The Queen's cadet, and other tales

by James Grant

THE STORY OF RAPHAEL VELDA.

On an evening in the September of 1860, some excitement was caused among the inhabitants of the secluded town of Oppido in Calabria Ultra, when the gleam of arms announced the approach of regular troops. The dealers in pottery and silk, in wine and oil, and the manufacturers of gloves and stockings from the delicate filaments of the shell-fish named the pinna marina, and the water-carrier by the well, conferred together on this unusual circumstance; the wandering pifferari paused in their strains before the shrine of the Madonna; and the rustics of a more doubtful character—to wit, the armed and lawless carbonari and mountaineers, the brigands, with their sugar-loaf hats, velveteen jackets, and sandalled feet—looked forth from the dense forests and coverts wherein they lurked, defying alike the anathemas of the Archbishop of Reggio and the powers of the High Court there, and thought the time was near to inspect their guns and stilettoes, and set their wives to abandon the distaff for the bullet-mould, as none knew on what errand those troops had come, or what might ensue ere long, and strange things were expected, for Mazzini and "The Liberator" had been busy with their manifestoes; even the Fata Morgana had been showing strange optical delusions of late in the Bay of Reggio and the Straits of Messina.

The battle of Aspromonte had been fought in their vicinity during the preceding month.

Garibaldi, as all the world knows, intent on raising an insurrection in Hungary, had placed himself at the head of a body of Sicilian volunteers, in the forest district of Ficuzza, twenty miles from Palermo, and, by a hasty and ill-advised movement, he landed these men from two steamers on the Calabrian shore, where, on the mountain plateau of Aspromonte—one of the highest of the Calabrian hills, rising immediately behind the town of Oppido—he was attacked by the Royal Italian troops, under Colonel Pallavacino. He fell, wounded by a musket-shot in the ankle, while all his people were surrounded and made prisoners.

Military executions followed on many, though "The Liberator," for his great services in the cause of Italian independence, was never brought to trial; and now the young grass was sprouting above the earthy mounds, and round the rude little crosses that marked where the dead lay in their lonely graves on the slope of the Apennines.

For two noted brigands who had accompanied him, named Agostino Velda and Giuseppe Rivarola, rewards were offered at that time in vain.

The excitement in Oppido was in no way lessened when the sound of bugles came on the evening wind, and ere long the 3rd regiment of Bersaglieri, or Italian Rifles, in the service of Victor Emanuel, with their plumed hats and quaint uniforms, marched into the town, and halted before the Albergo del Leon d'Oro, where the colours were lodged, and the lieutenant-colonel commanding took up his quarters.

The soldiers were placed in an empty monastery; a guard was mounted there, and also at the albergo; and then it began to be whispered about in the market-place and cafés that the Bersaglieri were to remain there until a captain arrived from Reggio with some special instructions for the colonel, Vincenzo il Conte Manfredi, of whom we shall hear more anon.

These rumours were unpleasantly connected with a Bersagliere named Agostino Velda—the same Velda who had followed General Garibaldi, and who had been brought in with the quarter-guard as a prisoner, and was now in a cell of the monastery, heavily ironed, and under the strictest surveillance.

Among the Bersaglieri of Colonel Manfredi were two soldiers of the name of Velda—the prisoner Agostino, and his son Raphael, a youth of little more than twenty years, who bore a character as high and unblemished as that of his father was degraded and low, dissipated and vile. Yet the father and son were both eminently handsome men, and both had fought bravely—the former on the fields of Goïto and Novara, and the latter at Montebello and Solferino; but latterly to many crimes and breaches of military law, Agostino had added that of desertion and consorting with brigands, among whom he narrowly escaped an assassination in which he became involved; and a notice of this event found its way even into the Times.

He had thrown aside his uniform, adopted the well-known costume of the brigands—a gaily-embroidered jacket, a high hat, with broad, flaunting ribbon, and long leathern gaiters—and, armed with a rifle and six-barrelled revolver, made his lurking-place among the mountains near Naples.

Not far from Acerra—an episcopal city in the province of Lavoro—for a year prior to the affair of Aspromonte, he had taken up his residence with a formidable bandit and his wife, with whom he lived, concealed in a vault, the fragment of some ruined castle or villa of the old days of Roman Naples.

