Instantly I was seized by several strong hands,
I was thrown down, and very tightly bound with
cords and thongs, drawn savagely around my
wrists and ankles, for it had often happened that
a tortured prisoner had done mischief among the
tormentors. Then my boots and stockings were
torn away piecemeal, and I was thrust forward
until the bare soles of my feet were close to the
glowing red embers of the great fire. I was
chilled with the bleak mountain air and with
fatigue, and for the first few moments the heat
was not disagreeable, but presently it became
inconvenient. I bore it silently. The discomfort
deepened into pain, the pain into agony, and I
groaned, and tried to crawl away. A robber took
me by the shoulders, and thrust me back again
as if I had been a log; my scorched feet came in
contact with the hot embers, and I could not
suppress a scream, which was mocked by a roar
of laughter from the unfeeling savages.

"The roast meat will be burned," said one
wag, and the joke elicited fresh mirth. A woman
or two certainly did say " poverino," as I writhed
and moaned, but no one offered to release me,
and I began to fear that I should be maimed for
life. The fierceness of the pain drove even that
thought from my mind, conquered all sense of
pride, resentment, and prudence, and I shrieked
wildly and incessantly, sometimes beseeching
the hard-hearted barbarians to have pity;
sometimes taunting and cursing them, in the frantic
hope that I might provoke some more irascible
brute than the rest into ending my sufferings by
a shot or a stab. Then nature was utterly spent,
and I fainted.

When I recovered my senses I was lying
in a wretched hut, on a heap of straw. On a
broken wine-cask at some distance sat a grey-
haired old crone, busy with one of those classic
spindles which the Italian peasant women have
used from the days of Etruscan civilisation. For
a time my senses were so dulled that I could
remember nothing; and, though I saw that it was
morning, and felt the air chilly, I did not try to
realise how I came into my present position. At
last a sharp shooting pain in my feet recalled my
recollection of bygone suffering, and I groaned,
and tried to rise, but failed. The old woman
turned her head, and bade me lie still, as if I had
been a froward child, then came forward to
unwind some yards of coarse linen in which my
injured feet were wrapped, and proceeded to
dress the scorched skin afresh with some
wonderfully soothing unguent.

This old woman had, I suspect, saved my life.
She alone had had compassion upon me as I
lay insensible. The motive of this was very
curious. Neapolitans of her class have little or
no idea of philanthropy in theory or in practice,
and it seldom enters into any one's head to pity
the distress of those who are not akin to them
in blood, or bound by friendship. But old
Caterina had, it appears, been the mother of
two sons, members of the gang, who had been
hanged at Naples several years since, and, to
the youngest and best beloved of these, I, in
his mother's opinion, bore a strong resemblance.
This lucky likeness had induced tbe old woman
to undertake the cure of the lonely stranger.
Thus she had coaxed some of the men to carry
me to her hut—a goatherd's deserted hovel
—had laid me on a heap of straw beneath a
tattered blanket, and had rubbed my blistered
feet with an ointment which she declared to be
infallible, and which would enable me to " dance
the Tarantella" in a month at latest.

But I was not yet safe. The Lamb, though
convinced that I was not the traveller in whose
stead I had been captured, was determined that
I should not get off scot free.

"He has fixed your ransom at eighteen
thousand ducats. The milordo would have had to
pay fifty thousand," said my protectress; " and
he will have the money. He gets money from
all, even from begging friars and vine-dressers.
Only last week he cut off the ears of a rich
jeweller, first one, then the other, and sent them
to his cliildren in Salerno. The ransom was paid,
but had it not been, L'Agnello would have
chopped off every finger of the prisoner's hands
joint by joint. That's how he serves the rich.
As for those who are not rich, he first toasts
their feet and then stabs them with his stiletto
—he does not waste much trouble on them;
so, child, you had better think of some relation
who would pay down the money to see you alive
again."

Later in the day I received a visit from the
brigand chief, who spoke substantially as follows:
Everybody knew that all Inglesi were wealthy
folks, and, if I were not able to pay, probably I
had kith and kin who would buy my safety.
Failing that resource, were there not consuls
and ambassadors of Inghilterra who might,
could, would, and should forward the necessary
cash to save the life of a British subject? To
facilitate matters, he, L'Agnello, would give me
two weeks' grace, and would lower the terms
to fourteen thousand ducats; but, sooner than
take a maravedi less, he would cause my head
to be cut off and forwarded as a present to
the Syndic of Portici, as he had done, four
years since, in the case of Tommaso Potti, the
vintner.

Thus spoke the Lamb, not angrily, but with a
kind of good-humoured ferocity, and in the
course of the afternoon a number of the robbers
sauntered into the hut, and one and all advised
me in all seriousness to comply with their leader's
recommendation. Some of them—of the younger
men especially—did not appear to be wholly
without compassion for my wretched state, since my
injured feet were very painful, and I could not
stand as yet, and they patted me on the back
with rough kindness, and bade me fear nothing,
as I should be well used among them.
But one and all agreed that unless I obtained
the sum demanded, it would go very hard with
me.

"The Lamb," said one tall youngster, who had