With his hat drawn over his eyes, and his arms folded on his breast, Santugo stood apart, regarding us with a flushed cheek, and a stern, yet troubled eye; while Andronicus had placed his crucifix against a tree, and was praying on his knees before it for my success, with all the energy and devotion of a monk of La Trappe.
The position I assumed, with my hands clenched, my left foot advanced, and my head well thrown back, was rather that of a boxer, than of a combatant in such a contest as that in which I figured. My antagonist bent forward on his left instep, keeping the arm muffled with his cloak before him as a buckler, while the right hand grasped the upraised poniard, ready to plunge it, to the hilt, in the first unprotected place.
After regarding me for a moment with eyes to which bitter animosity lent unusual vivacity, the colonel rushed upon me like a tiger.
More by chance than skill, I received the blade of the descending poniard in the thick folds of Zacheo's horse-cloak, and—contrary to all rule—before he could withdraw it, dealt him a tremendous blow under the left ear, causing his rattling jaws to clatter like a pair of castanets; when as if struck by lightning, he measured his length on the turf. Though given in a moment of confusion, it was a regular knock-down blow, which would have charmed the English gentlemen of the fancy; but Signor the Colonel Almario was quite unprepared for such a mode of fighting, and seemed in no way delighted with it. He lay for a moment motionless as if dead.
"Glorious!" exclaimed Santugo, while I took the poniard from the relaxed hand of my adversary, whose long curly ringlets and mustaches fell off one by one (as we raised him up), and revealed the shaven chin, close shorn hair, and firm swart features of one well-known to us.
"Now, by all the imps of Etna!" exclaimed Santugo, in a transport of fury and surprise, letting him fall heavily on the turf, "'tis the brigand—Francatripa!"
"Al vostro commando, (at your service)"—replied that personage, bowing with perfect nonchalance.
"Rascal! and you presumed to speak of love to Bianca of Santugo? Carpo di Baccho! I am half inclined to sabre him where he lies, to teach him the respect he owes to noble ladies!"
"Aye do, your excellency," cried Andronicus; "slay him—the impostor! his head is worth its weight in ducats: crush him like a torpedo—gash him across the throat like a lynx! Where, cattivo! have I left my knife? Only think, signor—his villains the other night, burned the village of Amato—plundered the shrine of the Virgin, whose milk is preserved there in a bottle. O horror he broke off the neck and drank the contents!"
"Silence, dolt!" exclaimed Francatripa. "You have discovered me, gentlemen," continued the prostrate robber, whose throat I still grasped; "and what mean you to do now? I am in your power, and there is not a syndic or commandant in the Calabrias but would—notwithstanding that I stand so high in the Queen's favour—give a thousand pieces of gold for my head. However, as it is of more use to me, they shall not have it for ten times that number. Maladetto! how it rings after that crackjaw! Do you mean to make me prisoner?"