There they might have resided long enough together, and made perilous the road to Rome, but for the sum of two thousand ducats which had been put upon the head of Agostino Velda after Garibaldi's defeat, and which proved too much for a friendship such as theirs.

One day, after a close pursuit, his padrona assured him that he might safely issue forth, as the police had disappeared; but immediately on Velda raising the trap-door, which was covered with turf and branches to conceal their den, he was struck to the earth by a blow from an axe, dealt full on his head by a most unsparing hand.

Assisted by his wife, the padrona dragged the body to a ditch close by, and then, stabbing her to death, he departed at once to Naples, where he claimed the reward offered for Agostino Velda, whom he accused of killing the woman. But Velda was not dead—such men are hard to kill; he was simply stunned, grievously wounded, and made hideous by the blood that covered him.

He managed to crawl to the nearest house of the National Guard, to whom he told his story, denouncing, as his accomplice, the padrona, who was seized and shot, as the reward of his crimes; while he (Velda) was sent back under escort to the 3rd Bersaglieri, then on their march to Calabria, to overawe the brigands in that mountain region, and he was now under sentence and waiting the result of his trial, the papers connected with which had been forwarded for approval to General Enrico Cialdini, who, in the subsequent year, was appointed leader of the entire Italian army, and "Viceroy of Naples, with full power to repress brigandage."

The proceedings of the court-martial by which the father had been tried were actually engrossed by the hand of his son, who was the clerk to the regiment, and he knew all the papers contained, save the sentence, which was known to the sworn members of the court alone; but he could not doubt the tenor of it.

Shame and gloom clouded the dark and handsome face of the young man, and this dejection was held sacred by his comrades, though it has been said that Colonel Manfredi—a man of weak and vicious character, one, moreover, who was fierce, reckless, and dissipated—was cruel enough, on more than one occasion, to taunt the innocent son with the errors of the guilty father.

The sun was verging towards the watery horizon of the gulf of Gioja, and the shadows of the Apennines were falling far athwart the deep and wooded valleys that lie eastward of Oppido, when, full of sad, terrible, and bitter thoughts, the younger Velda left the little city, and, after pausing once or twice to cross himself before the little lamp-lighted Madonnas at the street corners, hurried towards a spot which was familiar to him, for he was by birth a Calabrian, and like his father before him had first seen light among those very mountains where Aspromonte had been fought.

Under the circumstances in which he was placed, the young soldier gazed sadly on the scenes of his infancy—on the forest paths and secluded places where he had been led by the hand of his mother, who had perished of fever and fright after the battle of Novara.

Raphael Velda walked rapidly onward for a few miles through a district that was rich in fruit trees, where the lemon and citron, the fig, the vine, and the orange were growing, till he reached a region that was rocky and wild, and where the majestic oaks and pines of that extensive tract known as the Forest of La Sila, celebrated even by Virgil in the twelfth book of the "Æneid," cast a deepening shadow over the way he pursued, and where the goat, the buffalo, and the wild black swine appeared at times amid the solitude.

Brightly streamed the evening sun through the openings in the forest while Raphael, with unerring steps, trod a path that had been familiar to him in boyhood, and at last reached the place he sought.

It was a cavern in the gray basaltic rocks; but the entrance, known only to the initiated, was carefully concealed by the hand of nature, for the wild fig-trees, the vines, and other luxuriant creepers completely screened it from the casual eye.

"Oh, Francesca, my love! my love! what an abode for you!" muttered the soldier as he saw it. But the place was silent as the grave; the hum of insect life, and the gurgle of a mountain rivulet, whose course was hidden by the verdure, alone met his ear. "Francesca, my betrothed! the wife of my heart!"

Passing through the screen of leaves, Raphael Velda came to a barrier of wood, wedged between the walls of rock, and on this he knocked with a resolute hand, though his heart was throbbing with anxiety.

After a pause, a sound most unpleasantly like the click of a gunlock met his quickened ear, and he hastily knocked again.

"Chi è la? (Who is there?)" demanded a stern voice.

"'Tis I, good Giuseppe—a friend."

