"Lazy dog! Can't he drive faster—keeping us grilling here in the heat! I should like to have the use of his whip for a few minutes and try its effect upon his shoulders!" Such was the impatient exclamation of Horace Cleveland, as for the third time he thrust his head out of the carriage window.

"I wish that we had never come to Calabria at all!" sighed his mother. Horace was resuming his lounging position in the carriage, after hurling a few Italian words of abuse at the driver, as she added, "It was a nonsensical whim of yours, Horace, to bring us into this wild land, when we might have remained in comfort at Naples, with every convenience around us, such as my weak health so much requires."

"Convenience!" repeated Horace contemptuously. "Would you compare the luxuries of Naples, its drives, its bouquets, its ices, its idle amusements, with the glorious scenery of a land like this? Look what a splendid mountain rises there, all clothed to the very summit with myrtle, aloes, and cactus, where here and there stands a tall palm, like the king of the forest, overlooking the rest. And see what an expanse—what an ocean of olives stretches yonder!"

"I do not admire the olive, with its rugged stem and dull dingy leaves," observed Mrs. Cleveland.

"Not when the breeze ruffles those leaves, and shows their silver linings? Look there now,—how beautiful they appear under the brightness of an Italian sky!"

"I am too weary to admire anything," said Mrs. Cleveland with a yawn, "and it seems as if we were never to reach the inn at Staiti. The heat is almost suffocating."

"I say," halloed Horace to the driver, "how long shall we be in arriving at Staiti?"

The Italian shrugged his shoulders, and without taking the trouble to turn round made reply, "We shall not be there till twenty-four o'clock, signore."

"Twenty-four o'clock!" exclaimed Horace; not surprised, however, by the expression, as the reader may possibly be, as he was familiar with the Italian mode of reckoning the twenty-four hours from sunset to sunset. "Is there no inn,—no locanda, where we could rest on the way?"

"Si, signore," answered the Calabrese, pointing onwards with his whip to a small, irregularly built house, which seemed wedged between two masses of rock overgrown with cactus, and which was so much of the color of the cliffs, that one might fancy that it had grown out of them.

"It looks much more picturesque than comfortable," observed Horace, drawing back his head, and showing the inn to his mother.

"Let's stop there—or anywhere," gasped Mrs. Cleveland, fanning herself with the air of one whose patience as well as strength is almost exhausted. "I can go no further to-day."

"We can stop and bait," said Horace; and again he leaned out of the window to give his orders to the driver in the haughty tone of command which he seemed to think befitting an English "milordo."

It was clear at a glance that Horace Cleveland regarded himself as one of the lords of creation, and, from national or family or personal pride, considered himself superior to all such of his fellow-creatures as he might meet in Calabria. His manner, even to his mother, was petulant and imperious. Horace Cleveland had had, indeed, much to foster his vanity and strengthen his pride. Horace occupied a proud position in his school, and he plumed himself not a little upon it.

"The boy is father of the man," sang the poet; and on the strength of that aphorism, Horace built up a high tower of airy hopes. He had been accustomed to be admired, imitated, followed, in the little world of a public school, and he expected to hold the same place in the great world, which he soon must enter. Horace felt himself born to command.

The youth's triumphs at school had hardly tended to make him more agreeable at home. He was an only child, and his widowed mother regarded him as her all in all. Very proud was Mrs. Cleveland of his talents, very proud of his success: with fond admiration she gazed on his open, handsome countenance,—the high forehead, the clear gray eye, and thought that amongst all his companions none could compare with her son. And yet Mrs. Cleveland was by no means altogether contented with Horace. She would have been better pleased had he exhibited less spirit and more submission.

Horace was eager to claim a man's independence; Mrs. Cleveland clung to a parent's authority. It is probable that the lady would have retained more influence over her boy, had she exercised it more judiciously. She had been as an unskillful rider, who, instead of keeping a light but firm hand on the bridle, alternately threw down the rein and caught it up to jerk the mouth of his restive steed, and irritate its temper. Delicate health and weak nerves had combined to make the widowed lady sometimes peevish, and even unreasonable: and her will often clashed with that of her son to a degree that caused a painful jar upon the feelings of both. Thus those who were dearer to each other than all the world besides, were each not unfrequently a source of annoyance and irritability even to the being best beloved.

"I am sure that it was great folly to come to Calabria at all!" exclaimed Mrs. Cleveland, as the chaise drew up at the door of the inn.

Now this was what Horace could not endure to hear, since it had been to gratify his wishes, and quite against her own judgment, that his mother had quitted Naples for the mountainous south of Italy. Moreover Horace had heard that same exclamation nearly ten times already on that day, and the effect of heat and weariness had drawn largely on his stock of patience. Ready to vent his ill-humor on the first thing that he touched, Horace flung open the door of the chaise as he might have hit at a foe, and rudely pushed aside a young Italian who had come forward to help the lady to alight.

The hot blood rose to the stranger's sun-burnt cheek, and a look of anger, instantly repressed, passed like lightning over his face.

Mrs. Cleveland caught the look, transient as it was, and as she walked into the inn, laid her hand on the arm of her son, and whispered to him in English:

"For mercy's sake, do not treat these people with rudeness. You know that all these Italians carry stilettos in their vests; we are alone—amongst strangers!"

Horace's only reply was a look to express contempt for all Italians in general, and this one in particular, and a disregard for all considerations founded upon personal fear. He snatched up a grip, and one or two shawls from the chaise, and carried them into the locanda, being too much out of humor to offer his mother the support of his arm.

Mrs. Cleveland was shown into the little inn by its master, who came forth to meet her. He was a stout, red-faced man with one eye, and a countenance by no means prepossessing.

"Giuseppina! Giuseppina!" he shouted.

A Calabrese girl, barefooted, attired in a bright blue dress with an orange border, and wearing large gold ear-rings and chain, came to answer the call. Guided by her, the weary lady entered a small, close room which might be termed the parlor, but which was evidently put to many more uses.

The entrance of the visitors disturbed a hen and a whole brood of sickly chickens, which cackling and fluttering made a hasty retreat across the threshold. On one part of the dirty earthen floor was piled a set of empty wine-skins, the odor from which blended with the more disagreeable scent from some thousands of silk-worm cocoons, heaped together in a corner.

