himself upon a bench in the market-place and
fell profoundly asleep.

His sleep lasted only a couple of hours. He
had lain down full of anxiety and apprehension,
and no sooner had the first torpor of excessive
fatigue passed off than he woke, oppressed
by a vague uneasiness, and, for the first few
moments, unable to remember where he was.

He looked round upon a spacious piazza deep
in shadow, and scattered over with groups of
sleeping soldiers, and stands of arms.

Melazzo taken; Castletowers missing;
perhaps wounded—perhaps dead! He sprang to
his feet as these recollections flashed upon him,
and half stupified with sleep, prepared to resume
his quest. At the first step, he stumbled over
the corpse of a Neapolitan grenadier, lying as
if asleep, with his white face turned up to the
sky. A few paces further on, he met a couple
of Garibaldians, preceded by a torch-bearer,
bearing away a wounded man upon a shutter.

Learning from these that there were several
temporary hospitals in the town, as well as others
beyond the gates, he resolved to visit all before
pursuing his search in other directions. He
then followed them to a church close by, the
stone floor of which had been laid down with
straw for the reception of the wounded. The
torches planted here and there against the walls
and pillars of the building served only to make
visible the intense gloom of the vaulted roof
above. All around, more or less dangerously
wounded, lay some sixty soldiers; while, gliding
noiselessly to and fro, were seen the surgeons
and nurses, busy on their work of mercy.

Pausing at the door, he asked the sentry if
he knew anything of an English nobleman—
Lord Castletowers by name—whom he had
reason to fear must be among the wounded.

"An Englishman?" said the sentry. "Si,
amico, there was an Englishman brought in
about two hours ago."

So Saxon went up the nave of the church,
and preferred his inquiry to one of the nurses.

She shook her head.

"Alas!" she replied, "his case was hopeless.
He died ten minutes after he was brought in."

"Died?"

"His poor body has not yet been removed.
It lies yonder, close under the pulpit."

Half in hope, half in dread, the young man
snatched a torch from the nearest sconce, and
flew to the spot indicated. The shattered corpse
lay placidly enough, with a smile upon its dead
lips, and the eyes half closed, as if in sleep, but
it was not the corpse of Lord Castletowers.

With a deep-drawn breath of relief, Saxon
then turned away, and passing gently along the
line of patients, looked at each pale face in
turn. Having done this, he inquired his way to
the next ambulance, which was established in
the ground floor of the Polizia. In order to
reach this place, he had to re-cross the piazza.
Here he met three or four more torch parties;
for the Garibaldians were still anxiously searching
for their wounded in all parts of the town.

At the door of the Polizia he accosted the
sentry with the same question that he had been
asking at every barricade and outpost in the
place. Could he give him any information of
an English gentleman, Lord Castletowers?

The sentry, who happened to be a Frenchman,
lifted his cap with the best-bred air
imaginable, and asked, in return, if he had the
honour of addressing Monsieur Trefalden.

Saxon replied in the affirmative; but ...

"Alors, que monsieur se donne la peine
d'entrer. Il trouvera son ami, milord Castletowers
dans la première salle à gauche."

Scarcely waiting to thank the friendly Gaul
for his intelligence, Saxon rushed in, and almost
the first face on which his eyes rested was the
face of his friend.

He was sitting on the side of a bench that had
been serving him for a bed. He had a large cloak
thrown over his shoulders, and looked rather
pale; but was, nevertheless, tranquilly smoking
a cigar, and chatting with his nearest neighbour.

"So, Trefalden," said he, as Saxon burst into
the room, "you have found me at last! I
knew you would be looking for me all over the
place, if you were alive to do it; so I left word
at the door that you were to apply within.
Excuse my left hand."

"I am so glad, Castletowers!" exclaimed
Saxon. "I was never so glad in my life!"

"Gently, my dear fellow—gently! You need
not shake one's hand quite so vehemently."

"What is the matter? Where are you hurt?"

"In the right arm—confound it!"

"Very badly?"

"No. That is to say, I am not doomed to
amputation; but there's an end, so far as I am
concerned, to glory and gunpowder—and that is
quite bad enough."

CHAPTER LXVII. IN DURANCE VILE.

THE mystery of the Earl's disappearance was
sufficiently simple when it came to be explained.
He had been carried over the barricade in the
last great rush, and, instead of remaining on the
spot like Saxon, to fight it out to the last blow,
had dashed on with some twenty others, in
pursuit of the first fugitives. Having chased the
Neapolitans into a blind alley, taken them
prisoners, and deprived them of their arms, the
Garibaldians then fell in with the Pavia
company, and shared with them some of the hottest
work that was done in Melazzo that day.

It was while with this gallant company, and
at the moment when he was assisting to plant
the tricolor on the top of a summer-house in a
long-contested garden, that Lord Castletowers
received two shots in the right arm, and was forced
to go back to the ambulances in the rear.

His wounds, though severe, were not in the
least dangerous; one bullet having lodged in the
biceps muscle of the upper arm, and another
having fractured the ulna bone of the forearm.
Both, however, had been already extracted
before Saxon found his way to the Polizia, and the
surgeon in attendance assured them that Lord
Castletowers would, in time, regain the use of his
arm as completely as if no mischance had ever
befallen it. In the mean while, to be sure, the
results were sufficiently inconvenient. The Earl's