TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

In the plain text version text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_), small caps are represented in upper case as in SMALL CAPS and words in bold are represented as in =bold=.

A number of words in this book have both hyphenated and non-hyphenated variants. For the words with both variants present the one more used has been kept.

Obvious punctuation and other printing errors have been corrected.

The book cover was modified by the Transcriber and has been added to the public domain.

Fogazzaro

SHORT STORY
CLASSICS

(FOREIGN)

VOLUME TWO
ITALIAN AND
SCANDINAVIAN

EDITED BY
William Patten

WITH
AN INTRODUCTION
AND NOTES

P. F. COLLIER & SON
NEW YORK

Copyright 1907
By P. F. Collier & Son
The use of the copyrighted translations in this
collection has been authorized by the
authors or their representatives. The
translations made especially for
this collection are covered
by the general
copyright.

CONTENTS—VOLUME II

THE LOST LETTER

BY ENRICO CASTELNUOVO

Enrico Castelnuovo, who was born at Florence in 1839, is one of the earliest of Italian writers of the modern short story, and a link between the group of poets, dramatists, and novelists, beginning with Manzoni (1785-1873), and the group of his own immediate contemporaries, including Carducci, Fogazzaro, Barrili, Farina, Verga, D’Annunzio, De Amicis, Serao, and other disciples of Carducci.

His literary career began with a little romance called “Il quaderno della zia”; it struck not only his first note of popularity, but the rich vein of his talent, which consists in minute observation and keen dramatic insight, softened by a sympathetic, almost sentimental, style—a rare combination traced from his first little romance to his later volumes of short stories, and especially marked in the story given here, “The Lost Letter.”

THE LOST LETTER
A STORY OF WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN

BY ENRICO CASTELNUOVO

Translated by Florence MacIntyre Tyson. Copyright, 1903, by The Current Literature Publishing Company.

Professor Attilio Cernieri, distinguished Egyptologist, Senator of the Kingdom, commander of numerous orders, active member of the Lincei, Corresponding Fellow of an infinite number of Italian and foreign societies and academies, was having his servant, Pomponio, open two cases of books arrived the evening before from Padua.

The books were the residue of a library that he had gathered at Padua when, twenty years before, he had filled the chair of neo-Latin in that university. Afterward he had traveled much for scientific purposes, had been called successively to the institute of higher learning in Florence, to the University of Naples, and finally the Ministry had solicited his presence in Rome, at the Sapienza, creating a chair especially for him, and offering him high emoluments.

For some time, during the Professor’s peregrinations, the library, packed up and left with a colleague, had remained undisturbed at Padua. Then Cernieri had sent for a part of it when he was in Florence; another part later on when in Naples. Now having to come to Rome, with the intention of fixing there his permanent residence, he had determined to send for the two last cases.

To be sure, these books were not absolutely necessary to a man who, besides having recently refurnished his own library, had at his disposition the public and private libraries of the capital.

We live in a century in which everything proceeds by steam, even science. What is true to-day can readily be false to-morrow; and a volume runs the risk of being useless over night.

But in spite of its ten years of life, the monograph in which our hero had demonstrated, with ponderous arguments, relegated to the Finnish Family a group of roots hitherto believed to be of Celtic origin, had not grown old. The book, small in weight, but heavy in thought, had been translated into all the languages of Europe, and the genial information had placed our professor “at the top of the scientific pyramid,” to quote the words of an enthusiastic disciple, by the side of the principal living philologist, the famous Lowenstein of the University of Upsala. But whether because the top of a pyramid is an uncomfortable place for two or not, Cernieri and Lowenstein had at first offered the interesting spectacle of two contestants who are vigorously striving to throw one another off, until, finally convinced of the uselessness of their struggles, they had changed rivalry into friendship.

The two learned men were, of course, two strugglers in the scientific arena, but instead of struggling with each other, they struggled with the world at large. If by chance any mortal could be found rash enough to raise this crest and dare to endeavor to seat himself, too, on the top of the famous pyramid; had it been possible to penetrate the depths of the minds of the two “chers confrères,” as they styled themselves in correspondence, it would probably have been discovered that each placed a very moderate estimate upon the virtues of the other. Lowenstein had very little faith in the Finnish roots; and Cernieri believed still less in the revolution brought about by Lowenstein in the study of the Hindu-Persian.

But let us leave Lowenstein in peace in distant Norway and turn our attention entirely to our illustrious compatriot. And, to begin with, upon the afternoon in which Pomponio is opening the case of books, the Professor was but forty, though looking much older.

He was slightly stoop-shouldered and his ample forehead was seamed with premature wrinkles; his near-sighted eyes were hidden behind glasses, and were generally half-closed, like those of a sleepy pussy-cat. His hair was thin and gray, his beard straggling, ill-cared for, and nearly white. When he was young, Cernieri used to shave; but after it had happened several times that he in his absent-mindedness had shaved but half his face, and in that unusual condition had entered his classes, he had thought best to leave well enough alone. For the rest, the abstraction of professors is proverbial, and need not be dwelt on here, though upon one occasion he had lost his train by persisting in looking through the whole station at Bologna for a package he had in his hand.

Absent-minded people are generally very good-natured, but our professor was an exception to the rule. Ordinarily his lips were visited but by the scientific smile, made up of the superiority and commiseration with which a learned man hears of the absurdities committed by a brother colleague or the world at large. In society, upon the rare occasions he forced himself to enter it, he preferred standing aside, avoiding women with horror, for he had not the faintest idea what to say to them, and the dear creatures themselves were equally at a loss what to say to him, though five or six years ago, owing to the scarcity of husbands in this vale of tears, more than one mother had cast her eyes over him as a convenient parti for one of her daughters.

So at one time the Countess Pastori had been brave enough to invite him to dinner, hoping to make him marry her second daughter, who had bad teeth and weak eyes, and had not found any one who would have her. The young girl, properly coached, had received the professor with marked deference, had prepared with her own hand an exquisite peach marmalade, and had even gone to the length of evincing interest in Finnish roots. Cernieri, however, did not take the bait; but, at once on guard, shortened his visit and was careful never to set foot inside the doors of the Pastori mansion until the little Countess was betrothed to an importer of salt fish, who joined the cultivation of salmon with veneration for the titled nobility.

So warned by experience, he became gruffer than before, and more than ever inaccessible to any ideas of gallantry.