"Have you no better quarters to give us than this hole?" cried Horace to Giuseppina in the Italian language, which he spoke with ease.

"No, signore," replied the girl, as she swept from the table a confused litter of old sacking, chaff and oakum, in order to make preparation for the coming meal, which Horace, with a look of disgust, forthwith proceeded to order. Mrs. Cleveland, being less familiar with the language, usually left such arrangements to her son.

"What can you give us?" asked Horace.

"Ebene, signore, maccaroni," replied the barefooted maiden.

"Maccaroni, of course, and what besides?"

Giuseppina glanced to the right at the wine-skins, then to the left at the heap of cocoons, as if to gather from them some culinary idea, shrugged her shoulders and suggested "omelet," but in a tone expressive of doubt.

"Omelet then, and anything else that you may have, and be quick, for the lady is weary and wants refreshment!" cried Horace.

Giuseppina showed her white teeth in a smile, and quitted the parlor.

"One is stifled in this horrible den!" exclaimed Horace, stalking up to the window, and throwing it open. Very little air was admitted on that sultry afternoon, but there came the sound of voices from without.

"What are the people doing outside, Horace?" faintly inquired Mrs. Cleveland.

"Like Italians—doing nothing," was the reply. "They are merely gathering round that young man whom we saw at the door, apparently to listen to his singing, for he has a guitar in his hand."

"That Italian whom you struck?" inquired Mrs. Cleveland.

"I did not strike him—I only pushed him back. These fellows must be taught to know their own place," Horace haughtily replied.

"My dear boy," said Mrs. Cleveland, leaning forward on the chair on which she had wearily sunk, "you must acquire, indeed you must, a more gentle and conciliatory manner. In a wild, strange place like this, altogether out of the bounds of civilization, a thoughtless act might bring serious trouble—a wanton insult might cost a life!"

Horace did not answer, and as he remained looking out the window, his mother could not see on his face the effect of her gentle reproof; she saw, however, that he was impatiently moving his foot up and down, which was his trick when he had to listen to anything which it did not please him to hear.

A few chords on a guitar, touched by a skillful hand, were now heard, and immediately the hum of voices without was silenced.

"I hate to see a man play a guitar!" exclaimed Horace. As he spoke, the tones of a voice singularly melodious and rich mingled with those of the instrument, and Mrs. Cleveland, weary as she felt, was lured to the window to listen.

Surrounded by a group of Calabrese stood the musician. He was simply but picturesquely attired, after the fashion of his country; the red jacket, not worn, but carried across the shoulder ready to be put on in season of rain, left exposed to view the white shirt. A felt hat, of a somewhat oval shape, shaded a countenance which, with its classical outlines and thoughtful expression, could have formed a study for an artist. The song of the young Italian, translated into English, might run thus:—

If to pine in a dungeon were e'er my fate
When light struggled in through the iron grate,
What view would most soothe my unwearied eye,—
The boundless ocean—the earth—or sky?
Oh! not the ocean!—its ceaseless swell
With my restless grief would accord too well;
The voice of its wild waves would break my sleep,
And the captive bend o'er his chain and weep.
'Twere sweet to gaze on the laughing earth,
And view, though distant, its scenes of mirth.
Ah, no! ah, no! they would but recall
Life's flowers to one who had lost them all.
The sky, the sky, unbounded, bright,
With its silvery moon, and its stars of light,
The blush of morning, the evening glow,
Its passing clouds, and its radiant bow,—
There—there would I fix my unwearied eye,
Till fancy could paint a bright world on high,
And earth and its sorrows would fade in night,
With freedom before me—and heaven in sight!

[CHAPTER II.]

A SUSPICIOUS CHARACTER.

"Who is that singer?" inquired Mrs. Cleveland in broken Italian of the girl Giuseppina, who had just reentered the room with a large dish of maccaroni which looked like a pile of tobacco-pipes.

"Improvisatore," answered the girl.

"What is that?" inquired Horace.

"An improvisatore," replied Mrs. Cleveland, "is one who makes poetry on the spur of the moment. This class of minstrels is, I believe, peculiar to Italy, the beautiful language of the country giving facility to rapid composition. Do you suppose," she continued, addressing herself to Giuseppina, "that the young man really made that song about prisons himself?"

"Prisons," repeated the Calabrese, with a slight but expressive shrug of the shoulders; "I should say that Raphael might very well sing about prisons."

"You don't mean us to understand," said Horace, "that, young as he seems, he has been acquainted with the inside of them?"

"Chi sa? (Who knows?)" replied the girl, with another expressive shrug, as she placed his dish upon the table.

"He was never imprisoned, I trust, for any crime?" inquired Mrs. Cleveland, more uneasy than ever at the recollection of Horace's rudeness to the stranger.

"Chi sa?" repeated the girl.

"I cannot believe," said the lady, "that there can lurk much harm in one with such a countenance, and such an exquisite voice."

"Oh, he's an Italian!" cried Horace, who rather prided himself on his prejudices.

Giuseppina lingered, fidgeting about the table, moving the dish now to the right, now to the left, as if she could never satisfy herself that she had placed it perfectly straight.

"Does this Raphael, as you call him," said Horace, "earn his living by his music?"

"Chi sa?" repeated Giuseppina, not looking up, but showing her teeth in a meaning smile.

"Does the idle fellow do nothing but sing and play?"

"He cures the sick also," replied Giuseppina; "he gathers herbs, and has wonderful power to take away fever, and to heal wounds from sword or from shot. But," she added, crossing herself, and shaking her head, "the abate (abbot) says that none can tell how he came by his knowledge."

"This Raphael is looked upon, then, as rather a suspicious character?"

Giuseppina dropped her voice, and looked as if the desire to impart information were struggling with a fear of danger from so doing as she made answer:

"He is certainly no stranger to Matteo."

The last word was pronounced in a whisper so low, that both Mrs. Cleveland and her son had to bend forward to catch the name.

"Who is Matteo?" asked Horace.

Giuseppina raised her hands and eyebrows with a gesture of surprise.

