"Dog as he is, let us save him, in the name of mercy! Meet him at the other end of the balcony; and stand well on your guard," exclaimed Castelermo, as we stepped out upon the platform. The Cavaliere Galdino was thus placed between us; but the moment he found us advancing deliberately upon him, he placed both hands on the cope of the stone balustrade, and, uttering a shout of triumph, vaulted over and fell headlong through the space below. Far beneath us we heard a slight brushing on the furzy rocks, a falling of dislodged stones, and all was still. Half sick and giddy, I clung to the balcony, and looked over on the dark pine forest and winding valley below the tower; from which a plumb-line might have been dropped to the depth of two hundred feet without meeting with an obstacle. He must have been dead before he reached the bottom. "Devil as he was, and though he has cast a dark shadow on the brightest path that ever opened to me through life, I would rather that he had died at Cassano with his face to the enemy, than thus miserably and ignobly," said Castelermo. "Basta! in making his elegy, I must not forget to thank St. John for our narrow escape, and the author of some ancient story for that blessed hint about changing those coloured stoppers. Ah! the cunning villain. My blood boils while I think of his stern treachery. Approach Baptistello Varro: you shall have a score of bright ducats for this good service to-night," he added, slapping the servant familiarly on the shoulder. "May my fingers be blistered if I touch them!" said Varro. "Signor, I have only requited the good service you did me on the plains of Apulia, when the Frenchman’s plaguy bayonet was at my throat. To any other man than yourself, illustrissimo, I might have behaved like a true sbirro, and allowed him to drink a skinful of la belladonna, if such was the pleasure of his Excellency. ’Tis the third time I have seen these rascally jars produced." "Then you are the greater rogue, Varro: but as you are deprived of one master, we must find you another. Seek the Cavaliere del Castagno at Crotona, who in my name will enrol you in the Free Corps; where you will do more good service to your country by serving under their colours, than by wearing the livery of these dissipated and tyrannical feudatories, who are a curse to the land they rule." "Would it please you to see the cavalieressa?" asked Baptistello: "she will be a free woman now, since this last prank of her husband’s; and I know a certain capitano who will throw up his cap when he hears of it. A sad life she has endured with him, signor; mewed up in this desolate place, where never a soul was to be seen save a lonely shepherd on the distant mountains, or a stray peasant cutting wood in the valley below. Via! I will quit it this hour, and rather fight under Scarolla than again don the livery and aiguilette of a sbirro."