Every man has in the book of his life a secret page that a woman has made joyous or gloomy; as far as Professor Cernieri was concerned, this page had remained a blank. At least so his friends said; so would he have answered himself had he been asked, and he would have spoken in good faith. Absorbed as he was in research, he forgot things near at hand. Oh, why must he be made to remember the distant past?

“Mercy on us!” exclaimed Pomponio, who had begun to take the books out of the box. “Mercy on us, what a dust!” Then added: “Really, it would be much better if you would let me take them all downstairs, and dust them there.”

But the Professor vigorously opposed the proposition. He wished it all to take place in his study, under his own eyes. He wanted, after they were dusted, himself to put the books in a case ready for their reception. And Pomponio, resigned to the inevitable, continued taking them out, dusting them as best he could, and handing them to his master, who, having glanced at the title, put them in place.

The air was surcharged with dust, which covered the furniture, penetrated the pores, making both master and servant cough and sneeze constantly. “There is a spider’s web on this,” said Pomponio as he lifted a large folio. It proved to be an antique atlas of the world, printed at Gotha by Justus Perthès; and it so happened that while the man was dusting it a little square envelope, yellowed with age, dropped from its leaves and fell upon the floor.

“Gracious, what is that?” said Pomponio. “It looks like a letter.” And putting down the atlas, he stooped to pick it up.

But the Professor had anticipated him, and, half-dazed, was turning the letter round and round. Without doubt it was a letter, and one of his own at that, still sealed, the stamp uncanceled, addressed in his own writing; the heavy, weighty writing of a man born to be a cavaliere of many orders; a fellow of many societies. It was a too distinct hand, giving assurance that the letter should reach its destination if it had been mailed!

“Alla gentile Signorina Maria Lisa Altavilla, Firenze, Via dei Servi, No. 25—1 Floor.”

That name appearing so unexpectedly under his eyes carried Professor Cernieri back twenty years, forcing from the mists of oblivion a slender, graceful girl, whose lovely countenance was crowned with an expression of rare sweetness. For her alone had his heart ever quickened. For her sake alone had he once for one day, for an hour, thought seriously of taking a wife. And then?—

Pomponio, who was consumed with curiosity, had noiselessly approached the professor and murmured: “But how in the world did it get hidden in that book?”

Cernieri turned briskly—“What business have you here? Leave the room.”

“Shall I not go on?”

“No, not now. Go away.”

“Has anything happened?”

“Nothing. If I need you, I will ring.”

Pomponio reluctantly retired. He would have given anything to know what sort of a letter that was which had so disturbed his employer.

When he was gone, the Professor sat down in his great armchair, and, with trembling fingers, broke the seal that Maria Lisa Altavilla had never been allowed to do. And this was what he had written in Padua, October 15, 1875:

“Cara Signorina—I have just received the sad announcement, and hasten to assure you of my sincere sympathy in your great grief. Last July, when I had the honor in Venice of being often with your father and yourself, I was a witness of your solicitude for that precious, highly esteemed soul.

“Do you remember (I can never forget it) that morning’s trip to the sea? We had first visited San Lazzaro, where he had been good enough to listen with interest to my explanation in regard to the mummy, preserved in the Museum of the Mechitaristi Fathers; then having crossed to Sant’ Elizabeth on the Lido, we repaired to the baths lately established there. Your father, feeling rather tired, remained in the hotel with a friend while we went to walk on the beach.

“The day was deliciously balmy, the sun’s rays tempered behind little clouds, so that you closed your red silk umbrella. The wavelets lapped the shore softly at our feet where our footprints marked the sand. You confided to me that for several years your father’s Health seemed to grow worse; how the various doctors, who had been called in, had suggested this remedy and that without being at all able to arrest the course of the disease, which was overwhelming you with terror. You told me of the tender affection that led him to hide his suffering from you; he who had never before concealed anything. Growing more confidential, you told me of your happy home life, of the full accord of your mutual thoughts and feelings, of your deep love each for the other, cemented by sorrow; for, from a large family, there now remained but you two in the world. Then, overcome by emotion, you ceased speaking, your eyes full of tears.

“What words struggled for utterance on my part! I can not express all that was in my heart. I am naturally timid, and I will acknowledge a great horror of anything that will distract me from my studies or interfere with my habits; but I feel sure I made you understand, Signorina, how deeply I sympathized with you. I know I told you I was at your service whenever you might choose to call upon me. 'Thanks,’ you murmured gently while your hand trembled in mine. Then you insisted upon going back to your father.

“We spoke no word as we went, but it seemed to me that our souls understood one another. In a day or two you had quitted Venice without my having the opportunity of seeing you again alone.

“Now, Signorina, the greatest of sorrows has come to you. Now is the time for you to test the true value of your friends.

“I would wish to come myself to Florence, but I am forced to leave in a few hours for London, in order to be present at the Congress of Orientalists, which opens there on the 19th inst.

“From England I may possibly start on a long journey out of Europe. My movements will depend upon you; one word from you will take me back to Italy. In any event, I shall be in London all October, and I beg you will let me have a line from you, Poste Restante. Think that I, too, and for a much longer period than you, have been alone in the world. Believe me always,

Yours sincerely,
Attilio Cernieri.”

Twice the Professor read the four pages through, forcing himself to recall the day, the hour, the place in which he had written it; seeking to explain to himself how he could have forgotten to post it, as well as that the absolute silence of Maria Lisa Altavilla had not aroused some suspicion in his mind; why he had never written again to make sure. And this is what he remembered.

The mortuary notice had arrived one morning as he was in the midst of packing, and his thoughts had turned persistently to the young girl he had known three months before in Venice, and who had shown such perfect confidence in him. All day he had debated within himself whether he should merely send her his condolences or if he ought to say something more in regard to the sentiments with which she had inspired him, in which perhaps she shared. She was not an ordinary girl, this Maria Lisa. She seemed created to be the companion of a scholar.

Had she not been her father’s secretary and could she not be his? To learn two or three languages so that she might help him; to take notes for him; to keep his work in order; to correct printer’s proofs, and when he was leaving for a congress or scientific mission, to pack his trunks and accompany him to the station; perhaps sometimes go along to look after the nuisance of tickets, to treat with hotel proprietors, cabmen, et cetera. Viewed in this light, matrimony did not seem such a terrible abyss; but a tranquil port, in which to take shelter from storms. And that evening, at the same time with other letters, he had written that one to Maria Lisa; had written with an expansion and an abandon that had filled him with wonder; even now he was amazed, as he felt once again the unaccustomed sweetness of the thing.