"Not know Matteo! All the world knows Matteo!" she said with low but rapid utterance, glancing around her as she did so, as if to make sure that no third listener was present. "We don't speak of him—no one speaks of him—but—"

"But?" said Horace with some curiosity, as the speaker came to a pause.

"Oh!" continued Giuseppina, with the same stealthy look and quick utterance. "Did not the signori hear how the government courier was stopped and robbed of three hundred dollars on the high road, and the Cavaliero Donato waylaid and shot dead? It is said that they owed him a grudge. And the Contessa Albani was attacked in her detturino and all her jewels taken, and her servants knocked on the head!"

"By whom—by this Matteo?" asked Horace, while his mother, who only understood half of the girl's information, clasped her hands with a gesture of alarm.

"Zitto! (Hush!)" whispered the talkative Calabrese, who appeared, however, greatly to relish the diversion of frightening an English lady. Horace looked as if he could not be frightened.

"And does your government do nothing to keep down such banditti?" said young Cleveland. "What are the soldiers about?"

"I soldati! Ah!" replied Giuseppina with an expressive nod. "There was a party of them here to-day, horsemen, on their way to Reggio; they had a prisoner with them, arms bound behind his back—" The girl put back her own elbows and scowled darkly, as if acting the part of a captured bandit.

"I hope that it was this Matteo!" cried Horace.

"Zitto! (Hush!)" again whispered the girl. "It was not Matteo—they said it was his son."

"I suppose that the soldiers were taking him to Reggio for trial!"

Giuseppina again nodded her head.

"And what is likely to become of him?"

The girl twisted her finger in the chain which she wore, tightening it round her neck, but only answered with a shrug, "Chi sa?" And quitted the room to bring in the rest of the dinner.

"Horace! What a dreadful place we have come to!" gasped Mrs. Cleveland.

The youth laughed as he seated himself at the table. "It is clear that one has some chance of an adventure in Calabria," said he.

"Keep me from adventures!" exclaimed the lady. "Did not the girl tell us—I could hardly understand her, for she spoke so fast—of people being robbed and murdered on the high road by banditti?"

"Ah! But the soldiers are wide awake," suggested Horace, helping the maccaroni. "I hope that they—" (he was not now speaking of the military) "will bring us something better worth eating than this!"

Giuseppina pushed the door open with her knee, and reentered, a dish of omelet in one hand, a second full of snow in the other, and a bottle of wine under her arm.

"Where will the soldiers be to-night?" asked Mrs. Cleveland with some anxiety. "I wish that we had asked for an escort."

"They'll be at Staiti, no doubt," answered Giuseppina, setting down the viands which she had brought.

"We'll be at Staiti to-night also," said Horace; adding in English, "so, mother, you need fear nothing."

"Staiti to-night! No, it would be dark ere the signori could arrive there," observed Giuseppina; "The signori can have good beds here."

"Here!" exclaimed Horace, looking around him in disgust. "The place is not fit for a hound!"

"But, my dear child," said Mrs. Cleveland, "safety is to be thought of even before comfort."

Horace replied to his mother, like herself speaking in English, which Giuseppina, unnecessarily loitering by the table, tried to understand with her eyes, as it conveyed no meaning to her ears: "You talk of safety as if this place were safe. Have you not just heard that one of the gang of banditti is below—a fellow let loose from a prison?"

"The improvisatore?" said Mrs. Cleveland. "I did not understand that he was actually one of the band."

"But I did," pursued Horace, in his overbearing manner; "and I saw the master of this very house, who, by the way, looks a ruffian if ever there was one, in close conference with this very Raphael, who has doubtless come here for no good."

Mrs. Cleveland pushed away the plate of untasted food before her, nervous anxiety having taken from the weary lady all inclination to eat. Horace, to whom a little danger was rather a pleasant excitement, had already half demolished the omelet.

"The signora is not well, the signora must not travel further to-day," suggested Giuseppina.

Horace glanced up hastily at his mother; but seeing on her anxious countenance nothing to excite his fears for her health, he impatiently motioned to the girl to quit the room, as he felt more at his ease when her black eyes were not watching his lips, Giuseppina with lingering step withdrew.

"I wish that you would eat, mother; you know that you will be quite exhausted, if you don't," cried Horace in a tone of vexation.

"I can't travel in the dark—I can't go to be waylaid—robbed—perhaps—"

"Don't you see," cried Horace, striking the handle of his spoon on the table to give more force to his argument, "that if we stay here we are just as likely to come to grief? Have you never heard or read of horrid little wayside inns kept by robbers in disguise; of beds contrived to fall down upon travelers and crush them; of stealthy footsteps at night—and all that sort of thing? Now this seems to be exactly the place for such an unpleasant adventure."

"Oh, why did we ever come to Calabria?" exclaimed Mrs. Cleveland, sinking back in her chair.

Horace felt some self-reproach for thus adding to the terrors of his mother. He hastily finished his omelet, and said in a more reassuring voice—

"You see, mother dear, if we once get to Staiti, we'll be under the wing of the law: you can travel with a military escort like a queen."

"But it is the journey to Staiti—"

"Never fear that, it will soon be over; anything is better than stopping here."

Horace presently pushed back his chair, and, rising from the table, said to Mrs. Cleveland, "I'm going to order Jacomo to put to the horses; the sooner we're off, the better;" and without waiting to hear his mother's objections, the youth hastily left the apartment.

"Willful, unmanageable boy!" murmured the lady to herself. "He thinks that he knows better than every one else, and I feel too much exhausted and worn out to oppose him. The charge of such an ungovernable child is too much for a poor widow like me. I should never have yielded to his entreaties, and come to this horrible, desolate place. If I once find myself again in a civilized land, once again know the comforts of a home, nothing on earth shall persuade me to go a second time upon a wild expedition such as this."

[CHAPTER III.]

BITTER WORDS.

Horace found Jacomo the driver seated outside the door of the inn, enjoying al fresco (in the open air) a large plateful of maccaroni. As Horace came towards him, the man looked a thoroughly characteristic specimen of his nation—half supporting himself on his elbow, while his head was thrown back to enable him with more convenience to drop into his mouth some six inches length of the white moist tube, to which he was helping himself with his fingers!

