“He told me yesterday,” said Caffarelli, “that he would not leave Naples till his Majesty passed the Irish Legion in review, and addressed them some words of loyal compliment.”
“Why did n't he tell you,” said the Prince, sarcastically, “that seventy of the scoundrels have taken service with Garibaldi, some hundreds have gone to the hills as brigands, and Castel d'Ovo has got the remainder; and it takes fifteen hundred foot and a brigade of artillery to watch them?”
“Did you hear this, Maitland?” cried Caffarelli; “do you hear what his Excellency says of your pleasant countrymen?”
Maitland looked up from a letter that he was deeply engaged in, and so blank and vacant was his stare that Caffarelli repeated what the Minister had just said. “I don't think you are minding what I say. Have you heard me, Maitland?”
“Yes; no—that is, my thoughts were on something that I was reading here.”
“Is it of interest to us?” asked Caraffa.
“None whatever. It was a private letter which got into my hands open, and I had read some lines before I was well aware. It has no bearing on politics, however;” and, crushing up the note, he placed it in his pocket, and then, as if recalling his mind to the affairs before him, said: “The King himself must go to Sicily. It is no time to palter. The personal daring of Victor Emmanuel is the bone and sinew of the Piedmontese movement. Let us show the North that the South is her equal in everything.”
“I should rather that it was from you the advice came than from me,” said Caraffa, with a grin. “I am not in the position to proffer it.”
“If I were Prince Caraffa, I should do so, assuredly.”
“You would not, Maitland,” said the other, calmly. “You would not, and for this simple reason, that you would see that, even if accepted, the counsel would be fruitless. If it were to the Queen, indeed—”