The right hand of the poor wretch was chopped off with a bill-hook, and thrust bleeding into his mouth, which they compelled him to open by pressing the hilt of a poniard behind his right ear. A sheep’s tail was then fastened to the back of his head, to supply the deficiency of hair; and bidding him wear it in remembrance of Francatripa, the whole party, after kicking him soundly, bade me ’good-evening,’ and vanished among the rocks. The mutilated tanner lay on the ground, writhing in agony of body and bitterness of spirit, calling on San Marco the glorious, Santa Rosalia of Sicily, San Zeno, the blessed Madonna of Philerma, and innumerable other saints, to ease him of his pain; but as none of these spiritual potentates seemed disposed to assist him, he then applied to mortal me. Dismounting, I raised him from the ground, and tearing my handkerchief into bandages, bound up the stump of his arm to staunch the blood; he bemoaning his misfortune in piteous terms. He had a wife and children, he said, who must perish now, unless the Conciarotti (tanners) of Palermo—to whose unruly corporation he belonged—would support them. "Oh! Excellenza," he added, "believe me, I am no traitor: and surely the want of my hair will not make me one. I fell in with a French patrol, who compelled me to cut off my long hair, in token of submission to King Peppo." (Peppo, a contraction of Giuseppe, or Joseph, was the name by which Joseph Buonaparte was commonly known.) "Maledictions drive them from purgatory to the deepest dens of hell! They have destroyed me—curses upon them! May they all hang as high as Tourloni the cardinal, and may their bones bleach white in the rain and the sunshine! Had I lost the left hand, instead of the right, I could still have revenged myself. Maledetto! Oh! blood for blood! Am I not one of the Conciarotti, at whose name the king quakes, at Naples, and his viceroy, at Palermo? But, oh! Madonna mia, never can revenge be mine; for the hand that is gone can grasp the acciaro no more!" And thus cursing and lamenting, he rolled on the grass till he foamed at the mouth. I was obliged to leave him, and pursue my journey. By the road-side, I passed some of the bodies of those who had fallen in the skirmish of the morning. Stripped by the peasantry, they had lain all day sweltering under a burning sun; and now the vultures were screaming and flapping their wings, as they settled in flocks wherever one of these poor fellows lay unburied, with his blackened and gory wounds exposed to the gaze of every passer-by. At the gate of St. Eufemio, I told several persons who were lounging and smoking under the shadow of the walls, of the condition in which I had left the tanner among the rocks; but instead of going immediately to his assistance, they only cursed him as a traitorous Sicilian. "He is some false follower of Joseph the Corsican—cospetto! Let him die!—yes, die like a dog!" was the answer I received on all sides.