"Because I like this life better than that of an 'Impiegato' with five hundred ducats a year! Perhaps I don't follow it all from choice. Perhaps I have my days of regrets, and such like. But for that, are you yourself so rightly fitted in life—I ask at random—that you feel you are doing the exact thing that suits you? Can you say, as you rise of a morning, 'I was cut out for this kind of existence,—I am exactly where I ought to be'?"

I shook my head in negative, and for some seconds nothing was said on either side.

"The score is all right," said he, at last. "Do you know,"—here he gave a very peculiar smile; indeed, his face, so far as I could see, beneath the shadow of his hat and his bushy beard, actually assumed an expression of intense drollery,—"do you know, I begin to think we have made a bad bargain here!"

"How so?" asked I.

"I begin to suspect," said he, "that our prisoner was worth a much heavier ransom, and that his friends would willingly have paid four times this sum for him."

"You are entirely mistaken there," said I. "It is the astonishment of every one that he has been ransomed at all. He is a good-for-nothing spendthrift fellow, whom most families would be heartily glad to be rid of; and so far from being worth a thousand pounds, I believe nine out of ten parents would n't have paid as many shillings for him."

"We all liked him," said he. "We found him pleasant company; and he fell into all our ways like one of ourselves."

"A scamp was sure to do that easier than an honest man," said I, forgetting, in my eagerness, how rude my speech was.

"Perhaps there is truth in what you say, sir," said he, haughtily. "Communities like ours scarcely invite men of unblemished morals, and therefore I do not ask you to return with me."

He arose as he spoke, and swept the coin into a bag which he wore at his side. Still, thought I, he might tell me something more about these brigands. Are they partisans of the Bourbons, or are they mere highwaymen? Here is a man fully equal to the discussion of such a question. Shall I ask him to decide the matter?

"I see," said he, laughing, as I propounded my mystery; "you want to make a book about us. But our people don't understand that sort of curiosity; they distrust, and they occasionally resent it. Stay a week or ten days where you are. Fra Bartolo will feed you better than we should, and cram you with brigand stories better still. You 'll find it far pleasanter, and your readers will think so too. Addio;" and he touched his hat in a half-haughty way, and strolled out. I sat down for an instant to recover myself, when the quick clatter of a horse's feet aroused me, and he was gone.

There was no doubt of it; he was a very remarkable man,—one who in happier circumstances might have made a figure in life, and achieved a conspicuous position. Who was he; whence came he? The Frate could tell me all these things. As the robber said, he could cram me admirably. I arranged at once to stay a week there. My week was prolonged to a fortnight, and I was well into the third week ere I shook his great hand and said good-bye.

During all this I wrote, I may say, from morning till night. At one time it was my Blue Book; at another I took a spell at stories of robber life. I wrote short poems,—songs of the brigands I called them. In fact, I dished up my highwayman in a score of ways, and found him good in all. The portmanteau which I had brought out full of gold I now carried back more closely packed with MSS. I hurried to England, only stopping once to call at the Legation, and learn that Mr. St. John had returned to his post, and was then hard at work in the Chancellerie. When I arrived in London, my report was ready; but as the ministry had fallen the week before, I was obliged to rewrite it, every word. Lord Muddlemore had succeeded my patron, Lord Scatterdale; and as he was a strong Tory, the brigands must be Bourbons for him; and they were so. I had lived amongst them for months, and had eaten of their raw lamb and drunk of their fiery wine, and pledged toasts to the health of Francesco, and "Morte" to everybody else. What splendid fellows I made them! Every chief was a La Rochejaquelin; and as for the little bit of robbery they did now and then, it was only to pay for masses for their souls when they were shot by the Bersaglieri. My Blue Book was printed, quoted by the "Times," cited in the House; I was called "the intrepid and intelligent witness" by Disraeli; and I was the rage. Dinners fell in showers over me, and invitations to country-houses came by every post. Almost worn out by these flatteries, I was resolving on a course of abstinence, when a most pressing invitation came to a country gathering where Mr. St. John was to be of the party. I had never met him, and, indeed, was rather irritated at the ingratitude he had displayed in never once acknowledging, even by a few lines, the great service I had rendered him. Still I was curious to see a man whose figure occupied so important a place in my life's tableau.

I went; but St. John had not arrived,—he was detained by important affairs in town, and feared he should not be able to keep his promise. For myself, perhaps, it was all the better. I had the whole field my own, and discoursed brigandage without the fear of a contradiction.

A favorite representation with me was my first night at Rocco. I used to give it with considerable success. I described the village and the Frate, and then went on to my first sight of the renowned chief himself; for, of course, I never hesitated to call in Stoppa, any more than to impart to his conversation a much higher and wider reach than it actually had any claim to.

My "Stoppa" was pronounced admirable. I lounged, smoked, gesticulated, and declaimed him to perfection. I made him something between William Tell and the Corsican brothers; and nervous people would n't have seen him, I ween, for worlds.

On the occasion that I speak of, the company was a large one, and I outdid myself in my pains to succeed. I even brought down with me the identical portmanteau, and actually appeared in the veritable hat and coat of the original adventure.

My audience was an excellent one; they laughed where I was droll, and positively shrieked where I became pathetic. I had sent round little water-colors of the scenery, and was now proceeding to describe the inn of the Frate, and my first arrival there.

"I will not affect to declare," said I, "that it was altogether without some sense of anxiety—I might even say fear—that I approached the room where this man of crime and bloodshed awaited me. Stoppa! a name that brought terror wherever it was uttered, the word that called the soldiers to arms from the bivouac, and silenced the babe as it sobbed on its mother's breast. I entered the room, however, boldly, and, advancing to the bed where he lay, said in a careless tone, 'Capitano,'—they like the title,—'Capitano, how goes it?'"

Just as I uttered the words, a heavy hand fell on my shoulder! I turned, and there, there at my side, stood Stoppa himself, dressed exactly as I saw him at Rocco.

Whether it was the terrible look of the fellow, or some unknown sense of fear that his presence revived, or whether it was a terror lest my senses were deceiving me, and that a wandering brain alone had conjured up the image, I cannot say; but I fainted, and was carried senseless and unconscious to my room. A doctor was sent for, and said something about "meningitis." "I had overworked my brain, overstrained my faculties, and so forth;" with rest and repose, however, I should get over the attack. I had a sharp attack, but in about a week was able to get up again. As all were enjoined to avoid strictly any reference to the topic which it was believed had led to my seizure, and as I myself did not venture to approach it, days passed over with me in a half-dreamy state, my mind continually dwelling on the late incident, and striving to find out some explanation of it.

"Mr. St. John, sir,