to intercede with his Holiness, and procure a dispensation for Despina; and I spent nearly my whole inheritance in bribing the greedy officials at the Papal court to hasten it, trusting; to God and mv own hands for the means of maintenance when Despina became mine. Meanwhile, I visited the convent daily, and though my interviews with her were very short, I became more than ever enchanted with her beauty and vivacity; which seemed to increase as the time flew past, and the day of her freedom and our happiness drew nearer.

Often have I whiled away the hours of a starry night in the Toledo, watching the taper which flickered in her dormitory; and I retired happy if I did but obtain even a glance of her figure passing the lattice. One night, while watching thus, a tall dark shadow fell on the muslin curtains of the window: it was not that of Despina. I paused—horrible suspicions floated before me, and I felt my blood run cold. The light vanished, the chamber became dark, and immediately a tall fellow dropped from the window into the street. My heart, which had ceased to beat for a time, was now on fire: the blood shot through my veins like lightning; my poniard gleamed in my hand.

"Olà, signor cavaliere!" cried I, crossing his path; "who are you that leaves the convent thus, and under the shadow of night?"

"One who will not brook questioning by you, whoever you are, per Baccho!" replied the other, drawing his hat over his eyes, and standing on his guard, with a poniard also. "Let me pass, cursed lazzarone! or it may be the worse for you."