“I did not hear him utter a word.”
“No, but he handed in a paper drawn up by himself, in which he recommends the King to withdraw all the forces in front of Capua, and meet these marauders, where they will less like to fight, in the open. The advice was good, even though it came from a barbarian. In street-fighting your buccaneer is as good as, if not better than, a regular. All the circumstances of the ground favor him. Take him, however, where he must move and manouvre,—where he will have to form and re-form, to dress his line under fire, and occasionally change his flank,—then all the odds will be against him. So far the Scythian spoke well. His only miscalculation was to suppose that we will fight anywhere.”
“I declare, Maitland, I shall lose temper with you. You can't surely know what insulting things you say.”
“I wish they could provoke any other than yourself, mio caro. But come away from this. Let us walk back again. I want to have one more look at those windows before I go.”
“And are you really in love?” asked the other, with more of astonishment in his voice than curiosity.
“I wish I knew how to make her believe it, that's all,” said he, sadly; and, drawing his arm within his friend's, moved on with bent-down head and in silence.
“I think your friends are about the only travellers in Naples at this moment, and, indeed, none but English would come here at such a season. The dog-days and the revolution together ought to be too much even for tourist curiosity.”
Caffarelli went on to describe the arrival of the three heavy-laden carriages with their ponderous baggage and their crowd of servants, and the astonishment of the landlord at such an apparition; but Maitland paid him no attention,—perhaps did not even hear him.
Twice or thrice Caffarelli said something to arouse notice Or attract curiosity, even to pique irritability, as when he said: “I suppose I must have seen your beauty, for I saw two,—and both good-looking,—but neither such as would drive a man distracted out of pure admiration. Are you minding me? Are you listening to me?”
“No, I have not heard one word you were saying.”