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."