"Jacomo, put in the horses at once: we must make good speed to reach Staiti to-night," said Horace.

The Italian stared at the speaker with a look of surprise and dissatisfaction. "The signor forgets that the day is advanced, the way mountainous, the horses tired, the signora faint, and the roads not safe after dark," said the man; "it would be no wise act to start before morning."

"That is for me to decide, and not for you," said the young Englishman with hauteur.

"You can have excellent accommodation here—good beds, good fare—what more can the signori require?" said the one-eyed host, pointing towards the inn with a peculiar and stealthy expression in his disagreeable face, which confirmed Horace in his resolution to depart.

"Jacomo, harness the horses, and directly!" he exclaimed. "If there be any delay, not an extra carlino (a small coin) shall you have at the end of the Journey."

The driver, with an exclamation directed to his patron saint and some mutterings which Horace did not understand, began making preparations to obey, moving his lazy limbs more leisurely than suited the impatience of his employer. The host, shrugging his shoulders, went into the inn. As Horace was about to follow him thither, the improvisatore, who had been standing under the shadow of a neighboring tree unperceived by the youth, came forward and crossed over between him and the door, not looking at Horace, nor appearing to observe him, but as he passed close in front of him, dropping the words "Do not go," in a low but earnest tone.

Horace glanced in surprise after the speaker; startled by so strange a warning from the last person whom he should have expected to give one. He would have liked to have questioned Raphael, but the improvisatore had already disappeared.

"I wonder if it be wise to start," thought Horace, whose resolution for the first time began to waver; "yet I have no reason to trust this stranger, who seems to bear an evil character, even amongst the people of this place."

"The signor has changed his mind?" inquired Jacomo with a grin—the man having probably detected a look of indecision upon the face of young Cleveland.

This way of putting the question fixed the determination of Horace, who secretly prided himself upon what he thought strength and decision of character. "I never change my mind," he said haughtily; "I shall be ready to start in ten minutes. Let me then find the carriage at the door, or you shall have reason to repent of the delay."

In about a quarter of an hour the vehicle stood ready in front of the inn. The one-eyed man, who seemed to combine in himself the offices of landlord and ostler, was there to see his guests depart. Giuseppina was at the door, and about half-a-dozen barefooted brown urchins, crowded together like bees to view the strangers enter the carriage, as they had stared a few hours before at the soldiers bearing the bandit away. Raphael stood with folded arms near the heads of the horses. He exchanged words with no one, nor seemed to take notice of the whispered remarks of the children who glanced at him ever and anon.

"The soldiers had him once," said one boy, pointing to the improvisatore; "did they tie his arms behind him? I wonder whether he has the marks on his wrists."

"How did he get away? Did Matteo break his prison, and set him free?"

"Perhaps the soldiers let him off because he sings so fine!" suggested one black-eyed little damsel, with uncombed hair falling in dark masses on each side of her merry brown face.

"I like Raphael; he cured my bad leg, and he speaks so kind," said another.

"But he's a bad man, I know he's a bad man," whispered a thin, sallow child with a solemn look, "he does not bow to the Madonna, nor touch the holy water."

"He does!" exclaimed the former speaker, indignant at so dark an imputation being thrown on his benefactor.

"But he does not," persisted the sallow child; "I've watched him again and again; he never bows to the holy image, nor crosses himself; and I don't believe that he tells his beads, or ever goes to confess. Mother says that he's a wicked man, and prays to none of the saints."

The faintest approach to a smile on the lips of the young Italian alone betrayed that he heard any part of the conversation of which he was the subject.

The attention of the children was now diverted to the travelers who were leaving the inn. "How pale the signora is! Does she not look anxious and frightened?" were the whispers exchanged among the group.

Uneasy and irresolute Mrs. Cleveland certainly was. Horace, who, however faulty in other respects, never concealed anything from his mother, had told her of the warning of Raphael; and as he led her to the carriage, lingering and reluctant, he was warmly combating the idea that the Italian's words should have the slightest effect in influencing their movements.

"Doubtless he is playing into the hands of this Matteo, of whose atrocities we have been hearing, and who will be as savage as a bear at the capture of his son. Common sense tells us that we should put no faith in this stranger; a low musician, a jailbird, a companion of thieves!"

These words were uttered aloud, of course in the English language, but as Mrs. Cleveland glanced at the improvisatore to judge by his face whether he merited the epithets given him, she again saw a sudden flush tinge the paleness of his cheek. Raphael stepped forward, as if to help her into the carriage, for her foot was already on the step, and again in low tones breathed the words "Do not go," but this time in English, though with an accent quite Italian.

Mrs. Cleveland started, and would have drawn back; but Horace at that moment almost lifted her into the carriage, and sprang in after her with a quickness which gave his nervous mother hardly time to think or to breathe.

"Horace—I can't go—I won't go—stop the driver—we will get out!" gasped the lady.

"Mother, it is nonsense; you will make us the laughing-stock of the place!" exclaimed Horace, who had caught sight of a leer upon the face of the one-eyed man, which had strengthened his suspicions as to the character of the low little inn in the mountains.

The driver cracked his whip, and the jingle of the horses' bells was heard as they moved forward on the white, dusty road.

The conscience of Horace smote him a little for the rudeness of his manner and words. "You know, mother," he said, in a softer tone, "that I must care for your comfort and safety."

"Comfort!" exclaimed Mrs. Cleveland with indignation. "Willful, ungrateful boy that you are, you never care for anything but your own selfish fancies!" And exhausted in strength, and wounded in feeling, the irritated mother burst into a flood of tears.

"Mother, I can't stand this!" exclaimed Horace, in extreme vexation at seeing her weep.

"You have planted many a thorn in my pillow," sobbed the lady; "you may find them one day on your own!"

Horace could not answer. His heart seemed to be rising into his throat. He pulled his cap low over his eyes, and leaned back in the corner of the carriage, wishing, with all his soul, that he had never come on the journey. He had been accustomed to chidings and reproaches, but not to tears, and each drop seemed to fall upon his heart like a drop of molten lead.