Once again he was in his little room in his apartment at Padua; on the table an oil lamp was burning; spread out before him lay the atlas of Menke at the page that told of “Egyptus ante Cambysii tempus.” He had been consulting it before answering his friend Morrison of the University of Edinburgh, who was insisting that they should together visit the ruins of Thebes in Upper Egypt, and he leaving his decision until after the Congress had, on the chance of the journey, corrected and amplified the itinerary to take in Ithaca, Apollonapolis, Syene, and then Cernieri remembered his landlady had knocked at his door to tell him the carriage was there and that she had already put his luggage, his plaid, and his umbrella in. He had shut the atlas and put it back upon the shelf hurriedly, hurriedly he had pushed the letters already stamped into his pocket; hurriedly had rushed down and thrown himself into the cab.

By what strange fate had one of the letters been shut in the atlas? By what carelessness, in putting the rest in the mail-box, had he not noticed that one was missing, the most important of all, was an enigma the learned professor was unable to solve? He was ready to swear that never for an instant had the thought occurred to him that he had not posted the letter; indeed, he remembered, how for a number of days he was dumbfounded at his own rashness.

Why had he not considered the matter more fully? Why, with one of those words which can not be taken back, had he run the risk of sacrificing that greatest of blessings—independence? Why had he played all his future on one card? He was a man of honor; had he received a favorable reply from Maria Lisa, nothing would have induced him to draw back. If she said no, then he had invited a needless repulse.

Dio buono, what madness had taken possession of him? It was more than likely that a girl, who was not beautiful and hadn’t a penny of dot, would remain single for two or three years at least and then he could have sought opportunities of seeing her and knowing her better, and of weighing the pros and cons.

So during the first week in London, while the temptation was increasing for the journey to the Orient with Morrison and a young “docente” from Heidelberg, who had offered himself as a companion, he was upset and nervous, and trembled at every distribution of letters, not knowing what he wished or feared. Then as time passed and he read his two theses, and became absorbed in the work of the Congress and drawn within the circle of illustrious scholars, who were greeting him as a new luminary in the world of science, the image of the poor absent orphan faded gradually away and a secret hope sprang up in his heart that he had regained his liberty through the continued silence of Maria Lisa without the humiliation of a refusal.

He could always remember he had done his duty; it was not his fault if his offer had not been accepted.

So one day, early in November, he could exclaim with Julius Cæsar:

“Alea jacta est.”

A rapid flight through Europe brought him with his companions to Brindisi, whence they embarked for Alexandria. Two years were passed in Upper Egypt and Abyssinia in the study of hieroglyphics and ruins, and in sending learned treatises to the principal European Reviews. Magazines, journals, letters from men of science, elections to academies poured in from Italy, from France, from Germany; some silly letters even came from his landlady in Padua. From Florence, from Maria Lisa Altavilla not a word. Then when he got home, he almost forgot all about her. Only two years had passed, but they were worth a century to him, and preceding events assumed to his eyes a vague, nebulous distance. So when he had heard that three months before Maria Lisa had married a “Pretore residente” in an out-of-the-way corner of Sicily, he had not troubled himself more than he could help about it. He had to choose from the various offers of the Ministry, he had to write an article for the “Edinburgh Review” on Assyrian Antiquities; finally, he had to finish a weighty thesis on those Finnish and Celtic roots, for whose sake he had resolved to devote himself entirely to philology at the expense of everything else.

Maria Lisa was so small in comparison and matrimony might have been such a nuisance. Only some time afterward, as he was on the point of accepting a Chair in Florence, he was assailed with scruples.

Suppose through the changing of her husband’s jurisdiction the lady were now in Tuscany? How ought he to act? To seem indifferent and pretend not to recognize her, or to reproach her with the rudeness with which she had treated him?

Alas! the professor was soon relieved of all doubts.

La Maria Lisa Altavilla? the daughter of the Chevalier Altavilla? Who had married the pretore Carlucci? Poor thing! she had died in Sicily of malarial fever before she had been married more than ten months.

Dead! Attilio Cernieri felt penetrated through with pity and regret. Dead, so young; she, who might have been his wife! Then he would now be alone with his life all wrecked about him! Ah! it was indeed a thousand times better that Maria Lisa had not answered him! Better not to have gotten into habits that would now have to be broken! Better not to have grown accustomed to having a woman by his side. Those who know declare it is difficult to do without them then.

In a word, Cernieri had not been slow to comfort himself. And then, too, Time had fulfilled her part, spreading a thick veil over the fleeting episode; covering even the name of Maria Lisa with oblivion.

Now the old letter found within the pages of the ancient atlas had brought it all back. Before the middle-aged man, grown old in study, hardened with egotism, rose an enchanting picture of youth, clothed in shining colors, full of intangible sweetness. Pressing the poor, little yellow sheet between his hands, he beheld once more Maria Lisa’s sweet face. As she sadly gazed at him she seemed to say: “Why in my hour of need did you not send me a word of sympathy? Chance acquaintances pitied my grief; thou, who hadst let me believe didst love me, alone remained mute and insensible. I called upon thee too. Ah! wretched indeed is she who trusts in a man!”

Cernieri seemed to hear Maria Lisa’s voice pronounce the words.

And she had died without hearing his vindication, without knowing the truth. It is indeed, “Sorrow’s crown of sorrow,” to be faded with the irrevocable, to be tormented with wrongs that can not be repaired, with misunderstandings that can not be removed.

But the letter, which the grave professor continued to hold unfolded before him, told, not only that Maria Lisa was dead, believing him worse than he deserved, but also that in his life there had been a moment of poetry, of abandon, and of love, and that that moment had remained barren. Never again could life bring him such another. Never again would his heart quicken for a woman’s sake. Never again could flow from his pen words which might seem to us cold and conventional, but to him seemed burning with ardor and love. And he asked himself: “Suppose the letter had gone, had arrived at its destination and Maria Lisa had answered: 'I understand what thou wishest; I consent. I love thee and am willing to be thine. Come.’” Then certainly, he should not have undertaken his great journey to Egypt and Assyria. Would not have deciphered hieroglyphics or interpreted the language of the ruins. Perhaps, though, he would have had sons of his own. Perhaps domestic cares might have retarded his fame, his activity might have been clogged and honors and decorations might not have fallen so abundantly upon his head. He might not even have made his luminous discovery about the Finnish roots. Perchance another would now occupy his enviable position on the very top of the scientific pyramid by the side of Lowenstein of the University of Upsala. If all that might have happened, a man like Professor Attilio Cernieri ought to rejoice that it had not. And still—and still!—A persistent, hungry doubt would not allow him to quiet his soul with this philosophic consolation. Would it not have been better to have sacrificed a little glory to have had a little love?

