We supped heartily. The wine was excellent: and if Francatripa came by it lightly, he did not spare it on his guests. The flasks of red and white capri were numerous and potent enough; but when I remembered the unhappy proprietor, whom we had found weltering in blood by the wayside, it was not without considerable compunction that I regaled on the contents of his plundered hamper. However, the affair lay between Francatripa and his conscience. Castelermo and I soon fell asleep, under a sheltered part of the ruins which had witnessed the midnight carousal.
When we awoke, the morning sun had risen far above the hills of Maida; our horses with our arms and valises, all in perfect order, stood picqueted beside us: but our late host and his followers had departed, leaving no trace behind them, save the well-picked venison bones, and the ashes of the fire which had cooked it. My mouth was still painful, and a little swollen by the blow from the hunchback: whom I hoped to repay at a future time; but I sprang gaily up to rub down Cartouche with a tuft of dried grass, and shook off the dreams and odd fancies which had floated through my brain: caused, doubtless, by the Capri wine, and the stories related by Francatripa of his mountain friends. My ears yet rang with the exploits of the Abbot Proni, who drove the French from Abruzzi; of Frà Diavolo, the cruel and vindictive bandit of Itri; of the miller of Sora, and Benedetto Mangone, who was so savagely executed at Naples by being beaten to death with hammers.
Mammone of Sora was no ordinary bandit, but a fiend in human shape, out-Heroding in cruelty all the monsters of romance: he could boast of having slain with his own hand four hundred fellow-beings; he never dined without having "a bleeding human head placed on the table," and in his mildest mood is said to have drunk human blood "gushing from his victims."
These, and such as these, were the brigand leaders of Italy, and the terror of France, before the merciless General Manhes—"the man of iron"—brought the Calabrian war of extermination to a close, by almost depopulating the country.
CHAPTER III.
A SNAKE IN THE GRASS.
Passing through Maida—a large and substantial town, built on an eminence equidistant from the Tyrhene Sea and the Adriatic, at the narrowest part of the peninsula, and situated among those pine-clad mountains which overlook the scene of our victory and the vale of the Amato—we visited the battle-ground; but nothing remained to mark that glorious day, save the burnt cartridge-paper fluttering about among the graves of those who fell: the mould was yet fresh, and the new grass just beginning to sprout above the great burial-mounds; the sight of which at that moment filled us with sad thoughts. The sun shone brightly, pouring his noon-day glory from above the wooded Apennines across the warm and misty plain; bees were humming, birds chirping, and wild flowers blooming, above those "scattered heaps" where so many brave men were mouldering into dust.
This melancholy train of thought, and the deep solitude around us, were broken by a most unexpected shout of "Hark forward! tally-ho!" coming from a distance; and presently two noble English greyhounds, in full chase after a spotted lynx, bounded from the banks of the Amato, and swept across the plain towards the hills.
"There they go, neck and neck,—Bravo, Springer!" cried a well-known voice; and, crashing headlong through the vine-trellis of some poor peasant, Oliver Lascelles, the general's extra aide, dashed up to us, breathless with a long ride. Oliver was the most determined sportsman in the regiment, and contrived to take his horses and dogs wherever he went, in spite of barrack, ordnance, and transport regulations.
"There go the gallant dogs, and I have no horn to recall them," he cried. "See how the spotted devil doubles!—the water now! Ha! the scent's lost, and Springer's at fault.—What on earth are you doing here, Dundas? Moralizing, eh?—Buon giorno, Signor Marco; happy to see you. By the Lord! had I got that lynx's brush, I would have stuck it in my cocked hat, and ridden with it so to old Regnier at Cassano. Ha! Dundas, at home you never roused such game as that, by the Muirfute Hills, or in Arniston woods;" and the light-hearted Englishman, laughing at his own conceit, hallooed on his dogs till the blue welkin rang.