Horace had never but once before seen his parent weep upon his account, and the occasion which drew forth those tears was one of the most tender recollections of his childhood. Horace remembered the time when he had lain in his little cot, parched by fever, and when awakening again and again in the long, wretched nights, he had ever seen, by the dim light of the shaded candle, the form of his mother, ready to offer the cooling drink to relieve his burning thirst. He remembered how, as long as his danger continued, her calm courage had never failed her, faith and love supporting her through sleepless nights and miserable days; but that when the doctor had said at last, "The crisis is over, he will do well," her over-strained feelings had at length given way, and she had wept tears of thankful delight over the child who lay on her bosom!

How different from those glad tears were the drops which the wounded, disappointed parent was shedding now! A painful sensation came over Horace as the doubt suggested itself to his mind whether his mother would have felt such transport at his recovery had she known all that his petulance would cost her; nay, Horace was not certain whether, on the whole, her only and much-loved son had not given her more pain than pleasure. It was too true that he had thought more of his own selfish fancies than of the wishes of his tender parent; that he had often treated her with disrespect, and even with actual disobedience.

Horace's conscience told him that he had not honored his mother, nor made her happy; and he was so painfully stung by its reproaches that he was half inclined to call out to the driver to go back to the inn, as a kind of practical way of showing his parent that he regretted having preferred his own opinion to hers.

But the carriage was now plunging down a road so steep and narrow, that it we have been almost impossible to stop it, and quite impossible to turn. The utmost attention of the driver was required to keep his horses on their legs, and every now and then a tremendous jolt made Mrs. Cleveland grasp the side of the vehicle to prevent herself from being jerked out of her seat. She had ceased crying, but she was thoroughly displeased with her son, and was not disposed to address him again, even if the roughness of the road had not rendered it difficult to speak.

Horace knew that he ought to ask his mother's forgiveness at once, as he had often done when a child; but pride shrank from that simple course. As a compromise between conscience and pride, he said, with a little hesitation:

"I am sorry that I spoke so unguardedly about that mysterious Italian; though who could have dreamed of any one here comprehending the English tongue?"

Mrs. Cleveland made no reply, but continued gazing out of the carriage window in an opposite direction.

"And I am sorry," continued Horace with an effort, "that I said or did anything to vex you."

Still silence—still the averted face. This had not been the first, no, nor the fiftieth time that Horace had offended his mother, and such offences, though apparently trivial,—

"Make up in number what they lack in weight."

Constant friction produces on the mind the same effect that it does on the body—a rankling sore, more painful than the result of one sharp blow. A few affectionate words, a filial embrace, had often seemed sufficient reparation for an ebullition of hasty temper; love readily forgets and forgives; but when the conduct repented of to-day is repeated tomorrow, when hastiness becomes habitual, when pride and self-will gain increasing strength, what wonder if a feeling of resentment mingle even with maternal affection?

Mrs. Cleveland was in a state of nervous irritation, and not disposed to meet the constrained advances of her son. Deeply mortified by her silence, vexed with his mother, but far more vexed with himself, Horace again threw himself back in the carriage. No enjoyment could he find in surveying the exquisite landscape around him, over which the beams of the setting sun were now throwing a golden glory.

[CHAPTER IV.]

SEPARATION.

Scarcely had the upper rim of the golden sun dipped below the horizon, when the dark curtain of night was thrown over the landscape, spangled with tremulous stars. Horace was startled from his disagreeable reflections by what seemed almost like sudden darkness; and Mrs. Cleveland became yet more nervously alive to the dangers of the road, when she could no longer see their approach.

Having reached the bottom of a long, steep hill, Jacomo got down from his seat, and lit the carriage lamps. In reply to the lady's anxious question as to whether it would not yet be better to go back, he replied that it would now be as easy to proceed to Staiti as to return to the inn, for the road down which they had just descended was one fitted for goats rather than for horses. Jacomo muttered and: grumbled a good deal, as he remounted his seat, about the folly of having started at all; and words, though but half understood, did not tend reassure Mrs. Cleveland.

The momentary glare which the lamps threw in passing on gray rock, or gloomy thicket, seemed to make the darkness beyond more deep and oppressive; and the jingle of the horse-bells, and rumble of the wheels, but drearily broke the stillness of that unfrequented road.

Horace knew well that his mother was in an agony of nervous alarm, dreading to catch sight of a bandit behind every bush; and notwithstanding his natural courage, he began in some measure to share her apprehensions. Raphael's warning rang in his ears—and the more vividly memory recalled the countenance of him who had given it, the more Horace wondered at himself for having allowed so little weight to his words. Horace had often longed for an adventure; but night traveling through a wild and desolate country, known to be infested by robbers, has in it more of romance than of pleasure even to one of courageous spirit.

The road now lay through the deep recesses of a wood, where the boughs, meeting and intermingling above, formed an arch over the way, and blotted out from view the few stars that had gleamed in the sky.

Suddenly there was heard the sharp report of a pistol, which made Mrs. Cleveland start and shriek. The next moment, the horses were thrown violently back upon their haunches, and the lamplight dimly showed indistinct forms glancing like phantoms through the darkness. Then came wild, fierce faces at the window; the door was forced open and the travelers dragged out of the carriage almost before they had time to be certain that all was not some terrible dream!

Horace's first impulse was to defend his mother. All unarmed as he was, he struck at the man who had seized her, but received himself a sharp blow on the arm which made it drop stunned to his side. He glanced round, and that glance was sufficient to assure him that resistance would be utterly hopeless. There were at least five or six robbers around, most of them already busily engaged in rifling the carriage; and strange sounded their laughter and their jests as they drew forth now this thing—now that—dragging cloaks, bandboxes, dressing-case, umbrella, fan, to be piled in a heap on the road.

The bandit who had seized Mrs. Cleveland had already torn from her neck the gold chain, and with it the watch which she wore; and plunging his coarse hand into her pocket had turned it inside out, to make sure that none of its contents should escape him. Trembling as in a fit of ague, the poor lady had been constrained to pull off her gloves, and draw hastily from her icy fingers the jeweled rings which adorned them. Horace was half-maddened at the sight, but he had no power to protect his mother, he could but pass his left arm around her to support her from sinking, and glare at the spoilers with the vain wrath of one whose strength does not equal his spirit. Jacomo was on his knees, invoking the Virgin and all the saints to defend him! The robbers took little notice of him, save that one spurned him with his foot in passing and another sternly bade him cease his whining or he would dash out his brains.