The Professor Attilio Cernieri lacked courage to tear or destroy the letter. He placed it in his desk, recalled Pomponio, and desired him to resume his interrupted labor.

But that evening in his study, the temptation to again behold those words of twenty years ago overcame him anew. And afterward there did not pass a day in which he did not take the poor little worn sheet from its envelope and read it over and over.

Then he would look at the envelope, at the stamp, upon which the Post had impressed no mark and murmur once more:

“If the letter had only gone!”

CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA

BY GIOVANNI VERGA

Giovanni Verga was born at Catania, Sicily, in 1840. He was at first a romanticist, carrying on the traditions of Manzoni. Between 1874 and 1880, he produced two masterpieces, dealing with the life of the Sicilian peasant, in which he found his true bent, abandoning his earlier romanticism. With his fellow townsman, Capuana, he now stands at the head of the Italian “veristi,” or naturalists, often compared with Zola. His style is singularly vigorous and sincere, especially in describing the customs and analyzing the souls of the Sicilian peasants. But his plots are often confusing and long drawn out; he has attempted drama, but with little success. Yet, strangely enough, his short story, “Cavalleria Rusticana,” which he afterward developed into a novel, has been made into one of the most popular, dramatic, concentrated one-act operas of the world—the “Cavalleria Rusticana” of the composer Mascagni.

CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA

BY GIOVANNI VERGA

Translated by Frederic Taber Cooper. Copyright, 1907, by P. F. Collier & Son.

After Turridu Macca, Mistress Nunzia’s son, came home from soldiering, he used to strut every Sunday, peacock-like, in the public square, wearing his rifleman’s uniform, and his red cap that looked just like that of the fortune-teller waiting for custom behind the stand with the cage of canaries. The girls all rivaled each other in making eyes at him as they went their way to mass, with their noses down in the folds of their shawls; and the young lads buzzed about him like so many flies. Besides, he had brought back a pipe, with the king on horseback on the bowl, as natural as life; and he struck his matches on the back of his trousers, raising up one leg as if he were going to give a kick. But for all that, Master Angelo’s daughter Lola had not once shown herself, either at mass or on her balcony, since her betrothal to a man from Licodia, who was a carter by trade, and had four Sortino mules in his stable. No sooner had Turridu heard the news than, holy great devil! but he wanted to rip him inside out, that was what he wanted to do to him, that fellow from Licodia. However, he did nothing to him at all, but contented himself with going and singing every scornful song he knew beneath the fair one’s window.

“Has Mistress Nunzia’s Turridu nothing at all to do,” the neighbors asked, “but pass his nights in singing, like a lonely sparrow?”

At last he came face to face with Lola, on her way back from praying to Our Lady of Peril; and at sight of him she turned neither white nor red, as though he were no concern of hers.

“It is a blessing to have sight of you!” said he.

“Oh, friend Turridu, I was told that you came back around the first of the month.”

“And I too was told many other things besides!” he answered. “So it is true that you are going to marry Alfio the carter?”

“If such is the will of God!” answered Lola, drawing together beneath her chin the two corners of her kerchief.

“You do the will of God by taking or leaving as it pays you best! And it was the will of God that I should come home from so far away to hear such fine news, Mistress Lola!”

The poor fellow still tried to make a show of indifference, but his voice had grown husky; and he walked on ahead of the girl with a swagger that kept the tassel of his cap dancing back and forth upon his shoulders. It really hurt the girl to see him with such a long face, but she had not the heart to deceive him with fair words.

“Listen, friend Turridu,” she said at length, “you must let me go on to join the other girls. What would folks be saying if we were seen together?”

“That is true,” replied Turridu; “now that you are to marry Alfio, who has four mules in his stable, it won’t do to set people talking. My mother, on the other hand, poor woman, had to sell our one bay mule, and that little bit of vineyard down yonder on the high-road, during the time that I was soldiering. The time is gone when the Lady Bertha span; and you no longer give a thought to the time when we used to talk together from window to courtyard, and when you gave me this handkerchief just before I went away, into which God knows how many tears I wept at going so far that the very name of our land seemed forgotten. But now good-by, Mistress Lola, let us square accounts and put an end to our friendship.”

Mistress Lola and the carter were married; and on the following Sunday she showed herself on her balcony, with her hands spread out upon her waist, to show off the big rings of gold that her husband had given her.

Turridu kept passing and repassing through the narrow little street, with his pipe in his mouth and his hands in his pockets, pretending indifference and ogling the girls; but inwardly he was eating his heart out to think that Lola’s husband had all that gold, and that she pretended not even to notice him as he passed by.

“I’d like to take her from under his very eyes, the dirty dog!” he muttered.

Across from Alfio’s house lived Master Cola, the vine-grower, who was rich as a porker, so they said, and had an unmarried daughter. Turridu said so much, and did so much, that Master Cola took him into his employ; then he began to haunt the house and make pretty speeches to the girl.

“Why don’t you go and say all these fine things to Mistress Lola?” Santa answered him.

“Mistress Lola is a big lady! Mistress Lola is wife of one of the crowned heads now!”

“I suppose I am not good enough for the crowned heads.”

“You are worth a hundred such as Lola; and I know one fellow who would never so much as look at Mistress Lola or her patron saint when you are around. For she isn’t fit even to carry your shoes for you, indeed she isn’t!”

“When the fox found that he couldn’t reach the grapes—”

“He said, 'how lovely you are, you sweet little grape!’”

“Oh! come, hands off, friend Turridu.”

“Are you afraid I am going to eat you?”

“No, I am not afraid of you nor of him you serve.”

“Ah! your mother was from Licodia, we all know that. Your blood boils quickly! Oh! I could eat you up with my eyes!”

“Then eat me up with your eyes, and leave no crumbs; but meanwhile pick up that bundle of twigs for me.”

“For your sake I would pick up the whole house, that I would!”

To hide her blushes, she threw at him the fagot she happened to have in her hands, but for a wonder missed him.

“Cut it short! Talking doesn’t bind fagots.”

“If I was rich, I should be looking for a wife just like you, Santa!”

