"Colonello, you should say, Gaetano," replied another. "Does he not bear the king’s commission; ay, and a sweet letter, they say, Carolina sent him, written with her own hand?" "Yes, and we are to become soldiers like the men of Marco Sciarra. Madonna bless the day! I am tired of this life." "Gaetano is as bad as his master, who seems to love a throw of the dice at the gaming-table better than a rifle-shot on the green mountainside in the merry moonlight." Gaetano only answered by a sigh. "The smiles must have been sweeter to-night than usual," growled Gaspare Truffi; "he stays so long at the villa D’Alfieri." "No good will come of his going there; where a woman is, there will always be treachery and mischief," said Gaetano. "May Cupid put it in his heart to bring his girl up the mountains!" "Welcome to the capitanessa!" said another of the band, drinking from a leathern bottle, which he held aloft at the full stretch of his arm, permitting the sparkling wine to stream down his throat—a famous feat with the Italian vulgar. "Ho! ho!" chuckled the hunchback, "it would be bearding the grand bailiff with a vengeance, to follow Gaetano’s advice. But, Sfarmato! wind the horn again!" Once more its blast was poured to the hollow wind: but there was no reply, save from the echoing woods of Maida; and the banditti, as they seated themselves on the verdant grass and marble blocks, cursed the delay of their leader in no gentle terms. The villa D’Alfieri! How my pulses quickened at the sound. Francatripa was then the lover of Annina, or some of the waiting women. I resolved to speak with the viscontessa about the dangerous friends with whom her household corresponded. How little I then knew of the ambition and presumption of that accomplished robber! "Here, good fellow," said I, to the one whom they named Gaetano, "take the handkerchief from my breast, and give my moustachios a wipe. You see how freely the blood is flowing from my mouth." "Certainly, Signor Cavalier," said the man, good-naturedly, raising his hand to his hat. "Ha!" said I, "you have been a soldier?" "Yes, signor," said he, turning pale, "I enlisted in the Corsican Rangers, under the British: but I knew not their fashions; I quarrelled with a sergeant, and they flogged me like a dog; I ran away, and so I am here." Before he could do me the simple act of kindness requested, Gaspare snatched the handkerchief from his hand, and threw it away; dealing Gaetano at the same time a sound box on the ear, and muttering a remark, which, when translated, meant that I might "bleed to death, and be——"