The wooden barrier sharply revolved on its centre, and within the cavern, half seen in ruddy sunlight, and half sunk in dark brown shadow, appeared the picturesque figure of a man whose attire and bearing proclaimed him to be a Calabrian brigand. Strong and athletic in form, erect and dignified in carriage, the lines of his dark face and his keen, wild eyes declared him to possess an ardent and fiery spirit; but his garments were tattered and miserable, his beard was long, and its natural raven blackness was becoming silvered by time.

His sash contained a brace of pistols and a horn-hafted knife, and in his hands was a long double-barrelled rifle, which was cocked and held menacingly, for the naturally ferocious expression of his face deepened when he saw the hostile attire of his visitor.

"A friend!" he exclaimed scornfully. "Do the friends of Giuseppe Rivarola wear the uniform of the king's Bersaglieri?"

"True, I am a soldier, Giuseppe—a soldier of the king; yet am I not the less your friend," replied Velda gently.

"Back, I say! I seek not your friendship, boy, and I want not your blood! Yet," continued the robber, wrathfully, "how am I to save my own if I permit you to return alive after having dared to track me to my hiding-place?"

As Rivarola spoke he involuntarily raised the musket to his right shoulder.

"Hold, Giuseppe Rivarola!" cried his visitor. "Have you quite forgotten me? I am Raphael, the son of Agostino Velda."

The brigand uttered a cry, threw down his musket, and springing forward, with all that volubility of gesture and violent declamation which proclaims the Calabrian a genuine child of nature—a rough and impetuous mountaineer—he embraced the young man, took him in his arms and led him into his hiding-place.

It was indeed a squalid den, and lighted only by a few dim rays of the fading sunshine which stole in through fissures in the basalt. In a recess a little Madonna of coarse clay was fixed to the wall of rock, and the flame of a brass oil-lamp was flickering before it. Beneath lay a bed or rather a pallet, the neat arrangements of which indicated the presence of a female hand.

Outside this lay a couch of leaves and deer-skins whereon doubtless old Rivarola snatched his few hours of repose. Some vessels of coarse pottery, an iron pot, a bullet-mould, a powder-flask, and other similar et cetera, made up the furniture; and Raphael looked round him with a saddened and anxious eye.

"Francesca?" said he, inquiringly.

"She has gone to vespers, and to market at Oppido. The poor child requires other comforts than my gun can procure her on these bleak mountain sides, or even on the highway, for few men travel now without an escort of the Carabinieri. I am in hopes that she may be employed as a zitella—(a girl who will make herself useful)—by the good sisters of the Benedictine convent—God and His Mother bless them!" continued the brigand, lifting off his old battered hat with reverence. "The sisters pity her for her own sake, though they execrate me as one of the godless Garibaldini. Once that our Francesca is safe within their walls, I shall go farther west, among the mountains, where some of the men of Aspromonte are still lurking, though heaven knows that to leave this place for that may be only noi cadiamo da Scilli in Cariddi," he added, using the old classic proverb. "But while talking of my own affairs I forget yours. What of your father, my boy?"

"He has been taken by the National Guard, and is now with us in Oppido; but under sentence of death, as I too justly fear it must be," replied Raphael, in a broken voice.

"Rebellion, desertion, treason, and robbery! What else could be the penalty of these but death! He will be shot, of course, by the Bersaglieri."

"Alas!"

"Yet you will continue to wear their uniform?" said the old brigand, his moustaches quivering with anger.

"I follow the dictates of my conscience."

"Conscience!" replied the other, grimly. "I had such a thing about me once; but now—— Well! well!"

"Are they safe for Francesca, or safe for you, these evening errands into Oppido?"

"She goes in as the twilight falls, and always returns after dark, when none can see the way she takes. But our perils will be increased now that your precious Bersaglieri are so close at hand."

"They are increased, Giuseppe. A list of persons to be captured, and shot if found with arms in their hands, or who prove unable to give a satisfactory account of themselves, has been given by Cialdini to the Conte Manfredi, and your name is the first on that fatal roll, of which I made a copy no later than yesterday, by the Conte's order."

The outlaw only laughed at this, and his white teeth glistened under his dark moustache.

"They will never discover my retreat," said he.

