"Macnaisha—Macnaisha—you devil you, come here!" The doctor arrived in a moment, but the cavalier was beyond his skill: there was not the slightest warmth or pulsation. The gallant, the noble, and chivalric Castelermo had perished by the hand of a cowardly assassin. Buried to the very cross-guard, in his heart, a little ebony-hilted poniard, was struck, with such force that some strength had to be exerted to draw it forth; and on my doing so a strip of paper, attached to the pommel, attracted our attention; it contained these words:—
"Let those who would avenge this insolent Briton, seek me among the ranks of the French at Cassano: a word I might have forgiven—a blow never.—Pietro Navarro."
Although boiling with indignation, I shuddered at the fate I had so narrowly escaped. For me it was that the fatal stroke had been intended; and I then remembered Castelermo's warning, to beware of the cowardly Navarro. Clambering up by a garden-wall, the miscreant had reached our casement, which he had contrived to open noiselessly; but on entering the room he had mistaken the unfortunate cavalier's bed for mine, and my friend had thus perished in my stead.
"The blow must have been struck about midnight," said Macnesia.
Only an hour after we retired to rest: perhaps Navarro had been outside the window during the greater part of the night watching our preparations for the intended meeting next morning. But with three hundred of our soldiers we had all a narrower escape from this Italian's hatred and duplicity: of which the reader shall hear more anon.
The Signoressa Pia was overwhelmed with consternation and dismay on learning that the knight of Malta had perished under her roof. Followed by a mob of fishermen, the podesta, with his clerk, arrived and committed to writing a statement of the facts; while I preserved the poniard and the assassin's signature for production and evidence, should a day of retribution ever arrive.
Enraged at this act of sacrilege, the populace searched every nook and corner in the town; two or three old knights of Castelermo's order, who resided in the neighbourhood, armed and mounted their followers and servants, who, in conjunction with those of the podesta, and a detachment of our light troops, scoured the whole country round: yet without success. Navarro was nowhere to be found: but we soon after learned that he had sought refuge behind the lines of his friends, the French; who still remained entrenched at Cassano, awaiting the slow advance of Massena.
In the solitary mountain-chapel of San Bartolommeo, poor Castelermo was interred with military honours: the grenadiers of Sir Louis de Watteville, drawn up outside the edifice, fired three volleys over it, while the coffin was lowered down in front of the altar; where he now lies with his mantle, sword and spurs, like a knight "of old Lisle Adam's days."
He was one of the last cavaliers of the original order, which for two hundred and sixty-eight years had possessed the Isle of Malta. Since 1800, when France ceded the Rock to Britain, they have been gradually declining in power and disappearing; and, although at the petty courts of Italy a few aged men are sometimes seen with the eight-pointed cross of the order on their bosoms, the Knights of Rhodes and St. John of Jerusalem have, in effect, passed away: like Castelermo himself, their glory is now with the things that were.
Unfortunately I was not present to witness the celebration of my friend's obsequies. On the close of this day, which had commenced so inauspiciously, I had returned with the Light Infantry, and wearied by a long search among the woods and hills, was sitting dejectedly in my billet alone, when Pierce, the general's orderly, arrived with a message, that I was wanted by his master. I took up my sabre, and followed him to the antique mansion where I had first seen Sir John Stuart, on my arrival at Scylla.