"On horseback, signor: he rides a beautiful black Barbary horse, which Signora Bianca seems to admire more than your dashing grey."
"The mischief she does! Who introduced this colonel to the family?"
"He is a great friend of Father Petronio, the bishop of Cosenza; and all the world allows that he is a saint."
"Your world, Annina, is this little corner of Italy. Well, and the viscontessa met him at a conversazione at Nicastro?"
"Exactly so, and won from him a hundred pieces of gold: he lost them with so good a grace that my lady was quite enchanted with him; for the more the colonel lost, the more merry he became. San Gennaro! I think he is a sorcerer, who can coin ducats from vine-leaves. He scatters a handful of gold among the servants every time he comes here! so you may easily imagine how much they are devoted to him. He is either Satan or a rich man, and has a way with him that makes all the men his slaves, and the girls his worshippers: that is, all save myself, signor. And then, such pretty things he says to the signorina, when they play together on their guitars! You would imagine he sat with the Lady Venus herself: but he says the very same things to the old viscontessa, when at cards after supper. O, that Giacomo was returned! I am sure he would not value his ducats or dread his dagger (I know he wears one) a rush. No, he would trim him well with a stout pole for presuming to make so free at the villa."
"I comprehend the hint. But one word more," said I, in a husky voice, while my heart palpitated with anxiety at this relation. "Have you heard aught of the visconte?"
"Only what you must surely know, that he has fled to the mountains: to Francatripa, they say, for abducting a nun. Madonna mia! what can tempt handsome young men to run off with these pale and melancholy frights, when so many plump and pretty women, with good flesh on their bones, are dying for husbands both in town and country."
"Annina, your tongue is again at full gallop. The visconte, then, is not here?"
"No; and yet I could have sworn that I heard him singing a barcarole in the wolf's chamber. God's grace! 'tis a place of gloom and mystery. Poor, dear young man! I hope he may come to no harm in these perilous times, when the hills and woods are swarming with Frenchmen and wolves, idle sbirri, starving peasantry, and desperate robbers."
Stepping hastily and cautiously, I passed through the beautiful garden, which extended from the terraces to the southward.