"'Attilio Manfredi,' said he, 'listen! Your sentence has come hither in German, but I shall read it to you in Italian.'
"The boy bowed, played nervously with his hands, and said:
"'Dio il voglia, Signor Colonello—se piace a Dio!' ('God willing—if it please God!')
"'Attilio Manfredi,' resumed the tall Austrian, raising his voice with a hiccup at times, 'scholar of the Academy of Pistoja, son of Adrian Manfredi, sculptor, and member of the Academia delle Belle Arti, you have been accused and fully convicted of attempting, by bribery, to induce Corporal Carl Schwartz and Private Demetrius Spitzbübbel, with other soldiers of Veltmarshal Radetzki's Croatian Regiment, to desert the fatherly and benign service of his Imperial Majesty Ferdinand I., Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, Bohemia, Lombardy, and Venice, Dalmatia, Crotia, Sclavonia, Galicia, Lodomeria, and Illyria——'"
"Dash my wig!" exclaimed Captain Phillips; "why did he omit the Cannibal Islands, and the Viceroy Whanky-fum?"
"Count Rudolf paused to draw breath, as well he might after such a mouthful of words; and again the fine large eyes of the boy dilated with wonder, at a list of names that sounded so strange and barbarous to his Tuscan ear.
"'Have you the courage to hear your sentence?'
"'Si, signore; the blessed Madonna, who is alike the mother of my mother and me, support me!'
"'She does, my son!' cried Marraccini, with enthusiasm.
"'Silence!' exclaimed the count. 'Prisoner—you are to be shot to death by a platoon of twelve men.'