"Oh, be not too sure of that."

"It has served me ever since that fatal day at Aspromonte."

"You are wrong. Either Francesca has been watched or some one has betrayed you."

"None could betray me. My secret is known to Francesca and myself alone," replied the outlaw, confidently.

"A clue to your hiding-place is in the hands of the Conte Manfredi, and ere to-morrow—yea, to-night, perhaps—a cordon of riflemen will be around it. Povero amico! I swear to you that this is the truth!"

"And my Francesca!" exclaimed Rivarola, mournfully, as he clasped his brown hands.

"She is here—here at last!" cried the young man, as a girl sprang into the cavern; but on beholding his uniform she uttered a low cry of terror, and shrank behind her father.

Her figure was slender and petite, yet she was full-bosomed and beautifully rounded. Her eyes were dark, but bright and sparkling, and softened in expression by their wonderfully long lashes, which, like her hair, were black as jet. Her attire was poor, but plain and neat, even to being piquante and pretty. Her scarlet bodice was handsomely embroidered, and her habit-shirt, like the square fold of linen that shaded her face, was white as snow, and contrasted well with the almost olive hue of her complexion.

"O padre mio! I have been pursued!" she exclaimed.

"By whom?" asked Rivarola, starting to his musket.

"An officer of the Bersaglieri; but I escaped him in the forest. Oh, my father! my father! and a Bersagliere is here before me!"

"Raphael Velda, your betrothed!" said the young man, taking off his plumed hat, and coming forward from the shade which had partly concealed him.

Uttering a soft exclamation of joy, mingled with astonishment, the girl rushed into his arms, and he covered her face with kisses, showering them on her brow, her lips and eyes, even on her neck, where hung her only ornament, a little crucifix of brass.

"Ne sono estatico! (I am in ecstasies!)" the young soldier continued to murmur, as he gazed upon the upturned face that lay upon his fringe epaulette, and so near his own flushed cheek.

"Oh, what happiness!" responded the girl. "I am beside myself with joy! Raphael, Raphael, speak to me!"

"Thou art loved by every one, my child," said the old brigand, who made no attempt to check the free emotions of the lovers, but turned away sadly, and leaned upon his long musket.

"Oh, Francesca, many may—nay, must have loved you; but none as poor Raphael Velda does," said the lover.

"If ever we are parted, judging by what I have suffered already, the wrench will be terrible! Francesca will die!" murmured the girl.

"No female society ever afforded me the delight that yours does, and were we to be together for days and days, instead of a few short stolen hours, I would never weary of looking into your sweet eyes. How often in camp and on the march, when weary and listless, I have longed for your beloved shoulder to lay my head upon and go to sleep, though I fear your presence would put all sleep to flight."

"Oh, Raphael, when absent from you I seem only to endure existence. All time seems lost that is not spent with you."

"And one of our officers pursued you, Francesca?" asked Raphael, after a pause.

"Yes, my beloved—from the gate of Oppido, along the highway, and close up to the forest, where I eluded him by lurking behind an ilex tree, while he passed on."

"Is he old or young?"

"A man of some fifty years, with long gray moustaches curled up to his ears."

"Dio! 'tis the colonel—the Conte Manfredi! the greatest roué, in all Naples!"

"Never mind—soldiers are used to run after pretty girls. You have escaped him, and if he comes hither my gun will do the rest—there will be promotion for the major," said Rivarola, calmly.

But the handsome face of Velda became troubled and clouded.

His love for Francesca was deep and passionate; yet as a soldier could he marry and make her a camp-follower—the jest, perhaps, of his comrades, the prey, perchance, of such a man as the conte?—she, with all her purity and beauty. A soldier, could he with safety wed the daughter of a brigand—an outlaw—one of the Garibaldini? She had been seen and pursued by his roué colonel also, to complicate and make matters more dubious, perilous, and difficult.

"Be one of us—throw your allegiance to the winds, and take to the mountains," the brigand would have suggested; but Raphael was loyal and good, and mourned the lost lives of Rivarola and his doomed father.

But now the sun was set, and he knew that he must soon return to quarters, as he had only leave till midnight, and, taking his gun, Rivarola prepared to accompany him a little distance on the way.

