"Is a nun of the convent of Santa Caterina da Siena here, at Crotona."
"A nun?"
"In that little word lies all the danger, the difficulty, and the devilry!"
"To poach on the preserves of his Holiness is ticklish work in this part of the world!"
"I know it," he replied, gloomily; "and am acquainted with three gentlemen of Naples who, for meddling with ecclesiastics, have borne all the terrors of the law—imprisonment, ignominy, the weight of the public scurlada, and confiscation of everything: they are now compelled to serve under Frà Diavolo, Francatripa, and others, as common brigands. Per Baccho! I have not forgotten the unhappy Cavaliere di Castelluccio, who was lately spirited away by the Bishop of Cosenza, and has never been heard of since. However, these are but slight dangers for us, over whom the holy office once stretched its iron arm. In these days, what priest would dare to put forth his hand against me, the Visconte di Santugo, and Grand Bailiff of Calabria-Ultra? Well, Claude, the lady is a nun; and I must have her to-night, even should we be compelled to fire the convent, and carry her off in the confusion. Ah! Del Castagno tried that with a girl at Nicastro—a dashing attempt; but he was caught by the sbirri of the Bishop Petronio and consigned for six months to a dungeon at Canne, where black bread and stale water so completely cured him of the tender passion, that he regarded the poor damsel with the most pious horror, and has now become the sober-minded husband of cousin Ortensia. But I jest with a heavy heart! Dundas, I believe you to be honourable as I have found you brave; and in the affair of to-night, would rather have you as my comrade than any of the volatile Neapolitans of my acquaintance—fellows whose friendship will perhaps only last while the flask contains a drop of wine and the purse a ducat."
"The lady?" I observed, impatiently.
"Is Bianca's sister."
"How! the Signora Francesca?"
"Even so: the second daughter of old Annibale di Santugo, who fell while fighting under the Cardinal Ruffo in Apulia. Though poor in ducats, he was rich in blood and name—being my father's younger brother. With his last breath, he bequeathed to my care his three motherless girls—Ortensia, Bianca, and Francesca. Francesca was esteemed the greatest beauty in Italy; yet in an excess of folly—or rather, let me call it, generosity—she immured herself in a convent. To remove the only obstacle to her sister's marriage with my friend Benedict, did this dear girl (of all the loves I have had, my only true one!) give up her slender patrimony, and take the veil in this convent at Crotona. But the bright tresses shred from her brow were scarcely consumed on the altar, ere bitter repentance and heart-consuming grief seized her. I was serving with the Neapolitan army in the Roman territories, and had not then seen her—at least, since her childhood. Would to God that I never had! How much agony might have been spared both of us! I met her at the baths of Nicastro; where, in strict charge of my mother, she had gone, by special permission, for the recovery of her health, which the close confinement of the cloister, unavailing regrets, and a lingering love for the world she had left, were destroying. I was fiery, ardent, and only three-and-twenty; she, a drooping but beautiful girl, devoted to Heaven—a veiled and vowed nun. Oh! what madness could have prompted me to love her? But Cupid and the devil are always at one's elbow. We were cousins—a dangerous relationship—and our intimacy, open and unconstrained, plunged us at once into this delicious passion, the impulses of which I found it impossible to resist. I evaded the watchful eyes of my mother, and gained, beyond redemption, the affections of poor Francesca. She returned to her convent wretched and heart-broken. Infamy and death are, perhaps, before her. Oh! Madonna mia! She must be rescued, and at all risks!" he exclaimed, leaping up, and wrapping his cloak around him. "You will accompany me, of course? Remember 'tis the sister of Bianca!"
"And if she consents to elope?"