No, capitano is! there is not a ragazza in the hamlet that is not in love with him; but he is fanciful, as all handsome men are, and many is the sore heart that he has made. To my taste he is somewhat over tall. I don't like tall men. not I although in my time I had plenty of them as lovers, it is true. There was Policarpo, the shoemaker of Portici, who was barbarously guillotined at Salerno, for accidentally killing an English gentleman and his signora at Postum. There was tall Ludovico of His Holiness's body-guard, who even now, unhappy youth, slaves in the gallies at Ostia, for having in a merry mood, and out of pure fun, thrust his horrible old wife Jacintha into a heated oven and as he forgot to let her out again, the shrew was of course baked to a cinder. Ai! ai ai! I have had plenty of tall men in my time', continued the old crone with enthusiastic self-satisfaction, shaking and nodding her head delightedly at her amatory reminiscences, 'but a little, tight, well-made man like your eccellenza for me! With broad shoulders, and a good leg like your eccellenza's, for example.' This unequivocal declaration that I had found favour in her sight well nigh drove me distracted, and my apprehensions became too painfully oppressive, when the old hag, in wishing me farewell for the night, clutched my hand between her shrivelled talons with what she intended to be a tender squeeze, puckered up her wrinkled lips into an impassioned smile, and presented her copper-coloured cheeks for a salute, which ceremony I was obliged to perform, tho' with loathing and abhorrence. My Hecate had left the room. I was alone. The night was cold and stormy: the keen breeze crept through the gaping crevices of the window-frames, and whirled volumes of dense smoke, emitted by the damp firewood, through the gloomy apartment. I heaped piles of brushwood on the hearth, and endeavoured to fan the smoking mass into a blaze, which might aid to dispel the gloom that sat heavily on my thoughts. Vain however were my exertions! the cold increased in intensity; all the winds of heaven seemed to howl and rage against my prison walls, and my limbs quaked and shivered, VOL. I. 22 as the feeble frame that they supported quailed beneath the inclemency of the bitter night. Although my destined couch resembled in nought that of the voluptuous Sybarite, who wept that a crumpled rose-leaf disturbed his slumbers, I never theless determined to woo balmy sleep; and casting off my garments, with a bound of desperation I plunged into bed. I clutched the sheets and coverlid over me, and instantaneously received a shock colder and more paralyzing than was ever produced by a shower-bath. I sprang from my bed, and stood with my bare feet trembling and shaking on the damp and clammy pavement. There was no remedy: hastily I clothed myself in the sporting apparel prepared against to-morrow, enveloped myself in the folds of a cloak, cast myself on the rude bedstead and fell asleep. "Hours passed away. Unconscious of every thing, I was as one numbered among the dead, so profound was the lethargy, so death-like the sleep that paralyzed my senses. I started from the deep sleep of exhaustion, as the grasp of a heavy hand fastened on my shoulder, and the portentous 'Ho! ho! ho!' rang again in my ears: «ho! ho! ho!' thou sleepest soundly, eccellenza. I leapt from the bed, and sprang upon my feet; around my bed stood a group of men composed of the gran cacciatore and four others, fac-similies of himself in attire and in appearance. Two held blazing pine torches in their hands, and all had fowling-pieces; and with their swarthy complexions, and dark flashing eyes,—their high peaked hats, and fantastic attire, displayed to even yet more fearful advantage by the red glaring light that streamed from the torches, they would have been a glorious study to a painter. All is ready, eccellenza!' quoth the capitano. 'Shall we be off, for dawn waits for no man?» With a strong grasp he raised my unfortunate valet from the pallet on which he had passed any thing but a night of pleasure, to judge by his hard and painful breathings. He raised him to his feet, and then relaxing his hold, the miserable wretch fell like a log of wood to the ground, uttering a groan and a grunt for eau-de-vie. He has not yet slept off his drunkenness,' said one of the party; as he seized the prostrate carcass in his arms, and tossed it unceremoniously on the bed again. Leave the baronne maledetto (the accursed rascal) alone', quoth the capitano with a terrific oath; 'he will come to himself ere we return with his eccellenza ;-and now to the sport. Forward my children, forward.' Obedient to his commands, the torch-bearers stalked away in front; two men seizing each an arm, hurried me down the ladder-like stairs, and lifting me into a skiff, moored at the very threshold of the dwelling, in a moment we cleft the dark and muddy waters of the pool, and dashed through fields of reeds and rushes exuberant in growth, and in extent one vast continuous forest. Benissimo, voi vedrete qualche cosa di bello! (well done, you shall see some capital sport,) quoth the capitano, as the brawny rowers relaxed their exertions and rested on their oars; but his eccellenza can never take aim. from this accursed