Amidst the confusion and terrors of the scene, Horace yet retained his self-possession sufficiently to notice that none of the bandits kept any of the plunder, but that they placed it together in the heap before mentioned, probably with a view to division. The word "Matteo" was also occasionally heard amid the tumult of voices, and presently every eye was turned in one direction, whence came a crashing sound as if some one were forcing his way through the brushwood. Mrs. Cleveland had sunk on the ground, Horace was kneeling beside her, half supporting her drooping form, when there strode into the dimly lighted space, the tall figure of the chief of the banditti.

Matteo was a large and powerful man, with a countenance on which the character of ruffianism was so legibly stamped, that had he appeared in gentlemen's society under whatever auspices, with whatever name, or in whatever dress, a child would have instinctively shrunk from him, and a stranger's first thought have been:

"There is one whom I would rather not meet alone at night in a solitary place."

Grizzled was the shock of coarse hair thrown back from his dark face,—grizzled the untrimmed beard; but his thick beetling brows were intensely black, and almost joined together in one. The most repulsive feature was the mouth, of which the lower jaw projected, and which was furnished with teeth so irregular and large, that they suggested the idea of the fangs of some beast of prey. The alarm of Mrs. Cleveland increased when the light fell on the countenance of the man in whose power she knew herself to be. Clasping her hands, she gasped forth in broken Italian:

"Oh, mercy—we will pay ransom—we will give anything—only spare me and my son!"

"Ransom!" repeated Matteo in a hoarse voice. "We want from you something more than money." And turning sharply round to one of his companions, he inquired, "Has not the Rossignol returned?"

"Not yet," replied the young man addressed, who, though seemingly several years older than Raphael, bore so strong a likeness to him, that the first impression of the bewildered travelers had been that the musician whose warning they had neglected, and whom they had left behind at the little inn, had by some strange means overtaken the carriage. The second glance at Enrico had however quite removed such impression. The cast of the features might be alike,—there might be the same classical outline, the same delicately penciled brow,—but the expression of the face was utterly dissimilar. Instead of the calm thoughtfulness, tinged with melancholy, which had struck Mrs. Cleveland in the improvisatore, there was a restless wildness in this young man's eye, like that of a hunted animal, and a nervous twitch in his lip peculiarly apparent whenever he was addressed by Matteo.

"Why has he not returned?" growled Matteo. "And why did he go at all?"

"He went for tidings of your son, and he has not had time to return," was the answer.

"If he play me false," commenced the brigand,—grinding his white fangs instead of completing his sentence.

"He has not played you false, or these birds would not be in your net," cried Enrico, as he pointed to Horace and his mother.

Horace at once comprehended that "the Rossignol" (the Italian word for "nightingale") must be a cant name for Raphael; and that the musician, whatever might have been his motive in uttering his words of warning, must have incurred some risk by doing so.

Matteo now turned again towards his captives, and spoke as follows to the trembling lady, using violent gesticulation, and giving emphasis to his speech with the action of hand and foot:—

"You know, or you do not know, that the dogs of soldiers have seized my son; that they have dragged him off to a dungeon; that the sentence of a tyrannical judge may condemn him, as it has condemned other bold spirits before him. You are rich; a golden key opens all doors—ay, even the barred and bolted gate of a prison! You shall write to the government. You shall say that you are in Matteo's hands, at Matteo's mercy. You shall tell what conditions I offer. If Otto be set free, you shall be set free; if they hurt a hair of his head—" Matteo half unsheathed his stiletto, and the gleam of the cold blue steel spoke more forcibly than words.

"There is little use in writing," suggested Enrico; "these people are strangers—foreigners—a mere letter is thrown aside—blood is spilt while officials take their drive or their siesta. * Let one of the prisoners go, knowing that the life of the other hangs on the issue, and the dullest employé will be made to hear, the slowest to act: gold will be lavished freely, and Otto be a free man again."

* The noonday sleep which Italians habitually take

Mrs. Cleveland glanced anxiously from one speaker to the other, unable to catch the whole of their meaning, but understanding in a general way the nature of a discussion in which she was so deeply concerned.

"Right! Right!" exclaimed the robber. "We'll keep the lady and send off the boy."

"No!" exclaimed Horace, starting to his feet. "If a prisoner must remain in your hands, keep me and release my mother."

"Oh, my child! My child!" cried the lady. "Never shall they part us—never!" and she stretched out her clasped hands to Matteo in an attitude of agonizing entreaty.

"I'll send her," growled the brigand; "she is a mother. She will not spare cries or tears to wring mercy out of the merciless. Hear me, woman!" he continued in a louder tone, to the trembling supplicant before him. "You shall go to those high in power and plead for my son as you would plead for your son; and pour out your gold to those who never yet refused gold, yea, if it were the last ducat which you possessed to keep you from beggary. If Otto be standing here in three days—"

"Three days are not enough," interrupted Enrico, "you require an impossibility; application may have to be made to Naples, to the king himself."

"Ay, ay," said the brigand impatiently; "Naples is more than a stone's throw, and time may be needed, even though love and fear alike give wings. If, woman, in seven days my son be standing here free and uninjured," Matteo stamped on the ground as he spake, "free and uninjured shall your son be restored; if there be an hour's delay—" Matteo uttered with an oath some threat which the lady could not understand, but of its horrible nature she could judge both by the gesture of him who made it, and by the livid paleness which overspread the face of her son.

"O Horace! What does he say?" she exclaimed.

"Never mind, mother; it was something that you had better not understand. You know quite enough. You know that my life depends upon your procuring within seven days the release of this Otto, this son of Matteo."

Horace spake less distinctly than usual, and even his lips looked bloodless and white.

Matteo turned to the heap of plunder. "Is everything here?" he sternly inquired.

"Everything," promptly replied several voices.

The brigand pointed to Jacomo. "Make that fellow take the reins again," he said, "and drive as one who drives for his life. Thrust the woman back into the carriage; she must be at Staiti within the hour."

