When I got back to the cabin, my Cossack was so fast asleep that it would have been cruel to disturb him. I lighted the candle, and saw that my little box containing my valuables, my sabre with silver mountings, my Circassian dagger (given to me by a friend), had all been carried off. I now understood what the packet placed in the boat by the blind boy must have contained. I woke up my Cossack with a blow, reproached him for his negligence, and fairly lost my temper. But my anger could not make me find what I had lost. And how could I complain to the authorities? Should not I have been laughed at if I had told them that I had been robbed by a blind boy, and almost drowned by a young girl? _The Maid of Treppi._ FROM THE GERMAN OF PAUL HEYSE. [PAUL HEYSE, the greatest German novelist now living, was born in 1830, at Berlin. His father was a celebrated scholar and professor at the University; and he himself, while still a student, undertook a special tour in Italy in order to examine manuscripts in the libraries of Florence, Rome, and Venice. He was only twenty-four, when King Maximilian of Bavaria invited him to Munich, where he married the daughter of the eminent art critic, Franz Kugler, and where he has ever since resided. He had already turned from the dry bones of scholarship to the more congenial task of writing dramas, poems, and romances. His short stories--of which "The Maid of Treppi" is an excellent example--are his best achievements, and are full of passion, character, and romantic charm.] CHAPTER I. On the summit of the Apennines, just between Tuscany and the northern part of the States of the Church, there lies a solitary little village called Treppi. The paths that lead up to it are not fit for driving. Some miles further south the road for the post and "vetturine" goes winding through the mountains. None but the peasants who have to deal with the shepherds pass by Treppi; occasionally, too, a painter or pedestrian anxious to avoid the highroad, and at night the smugglers with their pack-mules, who, better than anyone, know of wild rocky paths by which to reach the solitary little village at which they make but a short stay.