egg-shell of a boat. Thy hand, my Leopoldo. » ས : I was paralysed by their strong grasp I was powerless as an infant in their arms; they raised me from my feet, and held me suspended in the air. Another moment, and I was plunged up to my waist in mud and water, with the gigantic reeds and bulrushes towering many feet above my head. This too an hour or more before day-break, in a dark, starless, January morning, the icy waters in which I was immersed depriving my limbs of all sensation-and the keen piercing wind penetrating like iron into my soul, and congealing the very life-blood in my veins. Not for all the treasures of Araby the blest would I have been in your situation » exclaimed the Attache', but why was mine excellent friend so complaisant as to expose himself to all these miseries without a remonstrance? Remonstrance! what would remonstrance have availed me? he replied with bitterness. The brigands treated me as a : child, and I was indeed but a passive and unresisting infant in the hands of my stern masters. Never shall I forget the miseries of that eventful night? presently faint sounds, wafted to us on the wings of the piercing breeze, broke in upon the dead silence. Whish! whish! whish! the sounds were as of a numerous flight of birds cleaving rapidly through the air. The capitano thrust a long and ponderous fowling-piece into my hands!-Whish! whish! whish! floated upon the night air louder and more distinctly than before. Eccole! whispered the capitano, pointing to a dark cloud floating over our heads, which appeared to be miraculously gifted with the power of locomotion. Eccole! aim steadily, and fire'. Mechanically I raised the fowling-piece to my shoulder, mechanically I pointed at the dark mysterious cloud that was skimming over my head mechanically I pressed the trigger with my finger. Bang! splash, splash, splash! and a torrent of bodies fell into the waters around, and over me, over me, for in my trepidation of mind, and bewilderment of senses, I omitted to take a firm grasp of the ponderous fowling-piece, which leapt from my trembling hold, and with a fearful concussion recoiled, giving me such a tremendous blow on the chest, that I incontinently described a summerset improvisamente in the mud and water, to the infinite amusement and delight of my boon companions, who indulged in hearty laughter, and perpetrated sundry most excellent witticisms at my expense. After diverting themselves some seconds in witnessing my gambols in the foul element, and deriding my ineffectual efforts to extricate myself, they finally condescended to raise me to my feet, a dripping triton, drenched to the skin, gasping for breath and utterance, and with mouth and nostrils filled with mud and putrid water. » « Finis coronat opus,» said the Attaché : thus determined, I suppose, your wild-fowl shooting? » " Far from it. To tear off my shooting-jacket and waistcoat, to envelope me in a sheep-skin pelisse, and to clap a high-peaked hat on my head, in lieu of my dainty Bandoni, which was sacrificed to the frogs and efts of the pool, was but the work of an instant. Another fowling-piece was forced upon my acceptance-the noise of a flight of ducks on the wing the awful sounds, whish, whish, whish, were again wafted along by the night-breeze-and one report succeeded another, as gun after gun was thrust into my hands, and I unresistingly obeyed the directions of my brother sportsmen, and instinctively directed the muzzles of the infernal engines into the thickest of each cloud that swept past me. Splash, splash, resounded on the waters, as another and another duck fell headlong into the pool, the victims of my involuntary skill and prowess, and these were the pleasures, and this the vaunted sport, until the grey light of morn appeared stealthily creeping over the horizon. . 'Bravissimo! a maraviglia!!' exclaimed the Gran Cacciatore. 'A capital night's work have we made of it. Per Hercle, Illustrissimo, thou art a very Actæon, keen and zealous for the sport; and the bolts that thou launchest forth are like those of Jupiter Tonans, fraught with death and destruction! Tommaso and Anselmo will return hither to collect together the Caccia : but first let us escort your eccellenza to the Locanda.' "All that passed afterwards is but as a faintly-remembered dream in my memory. My teeth gnashed together from the intensity of the cold; my tongue had lost the faculties alike of feeling and utterance; my limbs were stone-cold; circulation was checked, and the life-blood forced back on my heart. Of what passed afterwards, I remember nothing, but that some hours afterwards I awoke from a deep sleep-and found myself in the vile room of the Locanda, stretched upon my bed, with a pile of reeking sheep-skins thrown over me. Before an immense fire stood Rugorna, superintending the drying, or rather the scorching, of my sporting apparel. At the bed-side of my valet were two men; one my friend the Capitano, the other a little spare man in a brown fustian jacket, who united in his propria persona the multifarious offices of physician, accoucheur, cow-doctor, veterinary surgeon, tooth-drawer, and druggist. The worthy held in his hand a pewter basin, into which the black blood flowed sluggishly from the bared arm |