Two or three rude hands were instantly laid on Mrs. Cleveland, but she clung to her son as if it were to death instead of to liberty and safety that she was to be hurried. In that moment of terror and anguish, all his faults and her own perils were forgotten. The mother thought only of her child. To tear her from him was to rend asunder the very strings of her heart!

"Mother, dear, don't give way like this. There's no use resisting, no use entreating. We may yet meet again. All may be well. Don't you give these wretches an excuse for treating you roughly." And as he uttered these broken sentences, Horace tried gently himself to unclose those clinging arms.

It was only, however, by sheer force that the robbers tore Mrs. Cleveland away from her boy, and her cry as they were severed, rang in the ears of Horace like a death-knell. He had a terrible persuasion at that moment that he was parted from his mother never to see her again. A crowd of recollections rushed through the youth's brain: a consciousness that he had been a self-willed, undutiful son; that his conduct had caused all this misery; that he had forgiveness to implore for a thousand faults, and yet that his tongue had no power to ask for it.

Horace saw his mother dragged to the carriage, and rather thrown than lifted into it. From her silence after that one cry, he believed that her senses must have failed her, and was almost thankful for that belief.

He saw a robber strike one of the horses with something that made it, weary as it was, bound forward with such frantic violence that Jacomo was almost unseated. His exclamation of terror raised hoarse laughter from the lawless band, and before that laughter had ceased, the carriage with its gleaming lamps had disappeared in the darkness, and Horace stood, helpless and alone, a captive in the midst of banditti.

[CHAPTER V.]

ROUGH COMPANY.

If one feeling were more overpowering than another to Horace at that trying hour, it was the pang of remorse—despair of ever being able to make up by devotion in the future for ingratitude and disobedience in the past. Oh! That the selfish and self-willed would anticipate the hour of final separation from one whose tender love they are now throwing away as a worthless thing, under whose reproofs they chafe, for whose infirmities they have no indulgence! A time may come when they will in vain wish that by the loss of every earthly possession they could purchase one smile from the eyes, one fond word from the lips of a now neglected parent.

Horace was roused from his gloomy thoughts by the hoarse voice of Matteo. "Has any one brought the irons?" he said.

With a heavy clanking sound, a robber threw down on the ground an old pair of shackles, red with rust, which had, probably at some remote period, been worn by one of the band. Matteo pointed with his coarse finger to Horace—a significant action which required no explanation. As the fetters were being fastened over the slender ankles of the youth, the chief bade Enrico take charge of the prisoner, for whose safety he should answer with his own.

Then followed a division of the spoil. Mrs. Cleveland's dressing-case and desk were forced open with a dagger—the contents of her purse counted out, the various articles of her luggage placed in separate heaps. Reserving almost all the gold for himself, Matteo distributed his booty.

Most of the robbers looked discontented, but not one dared to utter a murmur. Horace saw with bitter emotion his mother's most valued trinkets in these rude hands; the Maltese cross which he himself had given, the mourning brooch with his father's hair, nay, the very wedding ring which had united his parents, were profaned by the touch of fingers which might be stained with murder. These papers, some of them priceless to her who had once owned them, were thrown away or trampled underfoot.

Matteo beckoned Enrico to some little distance, apparently to give him some orders, and their departure seemed to be the signal for more unrestrained and lawless mirth. Then also the murmurs which had been checked by the presence of the dreaded chief broke out amongst such of the band as had been disappointed in their share of the plunder.

"What am I to make of trumpery like this?" exclaimed one robber, holding up to view with great contempt a silver gray cloak with a hood, a black gown, a lace-trimmed parasol, and a fan!

His appeal was answered by a roar of laughter.

"You may set up for a gentlewoman, Beppo!" shouted one.

"My share matches yours," laughed another, "you've the dress, and I've the dressing-case!"

"Ay, with silver tops to all the bottles," growled Beppo. "I'll make an exchange if you will."

The offer was only received with a louder burst of merriment, and the disappointed Beppo turned fiercely towards Horace.

"Here's a garment more to my mind!" he cried. And flinging down his bundle of woman's clothes, the robber seized hold of the indignant and struggling captive, and by force dispossessed him of his coat.

The gang gathered around, much amused at the scene, laughing uproariously at the vain passionate resistance of Horace.

"There's more peel on the orange," cried one, and the young captive might have had to submit to further indignities had not Enrico come to the rescue.

"Hold!" he cried. "The prisoner is in my charge, no one has a right to touch him but me."

"For seven days," said Beppo significantly, "he'll want no clothes after that." And putting out his large, coarse foot, he added with a laugh, "In seven days, I'll have hosen and boots. I take it that his will just fit me!"

"It's a shame to dig a man's grave before his eyes!" exclaimed Enrico.

"Shame!" repeated Beppo angrily. "Don't come it your brother over us; it's enough to have one lunatic in a family, say I."

Without taking any notice of the insult, Enrico touched Horace on the shoulder and bade him come with him; which the youth was ready enough to do—it being an unutterable relief to him to be removed, even for a short time, from the company of the rest of the lawless band. Enrico led his captive into the deep recesses of the wood, seeming to find his way by instinct through the darkness in which shining fireflies glanced and played.

Horace envied them their liberty. He walked with difficulty and pain. His fetters not only impeded his movements but chafed his ankles. He stumbled over the inequalities of the ground, struck against branches which he could not see, and his chain caught and entangled in brambles, and he often felt inclined to throw himself down on the ground in utter despair of getting on. Enrico neither pitied nor appeared to notice his sufferings, but hurried him on through the thicket.

Horace, who, notwithstanding his fetters, grasped strongly the hope of future escape, was eagerly on the watch for landmarks, and strained his eyes in the darkness to find some. The rippling sound of water, and the occasional glimpse which he caught through the trees of what appeared to be a stream, seemed to supply something like a guide. His hope strengthened as the noise increased so greatly that Horace felt certain that they were approaching a cataract plunging down the side of the mountain, the roar of waters could not be mistaken, though nothing was visible to the eye. Before Enrico reached what must be the head of the fall, he turned sharply round to the left, and grasping his captive by the wrist, made him follow in the same direction.

