"Indifferently, indeed. She bemoans her degraded situation incessantly (here Bianca reclined her head on my epaulette, and sobbed audibly). Torn from her convent, to which she dare return no more, she is still a nun; and, until her vows are dispensed with at Rome, I cannot make her my wife. I now see that her position is deplorable, and hourly wish that I had been less rash: but what will not a wild spirit dare, when love leads, and the fiend prompts? I have, perhaps, blighted her prospects for ever, and placed myself in most deadly jeopardy: every hour increases our peril! The Bishop of Cosenza (so famous for his pretended piety) has taken up the matter hotly, and placed us under the ban of the church; while, armed with warrants, procured from the Grand Criminal Court at Palermo, his sbirri, aided by those of that old blockhead the Barone di Bivona (who owes me a thousand sequins, lost at Faro), are searching all Lower Calabria for us: I expect them here every hour. King Ferdinand, anxious to flatter our priesthood and please his bigoted subjects, has declared himself my enemy, and we dare not venture to Sicily, even could we reach its shores: the commissaries of the townships are everywhere on the alert, and we could never, unless escorted by some armed followers, embark on the Calabrian seas. "To pass into the Upper Province would only redouble the danger: Francesca would become the prey of the bishop, or the brutal Massena; who would, undoubtedly, order me to be shot. Ha! the French have not forgotten certain exploits of mine, when I first unsheathed my sword beneath the walls of Altamurra, on that great day when, on the eve of battle, Ruffo performed high mass before the whole Calabrian line.