and fell among thieves by the way. From
the first page to the last there is not a
single trait of heroism to enliven the prosaic
brutality of the men. Nothing but hard-
ship, selfishness, and fear. Like the savage,
whose mode of living he affects, the brigand's
whole existence is one of suspicion and terror,
He is afraid of everything—of sickness, of death,
of the peasants, of the soldiers, of his
kinsfolk of his wife. At every turn some peril,
beyond the usual peril of human life, meets him
face to face; and familiarity, far from producing
contempt of danger, only serves to sharpen his
faculties in the perception of it, and to keep his
fears for ever alive. Even in the ordinary
danger of their trade they are cowards. When
the soldiers were once close to some of them,
"Pavoni's teeth were all chattering, and he
was as white as a sheet; Scope was the same,
and lying on the ground; and Antonio was
in such a state of fear and shaking, that
he kept striking his gun against the rocky sides
of the cave, and making a great noise, to the
dismay of all. I sat down on a stone, and, to
reassure them, said, 'Courage, courage; eat a
little;' and, to set the example, took some bread
and meat out of my pocket, and began eating
it. My doing so enraged them to a great
extent, and they said, 'What a fool you are to
begin to eat when you will be dead in two
minutes!'"

Indeed, the self-possession of this Englishman,
and his contempt of death and danger,
stand out at all times in startling contrast to
their incessant fear; and this, together with his
quickness of observation, his power of enduring
fatigue, his cool good temper, and his "cleverness"
of hand and eye, gave him a certain hold
on their esteem and rough good-fellowship, which
probably saved him from many a torture. For
he was not ill treated on the whole. The band
itself fared ill. Hunted by the soldiers into
a strange country where they were not sure of
the peasantry, by whose connivance alone they
exist; without shelter at all times; often without
food; living like wild beasts driven from lair to
lair, they had but a bad time of it. Except in
the thievings and ill humour of two worthies,
Pepino and Scope, the Englishman shared the
fortunes of the rest pretty equally. There was
always the great difference of state which could
not be got over—that he was a prisoner, and
had to be watched and guarded, and hidden
out of sight (which was not always easy, seeing
that he was the tallest of the band, and towered
a head and shoulders above any of them), while
they were "companions," with guns, money,
wives, and a certain amount of freedom, always
stopping short of the liberty to escape, or to
betray their comrades.

The five brigandesses, with their short cut
hair, and dressed like the men, looked so like
boys, that it was some time before Mr. Moens
found out they were women. They were not a
very fascinating quintette of womanhood, though
not the bloodthirsty creatures they are often
depicted; being just a group of strong-limbed
active coarse-minded young women, able to
bear an immense amount of privation and
fatigue, but in no way remarkable for devotion,
heroism, melancholy, or any other form of tragic
sentiment. One girl though, poor Concetta, the
chattel of Cicco Guange, showed immense
courage and a kind of Red Indian stolidity of
endurance, when her arm was broken by an
accidental shot from one of the band. She bore
the pain without flinching, not uttering a
sound of complaint, but merely clenching her
teeth together, and hissing through them when
they were dressing her wound with a pair of
scissors. And even when gangrene set in, and
she was compelled to come down into the plains
and give herself up to the authorities, and her
arm was amputated, "she had so much nerve that
she refused chloroform, and neither groaned nor
complained. The only sign she gave of suffering
was clenching her teeth. When the surgeons
left her, she said, 'Remember, I had
eighteen napoleons about me when I came here;
I must have them again when I am well.'"

Two of the five women belonging to Manzo's
band carried guns, the other three revolvers.
Their chief office seemed to be, to mend rent
clothing, and to hem batches of new
handkerchiefs, when they could get them—a gaily
coloured handkerchief being the brigand's gala
dress; but for all womanly work of cooking,
washing, baking, or the like, they were
absolutely useless. The men were generally both
butchers and cooks, when they managed to
either steal or buy a sheep or a goat, while
the peasants do all the rest—and at a rather
larger profit than they could get by dealing with
honester folk.

"All the time I was in their hands," says Mr.
Moens, "I used to inquire the prices of various
articles of food in the towns, and got a very
accurate idea of what the brigands paid for
them; a pezzo, their term for a ducat, equal to
three shillings and fourpence, was the peasants' .
ordinary price for a loaf weighing two rotoli
(equal to about three and a half pounds English);
this costs from threepence to sixpence in the
towns, according to whether it was made of
rye, maize, or wheat, but it made no difference
in the price paid by the brigands. A coarse
cotton shirt cost them two and a half ducats,
or eight shillings and fourpence; and washing
one, a ducat, or three shillings and fourpence;
each cartridge for a revolver cost the same,
and everything else in proportion. From a
calculation I made when with them, I do not
think that a band consisting of from twenty-five
to thirty men would spend less than four
thousand pounds a year for absolute necessaries,
and the rest of their spoils would be lent out
among their friends in the country at ten per
cent interest. I recommended them to try
Italian five per cent stock, as being safer than
lending money on personal security. But they
said they never lost any, and they feared the
stock being confiscated by government."

Thus, the peasant is the great supporter and
the great gainer by brigandage; though on the