“I shall not marry a crowned head, as Mistress Lola did; but I shall have my dower, as well as she, when the Lord sends me the right man.”

“We know that you are rich, yes, we know that!”

“If you know so much, then stop talking, for my father will soon be here, and I don’t care to have him catch me in the courtyard.”

The father began to make a wry face, but the girl pretended not to notice, for the tassel of the rifleman’s hat had set her heart-strings quivering and was forever dancing before her eyes. After the father had put Turridu out of the door, the daughter opened her window to him, and would stand chatting with him all the evening, until the whole neighborhood could talk of nothing else.

“I am crazy about you,” Turridu would say; “I am losing my sleep and my appetite.”

“I don’t believe it!”

“I wish I was the son of Victor Emanuel, so that I could marry you!”

“I don’t believe it!”

“By our Lady, I could eat you up, like a piece of cake!”

“I don’t believe it!”

“On my honor!”

“Oh, mother mine!”

Lola, listening night after night, hidden behind a pot of sweet basil, turning first pale and then red, one day called down to Turridu: “How is it, friend Turridu, that old friends no longer greet each other?”

“Alas!” sighed Turridu, “blessed is he who may greet you!”

“If you care to give me greeting, you know where my home is,” answered Lola.

Turridu came back to greet her so often that Santa took notice of it, and closed her window in his face. The neighbors pointed him out with a smile or a nod of the head when he passed by in his rifleman’s uniform. Lola’s husband was away, making a circuit of the village fairs with his mules.

“On Sunday I mean to go to confession, for last night I dreamt of black grapes,” said Lola.

“Wait a while! wait a while!” begged Turridu.

“No, now that Easter is so near, my husband would want to know why I have not been to confession.”

“Ahah!” murmured Master Cola’s Santa, waiting for her turn on her knees before the confessional where Lola was washing herself clean of her sins. “On my soul, it is not to Rome I would send you to do penance!”

Friend Alfio came home with his mules and a pretty penny of profit, and brought his wife a present of a fine new dress for the holidays.

“You do well to bring her presents,” his neighbor Santa said to him, “for while you are away your wife has been trimming up the honor of your house!”

Master Alfio was one of those carters who wear the cap well down over one ear, and to hear his wife talked of in this fashion made him change color as though he had been stabbed. “Holy big devil!” he exclaimed, “if you have not seen aright, I won’t leave you eyes to weep with, you and your whole family!”

“I have forgotten how to weep!” answered Santa; “I did not weep even when I saw with these very eyes Mistress Nunzia’s son, Turridu, go in at night to your wife’s house.”

“Then it is well,” replied Alfio; “many thanks to you.”

Now that the husband was home again, Turridu no longer wasted his days in the little street, but drowned his sorrow at the tavern with his friends; and on Easter eve they had on the table a big dish of sausage. When Master Alfio came in, just from the way he fastened his eyes upon him, Turridu understood what business he had come on, and laid his fork down upon his plate.

“How can I serve you, friend Alfio?” he asked.

“Nothing important; friend Turridu, it is some time since I have seen you, and I wanted to talk with you of the matter that you know about.”

Turridu had at once offered him a glass, but Alfio put it aside with his hand. Then Turridu arose and said to him: “Here I am, friend Alfio.”

The carter threw an arm around his neck.

“If you will come to-morrow morning down among the prickly pears of Canziria, we can talk of this affair, friend Turridu.”

“Wait for me on the high-road at sunrise, and we will go together.”

With these words they exchanged the kiss of challenge. Turridu seized the carter’s ear between his teeth, and thus solemnly bound himself not to fail him.

The friends had all silently withdrawn from the dish of sausage, and accompanied Turridu all the way to his home. Mistress Nunzia, poor woman, was accustomed to wait for him late every night.

“Mother,” said Turridu, “do you remember when I went away to be a soldier, and you thought that I was never coming back! Give me a kiss, such as you gave me then, for to-morrow I am going on a long journey!”

Before daybreak he took his clasp-knife, which he had hidden under the straw at the time he went away as a conscript, and started with it for the prickly pears of Canziria.

“Holy Mother, where are you going in such a rage?” sobbed Lola in terror as her husband started to leave the house.

“I am not going far,” answered Alfio, “but it will be far better for you if I never come back.”

Lola, in her night-gown, prayed at the foot of her bed, and pressed to her lips the rosary which Fra Bernadino had brought her from the Holy Land, and recited all the Ave Marias that there were beads for.

“Friend Alfio,” began Turridu after he had walked quite a bit of the way beside his companion, who remained silent, with his cap drawn over his eyes, “as true as God himself, I know that I am in the wrong, and I ought to let you kill me. But before I came here, I saw my old mother, who rose early to see me start, on the pretext that she had to tend the chickens; but her heart must have told her the truth. And as true as God himself, I am going to kill you like a dog, sooner than have the poor old woman weeping for me.”

“So much the better,” replied Master Alfio, stripping off his jacket, “strike your hardest, and so will I.”

They were both worthy foes. Turridu received the first thrust, and was quick enough to catch it on his arm. When he paid it back, he gave good measure, and aimed for the groin.

“Ah, friend Turridu, you have really made up your mind to kill me?”

“Yes, I told you so; ever since I saw my old mother going out to feed the chickens, her face floats all the time before my eyes.”

“Then open your eyes wide,” Alfio called to him, “for I am going to square accounts with you.”

And as he stood on guard, crouching ever, so as to hold his left hand upon his wound which was aching, and with his elbow almost touching the ground, he suddenly caught up a handful of dust and threw it into his opponent’s eyes.

“Oh!” howled Turridu, “I am done for!”

He sought to save himself by making desperate leaps backward; but Alfio overtook him with another blow in the stomach and a third in the throat.

“And the third is for the honor of my house, that you made free with. Now, perhaps, your mother will forget to feed her chickens.”

Turridu stumbled about for a moment, here and there among the prickly pears, and then fell like a log. The blood gurgled in a crimson foam out of his throat, and he had no chance even to gasp out, “Oh, mother mine!”

THE SILVER CRUICIFIX

BY ANTONIO FOGAZZARO

Fogazzaro is the author of the most discussed of modern Italian novels, “The Saint.”

This poet, novelist, orator, and senator was born at Vicenza in 1842. He studied law at Turin, and by a collection of lyrics in 1876 established his reputation as a poet, drawing from the spirit of the past, as opposed to D’Annunzio, who draws from the future.