The lovers separated, with an arrangement for their meeting on the morrow, and from the screen of leaves that hid her wretched home the poor girl, with eyes half-blinded by tears, watched their figures retiring through the forest; but scarcely had they been gone ten minutes when both came rushing back to her. The face of Raphael was deadly pale; that of Rivarola inflamed by passion, and in his eyes there sparkled a dangerous light.

"Conceal yourself, my child. A party of the Bersaglieri are in the forest, searching, doubtless, for me, so I must fly; but I shall leave your betrothed with you. Surely," continued Rivarola, "he will be able to protect you from his own comrades, at least. I will fire a shot to lure these men after me, and away from this vicinity; so, if you hear it, my children, be not alarmed. To heaven and your love I trust her, Raphael. Adieu!"

He pressed the terrified girl almost convulsively to his breast, sprang up the rocks with his musket slung behind him, and disappeared, while Raphael led Francesca into the cavern and closed the door.

The task of soothing her was a delightful one; but then came the reflection—what was he to do? To remain there with her was impossible, as, ere midnight, he would have to report himself to the quarter-guard, and could he leave her alone—alone in the wild forest?

No! She should return with him to Oppido, and seek at the Benedictine convent that shelter which would not be denied her. This was soon resolved on, and, though about to leave the cavern, perhaps for ever, she reverentially trimmed anew the votive lamp before the little Madonna, while Raphael stole for half a mile or so into the forest, to assure himself that his comrades were gone. This proved to be the case, as they had heard the distant random shot of Rivarola, and, following it, had disappeared.

"Heaven be praised!" said Raphael, aloud; "the road is clear for her and me."

He was returning to the hiding-place, when a shrill cry—almost a shriek—from Francesca made him spring forward with all the speed he could exert; and he saw with dismay that the barrier of wood and screen of leaves were alike thrown down, and that an armed man stood within them.

All that his heart had foreboded of evil—the climax of every vague apprehension to which the soul of Raphael Velda had been a prey—was reached when he beheld his beautiful little Francesca struggling to free herself from the grasp of her visitor—his colonel, the Conte Manfredi!

Of all men in Italy, the man from whom he had most cause to fear—the man who held in his hands, perhaps, the life of his father, Agostino Velda, and his own life as a consorter with outlaws—had now tracked out Francesca as a new prey! This was but an example probably, of "how oft the power to do ill deeds makes ill deeds done."

Raphael knew that the conte was a man without scruple or conscience, possessed of vast wealth, of high rank, and a position which enabled him always to crush with success all who opposed his wishes, however vile or cruel those wishes might be; and Raphael was but a poor Bersagliere, whose father was a convicted brigand.

All this foreknowledge rushed upon the mind of Raphael, and for a moment he was paralyzed with dismay; but a moment only.

The next saw him tear Francesca from the grasp of the conte, whom he thrust without much ceremony aside.

In an instant the blade of the colonel's sword glittered in his hand.

"In guardia, signore! in guardia!" cried he, in a voice that was tremulous with rage; while Raphael, who had no other weapon than the short sword-bayonet of the Bersagliere, promptly drew it to defend himself, and therewith he parried one or two thrusts that were aimed at his breast. As yet the colonel had not recognized him, for the cavern was dark, or only lit by the tiny votive lamp that flickered above the humble couch of Francesca. "Ha, Signore Spadaccino!" said Manfredi, mockingly, "I'll be through your body this time."

But, by a rapid circular parry and great strength of wrist, Raphael twisted the sword from the hand of the conte, who then drew a pistol. All this passed in a few seconds; while Francesca, crouching behind Raphael, looked upward with her face blanched by terror. And now, as he levelled the pistol, the conte for the first time discovered that his antagonist was a soldier.

"Como vi chiamente (what is your name)?" he asked, in a voice of thunder.

"Raphael Velda, signore."

"Ehi! one of my own men, too!"

"Illustrissimo—si—I have the honour," replied Raphael, with a profound salute, but keeping his sword drawn, nevertheless.

"Oh, Raphael! my love! my love! you are lost! Spare him, Signore Colonello! spare him!" cried Francesca. "He is too young to die!"

