id="id00288">Then he had a long conversation with the driver.

Then they both left the room. The landlord went outside, and tried to appease the crowd. He might possibly, have succeeded, had it not been for David's old woman, who shook her fists in his face, stamped, appealed to Heaven, raved, and howled, all the time he was speaking. The consequence was, that the landlord's words had no effect.

He then entered the hotel once more, and after seeing the driver, and speaking a few words, he hurried up to our party, who by this time were in a state of general alarm.

"You must run—fly—leaf Sorrento—now—widout delay," he cried, breathlessly. "I haf order de carriage. I sall tell de people dat you sall be arrest, an pacify dem for a few moments, till you get start."

The landlord once more left them, and going out to the crowd, he made a few remarks, to the effect that the hotel was being searched now for the offender against the Bambino, and when he was found he would at once be handed over to the authorities. He urged them to wait patiently, and they should see that justice would be done.

The crowd now grew calmer, and waited. The landlord then went back, and led the party down to the court-yard. Here the carriage was all in readiness, and the driver was waiting. They all got in at once, unseen by the crowd in the street; and then, cracking his whip, the driver urged the horses off at full speed through the gates. The crowd fell back on either side, so as to make away, and were not in a position to offer any obstacles to so sudden an onset. They also had the idea that the culprit was inside the hotel, in the hands of the authorities.

But the old woman was not to be deceived; she saw it all in a moment, and in a moment she raised the alarm. Having, howling, gesticulating wildly, dancing, and jumping, she sprang after the carriage. The crowd followed. But the carriage had already got a good start; it had burst through the people, and those who stood in the way were only too glad to get out of it, and thus, with the horses at full speed, they dashed up the street; and before long they had left Sorrento, and the hotel, and the insulted Bambino, and the excited crowd, and the raving old beldam far behind.

David's adventure in Sorrento had been a peculiar one, and one, too, which was not without danger; but if there was any satisfaction to be got out of it, it was in the fact that the tassel which he had acquired, remained still in his possession, to be added to his little stock of relics.