Though thoroughly modern in his prose, in his novel, “Piccolo Mondo Antico,” he makes a link with the romantic school of Manzoni, many considering this story a companion piece to the latter’s “I Promessi Sposi.”

Though frank in tone and tendency, Fogazzaro’s writings always aim at the highest morality. His most striking quality, perhaps, is love of the beautiful in nature.

Between 1887 and 1894 he published two volumes of short stories, from which “The Silver Crucifix” has been selected as, on the whole, the best representative.

THE SILVER CRUCIFIX

BY ANTONIO FOGAZZARO

Translated by Lionel Strachey. Copyright, 1907, by P. F. Collier & Son.

“Your coffee, milady,” said the maid.

The Countess did not reply. But although the curtains were closed, her handsome young face could be dimly discerned on the white pillow. The maid, standing tray in hand at the foot of the bed, repeated more loudly:

“Your coffee, milady.”

The Countess sat up, while she yawned, with eyes still unopened, “Let in some light.”

Her maid went to the window without putting down the tray, and, in turning the handle of the shutters, managed to knock over the empty cup on its saucer.

“Keep quiet!” whispered the mistress in a tone of irritation. “What is the matter with you this morning? Don’t you see you are waking the baby?”

And as a matter of fact the infant was now awake and crying in its crib. The lady turned toward the child’s bed, and peremptorily called out “Hush!”

This silenced her offspring at once, excepting for a few faint moans.

“Now, then, I will have my coffee,” commanded the Countess. “Have you seen your master yet? Why, you are trembling all over! What is the matter with you?”

What, indeed, ailed the girl? Cup, saucer, sugar-bowl and coffee-pot were rattling on the tray. “What is it?” repeated the Countess.

If the maid’s face showed signs of alarm, no less was the mistress disturbed by doubts and fears.

“Nothing,” replied the servant, still trembling.

The Countess hereupon seized her by the arm, shook it roughly, and exclaimed:

“Tell me!”

Meanwhile the pretty little head of a child of four was peering over the edge of the crib.

“It’s a case,” said the maid, half in tears, “it’s a case of cholera.”

Pale as death, the lady started up, and instinctively looked at her listening son. She jumped out of bed; by a single gesture she imposed silence on the girl, while motioning her to go into the next room. Then she darted to her child’s crib.

The little fellow had begun to cry again, but his mother kissed and petted him, played and laughed with him until he forgot his woes, and stopped weeping. She pulled on her dressing-gown in great haste, and joined the servant, shutting the door behind her.

“Oh, my God, my God!” lamented the girl between her sobs, while the other woman too began to shed tears.

“Hush, for Heaven’s sake! On no account must baby be frightened! What about this case—where is it?”

“Here, milady! Rosa, the steward’s wife. She was taken ill at midnight.”

“Heavens! And now—?”

“She is dead. She died half an hour ago.”

The baby was shrilly clamoring for his mother.

“Go,” said the Countess; “go in and play with him. Keep him happy; do anything you like. Be quiet, darling!” she exclaimed. “I shall be back in a moment.” Upon which she rushed to the Count’s room.

The lady was blindly, insanely afraid of the cholera; nothing but her passion for her child could have been more intense than this feeling. At the first rumors of the epidemic she and her husband had fled the city, escaping to their splendid country seat—her marriage portion—in the hope that the disease would not spread thither. The place had been spared in 1836, and had even remained untouched in 1886. And now there it was, in the farmyard attached to the villa.

Disheveled and untidy, she flew into her husband’s room. Before speaking she gave two violent tugs at the bell rope.

“Have you heard?” she said, with flaming eyes.

The Count, who was phlegmatically shaving his beard, turned round, inquiring, with the soapy brush in his hand: “What?”

“Don’t you know about Rosa?”

“Oh, yes, I know,” was his calm response.

If, in the first place, the Count had cherished some vague illusion that his wife was ignorant of Rosa’s death, it now also seemed proper to reassure her by his cool demeanor. Instead, however, her ladyship’s eyes shot fire, and her features were savage with anger.

“What!” she shouted, “you know, and you can think of nothing better to do than shave? What sort of man are you—what sort of father—what sort of husband?”

“Good Lord!” cried the Count, throwing up his arms.

But before the poor man, soaped up to the eyes, and wrapped round with a towel, could add another word, in came the valet. Her ladyship commanded that not a peasant from the farmyard should be admitted to the house, and that no one should go thence to the farmyard. After this she gave orders for the coachman to be ready within an hour; he must harness to the landau the horses which his lordship would select.

“What are you going to do?” asked the latter, who had recovered himself meanwhile. “Nothing rash, I must insist.”

“Rash—how dare you say that? I am willing to be obedient to you in everything, but when it comes to a question of life and death—my son’s life, you understand—then I will listen to no parley from any one. I wish to leave here at once. Order the horses, please.”

The Count grew annoyed. How could matters have come to such a pass as this? Was there any propriety in running away after such a fashion? And then, what about business affairs? In two days, or one day, or maybe in twelve hours, he would be ready to start. But not before—no. His wife, however, interrupted him violently: “Propriety, indeed, and business! For shame!”

“And clothes?” objected the husband. “We must certainly take some with us. You see, we shall really need more time.”

The Countess made some contemptuous answer. She would see to it, she assured him, that the trunks were packed in an hour.

“But where do you expect to go?” persisted the Count.

“To the railway station, first of all, and then wherever you like. Now order the horses.”

“I have had enough of this!” cried the other. “I’ll give such orders as I choose! I’ll let the business affairs go, and everything else! Your clothes, too! The sorrels,” he added, enraged, to the domestic who was standing by impassively.

The Countess dressed and did her hair with the utmost speed, at moments clasping her hands in silent prayer, distributing commands, summoning servants from various parts of the house by frantic pulls at the bell. There was running up and down stairs, banging of doors, shouting, laughing, calling out of names, suppressed swearing. All the windows facing the fatal farmyard were immediately closed. Thus the cries of the unfortunate children who had lost their mother were shut out; besides a disagreeable odor of chlorin had penetrated into the villa, and even into the Countess’s room, smothering the delicate Viennese perfume she habitually used.

“Heavens!” she exclaimed angrily, “now they are doing their best to ruin everything! Pack up quickly, and get those trunks locked! This frightful smell is enough to kill one! Don’t they know that chlorin has no effect? They ought to burn the things. The steward will be dismissed if any thieving goes on.”