"Is there not a cataract yonder?" asked Horace; it was the first time that he had addressed his jailer.

"Sheer two hundred feet over the rocks," was the reply; "we call it 'Cascata della Morte (the death fall),' for a miserable wretch was once whirled over the edge."

"And perished?" inquired Horace.

"As surely," answered Enrico, "as if he had flung himself from the top of St. Peter's or down into the crater of Vesuvius. The remains, when recovered from the stream in the valley yonder, scarcely retained semblance of the human form."

Horace hardly paid attention to the concluding words, he was so carefully surveying the path before him. He had left the thick wood behind him, and had now to pass along a ledge of rock, which seemed like a shelf jutting out of the mountain, and which overhung a precipice of whose depth there was not sufficient light to enable him to judge. To Horace a vast chasm of darkness appeared to spread to the right.

Here Enrico and his prisoner were challenged by a robber who had been left as a sentinel to guard this dangerous post.

"Chi va là?" (Who goes there?) cried the man.

Enrico gave the word "Morte," and passed on with his captive.

"I think that I might possibly find my way back from hence to the high road," thought Horace, "with the sound of the water to guide me, were I only freed from these shackles. But if a sentinel be always placed here on the watch, it would render escape well-nigh impossible. One blow would send one reeling over that rock into depths that it makes the brain dizzy to think of!"

Enrico now again struck into the forest, and here the path became so very intricate that Horace soon lost all idea even of the direction in which he was going, all clue by which he might find his way back. The path was so much tangled with thicket, that the progress of Enrico and his prisoner became necessarily very slow, and Horace soon became not only exhausted, but despairing. It was some time since a word had been exchanged, but as they toiled on through the brushwood, Enrico said abruptly to his companion:

"You need not fear insult from me, for I, like yourself, am a gentleman born. My father was of good family, he was an officer in the royal army, and died in the service of the king."

"Then how can you—" Horace stopped short, being afraid of saying something that might offend.

"How can I consort with such ruffians? You would ask. No matter; that is no business of yours. Men may be bound by other kind of chain than that which you drag so wearily along."

There was extreme bitterness in the young man's tone, and though Horace could not see the face of the speaker in the gloom, he imagined how the thin lip was twitching and the restless eye wandering around.

Horace was anxious to ascertain to a certainty whether Raphael were the brother to whom reference had been made, and who had been spoken of as "the Rossignol," but he was afraid of drawing the e improvisatore into difficulty or danger by letting it be known that he had ever seen him. As a leading question, Horace asked Enrico whether he knew English, remembering that Raphael had uttered his second warning in that language.

"No; is it likely that I should?" answered the robber.

Foiled in his first attempt to gain information, Horace made another. "Why did that fellow call your brother a lunatic?" said he.

"Because he is one!" replied Enrico impatiently. "None but a madman would be always putting his head into the lion's mouth, certain that it must be bitten off at last!"

"Does he belong to the band?" asked Horace.

"Yes—no—what is it to you?" cried Enrico.

This rebuff put an end to the conversation, though it increased the desire of Horace to know more of the mysterious Raphael; for he was now certain that the stranger at the door of the inn was the brother of the bandit Enrico.

At length the long tangled forest was passed, and the way opened on a rocky space, where, by the faint star-light, no longer hidden by foliage, Horace saw a bold, partially-wooded cliff rising before them, a gigantic mass of gloomy shade. Horace had little opportunity, however, of remarking anything but the difficulty of the ascent, as progression here took the character of climbing, which the fetters on his limbs made a terrible effort.

"It is impossible for me to get up, chained as I am!" exclaimed Horace, after having rubbed the skin from one of his ankles, in a vain attempt to raise himself to a platform of rock.

"Impossible!" echoed Enrico, with a short, mocking laugh. "It must be done and the sooner better, or Matteo will be here to quicken your movements with the point of his stiletto."

Once again Horace tried to get up, the moisture dewing his lip and brow, both from the pain and the exertion; but cumbered as he was with his shackles, he could not succeed.

Then Enrico, growing impatient, lent a strong hand to help him. Even with this assistance, it was with the utmost difficulty that the suffering youth reached the platform. He stopped for some moments to recover his breath, and to wipe his heated temples.

"Could you find your way back?" said Enrico.

"The woods seem to me to be a perfect labyrinth."

"Then there is no chance of your attempting an escape?"

"I fear that I have more will than power to escape," replied the young captive with a sigh.

"Do you know what would follow your making any such attempt?"

"Perhaps—" began Horace.

"Most assuredly," interrupted Enrico, "I should send a bullet through your head."

"This gentleman, as he calls himself, is not much better than the rest," was the silent reflection of Horace.

A few more steps, and the two had reached the mouth of a cave which yawned in the mountain, its mouth half hidden by a thick growth of cactus, which abounded as a weed in this place. Horace was glad to have arrived at his destination, whatever it might be, for he felt that he could not for many minutes more have endured the exhausting effort of dragging his fettered feet over the rocks.

[CHAPTER VI.]

THE ROBBERS' CAVE.

Enrico, followed by his prisoner, groped his way through the cave, and then along a passage in the rock too low to admit of their standing upright. The dampness of the air, the darkness of the place, made the unhappy Horace feel as though he were entering a tomb. They soon, however, emerged into a very spacious cavern of irregular shape, at one side of which was some light. This light, as Horace soon perceived, came from two wax tapers, burning in front of an image of the Virgin. The feeble gleam served only to make "darkness visible," not reaching at all to the roof of the cave, and showing but little even of its brown rugged wall. The place was tenanted by bats, which wheeled around in circling flights, seeming to Horace's fevered imagination like spirits of evil haunting the robbers' cave. The youth watched with curiosity to see whether Enrico would cross himself or bow on passing the image, and as he did neither, the prisoner ventured upon a remark.

"I should hardly have expected to see that here," he said, pointing to the shrine.

"Why so?" asked his companion.

The robbers' cave

The Robbers' Cave

[CHAPTER I.]

[CHAPTER II.]

[CHAPTER III.]

[CHAPTER IV.]

[CHAPTER V.]

[CHAPTER VI.]