"Leave this place, Raphael Velda," said the conte, in a low, hoarse voice.

"Never!"

"Indeed! When are you due at Oppido?"

"I have my captain's leave till midnight, signore."

"Mezzanotte? Good. It wants but two hours of that time now," said the mocking conte, looking at his watch. "You know, I presume, the penalty of drawing upon a superior officer?"

"No—not when in defence of my own life, and of one who is dearer to me than life."

"Veramente—indeed!" drawled the other, curling up his enormous moustache, which he wore in imitation of King Victor Emanuel. "This girl—the daughter of a brigand—of a Garibaldino—is beyond the pale of all protection."

"She is my betrothed wife, signore," said Raphael, with a deep burst of emotion.

"Your life is in my hands, Velda, as a consorter with outlaws."

"Not more a consorter than yourself, signore, if the mere fact of being here makes me one."

"Insolent! Yet I will spare your life on one condition."

"Name it, signore."

"That you will never mention what has transpired here to-night—our combat, and my disarmament. Swear it by the God that hears you, and the soul of the girl you love!"

Raphael felt astonished at a punishment so unlike Manfredi, but swore as he was requested.

"Good," said the colonel, picking up and sheathing his sword. "I give you life for silence, but my vengeance will come on the morrow!"

And with these ominous words, which the unfortunate Raphael connected in some way with his imprisoned father, the colonel quitted the dreary abode of the Rivarolas, and disappeared in the forest.

The moment he was gone, Raphael raised Francesca, and strove by his caresses to reassure her. He affected to make light of the threats of Manfredi, expatiated on the promises he had given as a reward for silence, expressed joy that her father had escaped; and, as soon as she had regained her composure, he led her from the cavern, and together, hand in hand, with their minds mutually oppressed by fear for the future, they pursued the highway almost in silence till they reached the little city of Oppido.

"Adieu, Raphael," said the girl, weeping on his breast.

"Oh, Francesca! my dearest Francesca! I cannot tell you how I love you! And this love continues, if possible, to grow every day. My whole soul is yours, Francesca!"

"And I shall yearn long and wearily for you till we meet again. Separate from you, the most sunny days are gloomy to me, and I seem to shiver as if chilled by the tramontana!"

And now, after a long and passionate kiss—a last one, as it proved—they separated at the gate of the Convent of Santo Benedetto; and, fortunately for Raphael, he was in quarters before the time necessary, and amid their dull monotony the voice of Francesca ever lingered in his ear.

Some valets or emissaries of the conte were at the cavern betimes before daybreak. The cage was empty, and its pretty bird flown, they knew not whither; and this only served to inflame him the more against the elder Velda.

Next morning the shrill brass bugles of the Bersaglieri were blown at an unusually early hour, while the mountain summits were yet red with the first rays of the morning sun, and the whole battalion paraded under the orders of the conte; for the expected captain had arrived overnight from Reggio with his final instructions, and, rumour said, with the death-warrant of Agostino Velda. The latter seemed to be fully verified by the fact that the regimental chaplain—a Franciscan friar—had spent the greater portion of the night in his cell.

It was a lovely Italian morning, and never did the towering Apennines look more beautiful in their verdure and fertility, while the red rising sun cast their purple shadows, and those of the great pines and oaks which clothed their sides far to the westward. To the east, dotted by many a white sail, the blue Mediterranean spread away towards the Lipari Isles; and the smoke of many a steamer towered high into the deep azure of the dome above the Straits of Messina and the Bay of Gioja.

The plain where the Bersaglieri (who derive their name from bersaglio, a mark, or shooting-butt) were paraded was a solitary spot about a mile distant from Oppido, in a rugged ravine, overhung on all side by masses of rock, which had been rent into fantastic shapes seventy-seven years before by the dreadful earthquake of 1783.

The troops were unpopular among the Calabrese; so none of the inhabitants were present to witness the morning parade, which, on the part of the Conte Manfredi, embraced a scheme for vengeance such as an Italian heart of a certain calibre alone could conceive.

The well-trained Bersaglieri stood silent and firm in their ranks; the only motion there being the fluttering of their dark-green plumes, which were caught by the passing breeze. Their sword-bayonets were fixed on their rifles, as the regiment formed three sides of a hollow square, and the broad blades of these reflected gayly the sheen of the morning sun.