“Some things are being burnt already, milady,” observed one of the maids. “The doctor is having sheets, coverlid, and mattress burnt.”

“That’s not enough!” snapped the Countess.

Here the Count, shaved and dressed, entered his wife’s apartment. He began talking to her aside.

“What shall we do with these servants? We can’t take all of them with us.”

“Anything you please. Send them away. Nothing will be safe in the house if they remain. I don’t want them to get the cholera, and then fumigate the rooms with that vile chlorin, and perhaps burn up some of my best gowns. They have no respect whatever for their masters’ property, and—”

Furious at having yielded, the Count now broke in with:

“A pretty state of things! A shame, I tell you, a scandal, to sneak off like this!”

“That’s it!” retorted the woman. “That’s just how you men always are! To appear strong and courageous is more important to you than the life and safety of your family. You are afraid of becoming unpopular. Well, if you want to keep up your reputation, why don’t you send for the mayor, and present him with a hundred lire for the cholera patients of the place?”

He thereupon suggested that he would stay at the villa alone, and that she should go with the child. Only he had not enough stability to carry out his own idea.

During this conversation the trunks were being filled. The little boy’s playthings, his most expensive apparel, prayer-books, bathing-suits, jewelry, crested note-paper, furs, underlinen, many superfluous and few necessary articles were thrown in helter-skelter, and the lids closed down by sheer force. Then the Countess, followed by her spouse—who made a great show of activity, but really accomplished nothing—hurried through the whole house, opening drawers and cupboards, taking a last look into them, and locking them up with their own hands. The Count stated his opinion that it might be advisable to partake of some refreshment before commencing the journey.

“Yes, yes!” ironically said his consort, “we’ll take some refreshment! I’ll show you what to take!”

And she drew up her husband and all the servants, including those who were going home for a holiday, and dosed each one with ten drops of laudanum. Her son she regaled with some chocolates.

At last the landau stood before the door. Prior to actually departing, her ladyship, who was extremely pious, withdrew to the seclusion of her bedchamber for a final prayer. Kneeling at a chair, in her tight-fitting costume of white flannel, her black, eight-button gloves reaching to the elbows, and her gold and platinum bracelets, she raised her eyes devoutly to heaven—under the overshadowing plume of her black velvet hat—and murmured a feverish supplication. Not a word did she say to God about the poor wretches who had lost their mother; nor did she ask that the cholera might spare the humble workers chained to the rich soil which had given her this house, her jewels, clothes, Viennese perfume, her education, her dignity, her husband and child, her accommodating God. Neither did she ask anything for her own person. She, who already saw herself and her family smitten down with the dread disease on the journey, offered up no prayers excepting for her son. In fact, her lips simply muttered Paters and Aves and Glorias, while her mind was altogether with the child, thinking of the fearful fate which might befall him, of the danger to his health in this precipitate journey, of his possible loss of appetite, sleep, spirits, or color. Oh, if he could but be kept unconscious of any peril or pain assailing others!

Rapidly she crossed herself, donned a long, gray cloak, and shut a window that had remained open. Before the strong morning breeze clouds were chasing across the sky, the grass was bending on the lawn, and the tall poplars were swaying in the avenue leading to the villa. But the Countess, though brought up on family traditions, had no thought for reminiscences of her youth belonging to this country estate. She merely closed the window and went downstairs.

The mayor was conversing with his lordship by the carriage door.

“Have you just come from there?” she asked the official, and, being informed that he had come from his home, she upbraided him for not having kept off the epidemic. He excused himself with polite smiles, to which the lady confusedly replied: “Never mind, then; never mind,” as she hastened her child into the vehicle.

“Did you give him the money?” she whispered to her husband as soon as she was seated beside him. He made a sign in the affirmative.

“I should like to thank her ladyship, too,” began the obsequious mayor, “for the generosity with which—”

“Oh, it was nothing—nothing!” interrupted the Count, scarcely knowing what he said.

Established in the carriage, the Countess made a rapid survey of bags and boxes, coats and shawls, umbrellas and parasols. Her husband in the mean time turned round to see if all the luggage was in its place in the barouche, which had been fastened on behind to the landau. “But,” he suddenly remarked, “what is the matter with that little boy?”

“Yes, who is that crying?” excitedly called out the Countess, leaning far out of the carriage.

“All ready!” exclaimed the peasant who had been assisting the servants with the luggage, and to whose side clung a small, ragged urchin. “Stop, can’t you?” his father bade him, sharply, then repeating the words, “All ready!”

The Count, with his eye on the boy, plunged into one of his pockets. “Don’t give way, my boy; you shall have a soldo all to yourself.”

“Mother is ill,” whined the lad sorrowfully; “mother has the cholera.”

Up jumped the Countess. Her face livid and contorted, she brought down her folded sunshade across the coachman’s back:

“Drive on!” she shrieked; “drive on—quick!”

The menial whipped up the horses. They began to prance, and then went off at a gallop. The mayor barely had time to leap out of the way, and his lordship to fling out a handful of coppers, which scattered on the ground at the peasant’s feet. He stood motionless—while the boy continued weeping—and stared after the flashing wheels of the carriage that rolled swiftly away, whirling up the dust.

“Damn those rich pigs!” he said.

Pretending not to hear, the mayor discreetly departed.

The peasant, a man of middle age and stature, pale, meagre, evil-looking, and as rugged as his offspring, made the youngster pick up the coins. Then they went home together.

They inhabited, in the yard belonging to one of the Countess’s farmhouses, a tumble-down, unplastered brick hovel, situated between a dunghill and a pigsty. Before the door gaped a dark ditch, from which issued an indescribable stench, and which was bridged by a single rough plank. Upon entering, one found one’s self in a dingy, unpaved sort of cavern. There was no flooring, either wood or stone, but there was an irregular brick fireplace, and in front of it the ground had been depressed by poor wretches kneeling to cook their mess of cornmeal. A wooden stair—three steps missing—conducted to the room, foul with dirt and rubbish, where father, mother, and son were wont to pass the night in a single bed. Standing by this article of furniture, one might look down into the kitchen below through the broken boards. The bed occupied the only spot not soaked by the rain that dripped from the roof.

Crouching on the floor, her head leaning against the edge of the bed, sat the peasant’s cholera-stricken wife. Although but thirty, she looked old; at twenty she had been a blooming girl, and even now preserved remnants of mild beauty. At the first glance her husband understood; he swallowed an imprecation. The child, frightened by his mother’s discolored face, kept in the doorway.

