"No; I do not remember of this, Manfredi."
"Pray tell us about it," said Rose.
"Pray do," added Ethel.
"Wait, ladies, please, until the wheel is relieved, and I shall tell you a sad but simple tale of barbarous cruelty."
A tall, rawboned Yankee sailor, with a hooked nose and villainous square jaw, now relieved Zuares Barradas, who civilly touched his hat and went forward, just as the whist-players came on deck, and proceeded to exchange tobacco-pouches and light their pipes.
Immediately on discovering that the helmsman was changed, Hawkshaw appeared on deck and joined the group, to whom Manfredi proceeded to explain what he meant by relating one of the darkest stories that ever disgraced the pretty voluminous annals of continental military tyranny.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE STORY OF A BRAVE BOY.
"In 1850," began Adrian Manfredi, "I was, with my elder brother Attilio, a schoolboy at home, in our father's house at Pistoja, and had no more idea then of becoming a seaman or a wanderer on the sea, than I have now of filling the chair of St. Peter.
"Our father was a sculptor; his studio was always filled with choice efforts in Tuscan and Carrara marble, in alabaster and chalcedony. He was a leading member of the Academia delle Belle Arti: but in that land of artists his means were small; hence our living was frugal and our house somewhat humble, because it was very old, being the same in which Pope Clement IX. was born.