On the vacant side of the square stood an upright post, firmly placed in the earth, with a stout rope dangling from it. At this object the eyes of the soldiers looked grimly but sternly from time to time. The officers leaned on their swords, and yawned wearily in the early morning air. Since the field of Aspromonte they had grown tired of the perilous work of brigand-hunting, and looked forward with something of dismay to the rustication of dull quarters in the mountain city of Oppido, while knowing that at Reggio there were the great cathedral, with its aisles of paintings, where people may flirt if they do not pray, the theatre, the opera, and the promenade of the Porto Nuovo, where girls handle their fans as girls only do in Spain and Italy. Even the yearly fair would be lost to the Bersaglieri. It was all a profound bore!

While such empty regrets occupied the minds of many, the heart of Raphael Velda was a prey to a grief and horror all its own. He and all the regiment thought that he should have been spared a scene so horrible as the execution of his own father! He had proffered this request personally, and through the captain of his company, but in vain. The conte was inexorable. He only gave one of his sinister smiles, and shrugged his shoulders in token of refusal. So, pale as a spectre, and trembling in every fibre, Raphael stood under arms in his usual place.

Agostino Velda, though an old soldier of the corps, who had, as we have said, fought loyally on the field of Goïto, in Lombardy, and that of Novara, in Piedmont, was viewed now only as a disgrace, a brigand and Garibaldino; so, although all sympathized with his son, and deprecated his presence on an occasion so awful, they cared little otherwise about the impending execution. But how little could they foresee the terrible triple tragedy which was to ensue on that bright and sunny morning parade!

From the lower end of the ravine was seen the gleam of approaching bayonets, and the prisoner appeared with fetters on his hands, walking slowly between a file of Bersaglieri, and by the side of the chaplain—a very reverend-looking old man, who wore the garb of a Franciscan—and who had been praying with him all night in the vault of the old castle, which served as a dungeon. And now poor Raphael felt an icy shudder pass over his whole frame as his father drew near.

He had already that day at dawn taken a passionate and affectionate farewell of him, and they were to meet no more on earth; but yet the dark and haggard eyes of Agostino Velda wandered restlessly and yearningly along the ranks, as if in search of a beloved face.

He was a splendid-looking man, in the prime of life. His stature was great, and his bearing lofty and commanding. The pallor of his face contrasted strangely with the raven blackness of his voluminous beard and hair; the latter seemed to start up in sprouts from his forehead and temples, and fell backward like the mane of a lion. His eyes were dark—dark as the doom that awaited him; and their usual expression was fierce, defiant, and lowering.

He was bareheaded, and muffled in an old regimental great-coat, which was intended to be his shroud.

"I have repented of all my faults and crimes," said he, in a firm voice, and with a collected manner. "I see now, old comrades, the folly, the wickedness, of my past life, and am ready to die for it!"

The proceedings of the court-martial were then read over by the adjutant, and they closed with the sentence—

"That he—the said Agostino Velda, lately a Bersagliere of the 3rd Regiment, and now a brigand—was to be tied to a post and shot to death by any three soldiers whose doubtful character might lead the colonel to select them for that duty as a species of punishment!"

The hand of Manfredi seemed to tighten on his bridle-rein as he heard this, and there passed a grim smile over his face as he handed a pencilled memorandum to the sergeant-major, who changed colour as he read it, and in his utter confusion actually forgot to salute his officer, under whose glance most of the Bersaglieri cowered, for he was supposed to possess that terror of the Italians, an evil-eye. He paused for a moment irresolutely, and then turned to obey, for discipline and obedience become a second nature to a soldier.

While the pioneers bound the passive prisoner to the stake, the perplexed sergeant-major summoned from the ranks two soldiers who had been punished repeatedly for breaches of discipline, and twice for robbery, as their names had been given to him by the colonel. Then, pausing slowly before the company in the ranks of which Raphael Velda stood, pale as a sheet, and supporting himself on his rifle, he summoned him to step forth, as the third fire, to complete the firing-party.

A thrill of horror and dismay seemed to pervade the whole regiment on witnessing this, and now Raphael rushed to the front.

