“Enough! Write on.”
As dictated, the requisition was written. The sheet of paper was folded, sealed with a piece of pitch, and directed to the landlord of the lodgings in which the English artist had set up his studio.
A man, in the garb of a peasant of the Campagna, was selected from the band; and, charged with the strange missive, at once despatched along the road that led towards the Eternal City.
After kicking down the temporary easel which our artist had erected, and pitching his slight sketch into the torrent below, the brigands commenced their march up the mountain—their captive keeping them company, with no very pleasant anticipation in regard to the treatment that might be in store for him.
Chapter Seventeen.
An Unlucky Recognition.
You are astonished at the young Englishman taking things so coolly? To be captured by Italian bandits, famed for their ferocity, is not a trifling affair. And yet so Henry Harding seemed to consider it.
The explanation is simple, and easily intelligible. At any other period he might not only have chafed at his captivity, but felt fear for the consequences. Just then he was suffering from two other sorrows, that made this seem light—to be scarcely considered at all. His disinheritance by his father was still fresh in his mind—still bitter; but far more bitter the rejection by his sweetheart.