Tales of a Traveller

mountains; for he felt at the time, that had he been a young man and a strong man, and had there been no danger of the galleys in the background, he should have been half tempted himself to turn bandit.
    At length the fearful hour of separating arrived. The doctor was suddenly called to himself and his fears, by seeing the robbers resume their weapons. He now quaked for his valuables, and above all for his antiquarian treatise. He endeavored, however, to look cool and unconcerned; and drew from out of his deep pocket a long, lank, leathern purse, far gone in consumption, at the bottom of which a few coin chinked with the trembling of his hand.
    The chief of the party observed this movement; and laying his hand upon the antiquary’s shoulder—“Harkee! Signor Dottore!” said he, “we have drank together as friends and comrades, let us part as such. We understand you; we know who and what you are; for we know who every body is that sleeps at Terracina, or that puts foot upon the road. You are a rich man, but you carry all your wealth in your head. We can’t get at it, and we should not know what to do with it, if we could. I see you are uneasy about your ring; but don’t worry your mind; it is not worth taking; you think it an antique, but it’s a counterfeit—a mere sham.”
    Here the doctor would have put in a word, for his antiquarian pride was touched.
    “Nay, nay,” continued the other, “we’ve no time to dispute about it. Value it as you please. Come, you are a brave little old signor—one more cup of wine and we’ll pay the reckoning. No compliments—I insist on it. So—now make the best of your way back to Terracina; it’s growing late—buono viaggio!—and harkee, take care how you wander among these mountains.”
    They shouldered their fusils, sprang gaily up the rocks, and the little doctor hobbled back to Terracina, rejoicing that the robbers had let his seal ring, his watch, and his treatise escape unmolested, though rather nettled that they should have pronounced his veritable intaglio a counterfeit.
    The improvvisatore had shown many symptoms of impatience during this recital. He saw his theme in danger of being taken out of his hands by a rival storyteller, which to an able talker is always a serious grievance; it was also in danger of being taken away by a Neapolitan, and that was still more vexatious; as the members of the different Italian states have an incessant jealousy of each other in all things, great and small. He took advantage of the first pause of the Neapolitan to catch hold again of the thread of the conversation.
    “As I was saying,” resumed he, “the prevalence of these banditti is so extensive; their power so combined and interwoven with other ranks of society—”
    “For that matter,” said the Neapolitan, “I have heard that your government has had some understanding with these gentry, or at least winked at them.”
    “My government?” said the Roman, impatiently.
    “Aye—they say that Cardinal Gonsalvi—”
    “Hush!” said the Roman, holding up his finger, and rolling his large eyes about the room.
    “Nay-I only repeat what I heard commonly rumored in Rome,” replied the other, sturdily. “It was whispered that the Cardinal had been up to the mountain, and had an interview with some of the chiefs. And I have been told that when honest people have been kicking their heels in the Cardinal’s anti-chamber, waiting by the hour for admittance, one of these stiletto-looking fellows has elbowed his way through the crowd, and entered without ceremony into the Cardinal’s presence.
    “I know,” replied the Roman, “that there have been such reports; and it is not impossible that government may have made use of these men at particular periods, such as at the time of your abortive revolution, when your carbonari were so busy with their machinations all over the country. The information that men like these could collect, who were familiar, not merely with all the recesses and secret places of the mountains, but also with all the dark and dangerous recesses of society, and knew all that was plotting in the world of mischief; the utility of such instruments in the hands of government was too obvious to be overlooked, and Cardinal Gonsalvi as a politic statesman, may, perhaps, have made use of them; for it is well known the robbers, with all their atrocities, are respectful towards the church, and devout in their religion.”
    “Religion!—religion?”