"Signore Illustrissimo—oh, colonello mio!" he exclaimed, in a piercing voice, while gesticulating with all the fervour of a true Calabrian; "Dio buono! you cannot mean this! It is too cruel—too terrible. The king will resent it—General Cialdini will never permit it," he added, wildly and incoherently, while his tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of his mouth.

In a paroxysm of grief he knelt before the conte, entreating him to alter the terrible selection—to forego this subtle scheme for vengeance, while the pale prisoner, who saw and understood the whole situation, uttered a cry of grief, and, dropping the crucifix which the chaplain had placed in his hands, covered his face with them.

"What can be the meaning of this?" was whispered round the ranks.

Raphael alone could have told; but he was sworn to secrecy—secrecy by God's name and the soul of Francesca.

In vain did the major—a gallant old soldier, who possessed great influence in the corps—urge the conte to change his plan; in vain did the venerable chaplain supplicate on one hand and threaten on the other; and in vain also did Raphael Velda, whose voice had now left him, stretch his hands towards the conte in mute entreaty.

Vincenzo Manfredi was inexorable!

"I do not command the son to shoot the father, but the loyal Bersagliere to slay the convicted felon," said he; and then, with a voice and bearing that forbade all hope of his revoking an order which filled the regiment with indignation and bewilderment—for the character of Raphael was unimpeachable, and even were it not so, the selection was alike cruel and unnatural—he ordered the firing-party to fall in at fifty yards' distance from the criminal, and to load and cap their rifles. Then the remainder of the obnoxious task was to be performed by the sergeant-major.

"Sono allo desperazione!—I am in despair—oh, Francesca!—oh, my father!" moaned Raphael, as he loaded mechanically, and knew that even if he fired in the air he would throughout all his future life be branded as a parricide—as the executioner of his own father!

A blindness—a horror, like a great darkness—seemed to come over him, and for a few moments he was beside himself with excess of emotion. For a second or so the idea of shooting Manfredi at the head of the regiment occurred to him, but only to be dismissed, for that officer was so placed that he could not have been hit without the risk of killing another; and now, like an automaton, he found himself kneeling—one of three executioners—before his father, at fifty yards' distance.

Though horror blanched his face, Agostino looked proudly and steadily at the three dark tubes from whence his doom was to come; for at the word "three" the executioners were to fire.

"Uno!" cried the sergeant-major, in a voice that was quite unlike his own; "due! TRE!"

Reverberating with a hundred echoes among the rocks as the sounds were tossed from peak to peak, four rifles rang sharply in the clear morning air, and three men fell dead.

They were Agostino Velda, pierced by two bullets in his head, which sank heavily forward on his breast; Raphael, who, by an expert use of his bayonet as a lever, after uttering a prayer to heaven and for Francesca, had shot himself through the heart; and, lastly, the Conte Manfredi, who, pierced by a bullet fired from the rocks above, threw up his hands with a wild scream, and fell lifeless from his horse!

His fall and the suicide of Raphael Velda were so totally unexpected, that the Bersaglieri were utterly bewildered and confounded. The double catastrophe was almost terrifying even to old soldiers; but the major was the first to recover his presence of mind, and at the head of a company proceeded to surround and scale those rocks from whence the mysterious bullet had come.

No trace of the assassin could be found, save a long and double-barrelled rifle, which had been recently discharged, and on the stock of which was carved the name of the noted brigand, "Giuseppe Rivarola;" so not a doubt remained that by his hand the conte had perished.

In vain were the mountains searched, and princely rewards for his apprehension offered by General Cialdini and the king; for Giuseppe was never seen afterwards, though he is supposed to be still lurking among the wilds of the Abruzzi—the Promised Land of the Italian brigands.

As a suicide, the hapless Raphael Velda was buried in a solitary place, and in unconsecrated ground; but yearly, on the anniversary of his death—the festival of St. Michael and All Angels—there comes a Benedictine nun, who kneels by the green sod that covers him, and with beads in hand and head bent low and reverently, says a prayer for the repose of his soul.

She then hangs a wreath of fresh flowers on the little cross that marks his grave, and glides slowly and sadly away.