"He deliberately folded the despatch and drew back.
"'The mother of God receive me!' murmured the poor boy; then he added, in a feeble voice, 'Father Marraccini, when it is all over—when I am dead—cut off three locks of my hair: one for my dear father, one for dear, dear mother, and one for my little brother Adrian.'
"Here Manfredi drew a locket from his breast and kissed it.
"'You will keep my crucifix for yourself, in memory of your little penitent, and say masses for his soul.'
"It was now the old priest's turn to weep, and he wept aloud, while the brave little Attilio had not a tear in his eye.
"Hoarse, and harsh, and rapid were the German words of command, and in less than three minutes, a volley of twelve rifles that rang like thunder on the still midnight, waking all the echoes of the fortress and of the silent streets of Pistoja, announced that all was over—that the great crime had been committed!
"In five minutes more Attilio was flung into a hasty grave dug in the ditch beneath the castle wall, quicklime was cast over him, and there, uncoffined and unconsecrated, the Croats covered him up.
"My poor little brother!
"My father and mother could not survive the shock of this atrocity. They both died soon after; I was left alone in the world, and, turning my back upon Pistoja, became a sailor and a wanderer.
"A wooden cross nailed on the castle wall, by tine kind hand of Fra Marraccina, marked the uncouth grave of my brother till 1860, when the ecclesiastical and civic authorities of Pistoja took heart, and, with many grand and empty ceremonies, exhumed his sad remains, and reinterred them in a coffin within the church of the Confraternita dei Dolori, where they now lie, and may they rest in peace![*]