“For Christ’s sake, send him away,” she moaned feebly. “I have the cholera; send him away. Go to your aunt’s, dear. Take him away, and send me the priest.”

“I’ll go,” said the man to her; and to the boy, motioning toward the farmyard gate, “You go to your aunt’s.”

From the porch of the yard he fetched an armful of straw, carried it into the kitchen, and went upstairs to his wife, who by exerting all her strength had contrived to get on the bed.

“Listen,” said the man, in accents of unusual tenderness; “I am sorry, but if you die in the bed it will have to be burnt. You understand, don’t you? I have brought some straw into the kitchen—a nice lot.”

Too weak to answer, she made a mute signal of assent, and then a faint effort to rise from her couch. But the man took her up in his arms. By a gesture she begged him to reach first for a small silver crucifix hanging on the wall; she pressed it fervidly to her lips while her husband carried her down to the kitchen. Here he made her as comfortable as he could on the straw, before going for the priest.

And now she, too, this poor creature lying alone like a beast in a cage on the already infected straw—she, too, before departing to an unknown world, began to pray. She prayed for the salvation of her soul, convinced that she was guilty of many sins, and tormented by her inability to remember them.

When the timid doctor, sent by the mayor, arrived, he asked in great fright whether there was any rum or marsala in the house. There was neither; so he recommended hot bricks for her stomach, put up a notice of quarantine, and left her. The priest, who knew no fear, carelessly reeled off what he termed “the usual things,” obscuring the divine message with words of his own. Nevertheless, though benighted and ignorant, the dying woman derived comfort and serenity therefrom.

His task done, the priest went. Meanwhile the husband had put a few more handfuls of straw under her back, and lit the fire to heat the bricks. His wife went on praying—less for her child than for the man whom she had pardoned so often, and who was embarked on the road to perdition. Finally, kissing the cross, her mind turned to its giver. She had received it sixteen years back, at her confirmation, from the Countess, the mistress of the splendid manor where it was a joy to live and of the wretched hovel where it was a joy to die. At that time the Countess was a young girl, and had presented the silver crucifix to the laborer’s daughter at the suggestion of her mother, then mistress of the estate, a kind, gentle lady, long dead, but unforgotten by her humble tenants.

The dying woman acknowledged having thought ill of the new mistress, of having complained sometimes, so that her husband had cursed because, despite repeated petition, neither roof, nor flooring, nor staircase had ever been repaired, and because the window frames had not been filled with linen panes. Feeling truly penitent, in her heart she implored forgiveness of his lordship and her ladyship; and she besought the Holy Virgin to bless them both.

At the moment when her husband placed the scorching bricks on her stomach, a spasm ran through her body, and she gave up the ghost. The man flung some straw over her blackening face, wrenched the little cross out of her hand, stuffed it into his pocket with a scowl at its small value, mumbling some customary pious sentiment the while.

But he did not say, for he did not know, and we do not know, how much good this poor woman’s crucifix had done, invoked and kissed by her on so many occasions. Still less can we tell how much benefit may yet spring from that charitable thought of an old lady, descending to an innocent child, and afterward reascending as a prayer from a pure heart to the Throne of Infinite Mercy.

The same evening the servants at the villa, who had been given leave of absence during the journey of the Count and Countess, got drunk in the drawing-room on rum and marsala.

THE LITTLE SARDINIAN DRUMMER

BY EDMONDO DE AMICIS

Edmondo de Amicis, Italian publicist with a military training, born in 1846, is principally known as the author of “Il Cuore” (“The Heart of a Boy”), a simple classic intended for children, and which has had an incredible influence on school life in Italy. It pretends to be a child’s own day to day record of his school year.

His style has not crystallised into originality—it suggests on one page Washington Irving, with gentle, smooth, playful humor, broad tolerance, and on the next it suggests the word-painters like Théophile Gautier, with their keen observation and warm, rich coloring.

THE LITTLE SARDINIAN DRUMMER

BY EDMONDO DE AMICIS

Translated by Clou. E. Hard. Copyright, 1898, by The Current Literature Publishing Company.

On the 24th of July, 1848, the first day of the battle of Custoza, sixty soldiers belonging to one of our regiments of infantry, ordered to garrison a lonely house on a height near by, were suddenly attacked by two companies of Austrians, who, assaulting them on several sides, scarcely gave them time to take refuge within the house, and hastily barricade the door, leaving their dead and wounded on the field.

The door being well secured, our soldiers hastened to the windows on the ground floor, as well as to those on the upper floor, and opened a deadly fire on the besiegers, who replied vigorously as they slowly approached in the form of a semicircle.

The sixty Italian soldiers were commanded by two subaltern officers, and by a tall, silent, grim old captain, with white hair and whiskers.

With them was a little Sardinian drummer, a boy scarcely more than fourteen years old, but who did not look even twelve, with his dark, olive skin, and black, deep-set eyes that flashed fire.

From a room on the upper story the captain directed the defense, every order sounding like a pistol shot, his iron countenance showing not the slightest emotion.

The little drummer, pale, but with his feet firmly planted on the table, and holding fast to the walls, stretched out his head and neck to look from the window, and saw through the smoke the Austrians steadily advancing over the fields.

The house was near the top of a very steep hillside, so that but one small high window in the upper story looked out over the crest. The Austrians did not threaten that side, nor was there anybody on the hilltop. The fire was directed against the front and the two sides.

The firing was infernal—a close, heavy hailstorm of balls rained upon the walls and through the broken roof, tearing out the ceiling, shattering the beams, doors, furniture, filling the air with fragments, plastering, and clouds of lime and dust, utensils and broken glass whizzing, clattering over their heads, rebounding from the walls with a noise and clash that made the hair stand on end.

Now and then a soldier stationed at the windows fell inward, and was pushed one side; others staggered from room to room, stanching their wounds with their hands. In the kitchen lay one soldier, pierced through the forehead. The enemy was closing in. At last the captain, until then impassible, began to show signs of uneasiness, and hurriedly left the room, followed by a sergeant. In a few moments the sergeant came rushing back, called the drummer, telling him to follow.

The boy raced up the stairs after him, and entered a dilapidated garret, in which he saw the captain with pencil and paper in hand, leaning on the window sill, and lying on the ground at his feet was a rope belonging to the well.

The captain folded the paper, and, fixing on the boy those cold, gray eyes before which every soldier trembled, said abruptly:

“Drummer!”