Upon leaving the tomb, I thought more, perhaps, of my horse than of the hermit: poor Cartouche had been exposed to all the fury of the last night’s storm. I hastened to the place where I had picqueted him; he was gone, and there still lay many miles of wild and rugged country between me and Crotona! First securing the door of the tomb, to keep wolves, lynxes, or polecats from the remains of the recluse, and muttering a hearty malison on my predicament and the loss of my valuable horse, I set out in the direction of the rising sun, which was my surest guide to Crotona. After breakfasting on the wild apples, plums and peaches, that flourished by the road-side, and taking a hearty pull at my friendly flask to correct their crudeness, I pushed forward on my solitary march with all speed. On reaching a place where the road dipped down between two steep impending banks, from the summits of which the shady oaks formed by their entwined branches a thick impervious arch of the richest foliage, what was my delight on beholding my gallant grey quietly cropping the green herbage under the dewy shade! His reins trailed on the ground, his coat was rough, and the saddle and housings were awry; but on hearing my joyous halloo and whistle, the noble charger pricked up his ears, neighed in recognition, and, trotting up, rubbed his head upon my shoulder. In a minute more I was upon his back, and passing hill and hollow at a speed which not even the swiftest horse of the boasted Calabrian blood could have equalled. *CHAPTER XIV.* *THE SIEGE OF CROTONA.* Descending the chain of mountains terminating in the Capo della Nuova, I beheld before me the wide expanse of the Adriatic Sea stretching away into the Gulf of Tarento, now beautifully illumined by the light of the setting sun. As the fiery orb sank behind the hills I had left, it beamed a bright adieu on the towers of the Achæan city; tinging with saffron and gold the waves that broke upon the Capo della Colonna—the ancient promontory of Lacinium, once celebrated for the magnificent temple of Juno, destroyed by the soldiers of Hannibal. The school of Pythagoras—the glory of Græcia Major—had disappeared with the power of Crotona; and of the majestic fane of Juno Lacinia but one solitary column—rearing its massive shaft above the prostrate ruins of the rest, and half submerged in the waves of the encroaching sea—remained to attest the grandeur of the edifice in its glory; when Greek, Ausonian, and Sicilian, bowed their heads before its pagan altar. The temple is now nothing but a heap of stones, mantled with green slime and sea-weed; and the desolation is heightened by the discordant screams of flocks of sea birds.