exacted an obedience that left no question of a
divided command.

One day "Guange, who had been a soldier in
the Italian army, and who had become a brigand
merely for having been away from his regiment
one day without leave, was having an altercation
with one of his comrades, and, like these people,
wished to have the last word. Manzo told him
to be quiet, and just because he did not obey at
once, he rushed at him, knocked him down, and
kept hitting him and rubbing his face on the
stones. Still Guange would not be quiet, until
Manzo had pounded his face into a jelly, it being
quite bruised, and bleeding freely. Even his
gums were cut badly from the grinding against
the ground. Manzo looked a perfect demon
when excited; he curled up his lips, and
showed all his teeth, and roared at his victim,
jerking out his words. The implicit obedience
generally shown to him by the members of his
Band was extraordinary. They loved him on
account of his unselfishness as regards food, he
being always willing to give away his own share,
and they feared him because he had shown on
one or two occasions that he did not scruple to
shoot any of them on the spot if they refused to
obey orders."

When the "order of release" came for the
prisoner in the shape of the last instalment of
ransom, Manzo sent round the hat, in order
that Mr. Moens should "go to Naples like a
gentleman," and made up a sum of seventeen
and a half napoleons, besides rings and other
keepsakes. But this was not a very large
percentage on a ransom of thirty thousand ducats;
and the Englishman took all he could get, and
asked for more, getting some things he wanted,
but not others. He got Generoso's ring and
knife—the knife that had already taken the lives
of two men—giving in exchange the small
penknife with which he had whittled out a spoon,
and carved a cross, and made many other little
matters, to the intense admiration and amazement
of the brigands; but he just missed by an
accident a very thick and long gold chain, for
which he asked Manzo, and which he would
have had, but that the gentleman was called
away while he was taking it off to present to
him. He got five rings in all, which Manzo's
mother made him show two peasants after he
was free; and which she evidently considered
reflected great dignity on her as the mother of
one who had shown such princely generosity.

But if times were more tolerable when Manzo
was with his band, they were very intolerable
when Mr. Moens was left with only a guard,
while the captain was off, either on a foraging
expedition, or looking after those eternal
instalments which, though paid, could not be "lifted"
because of the soldiery. When with Pepino's
band especially, things went hard with him.
As they were to have no share in his expected
ransom, they looked upon him as a nuisance, and
grudged every morsel of food they were obliged
to give him. Pepino stole his drinking-cup, his
capuce or hood, in fact all he could lay his hands
on; and they half starved him; making a point
of speaking to him with the utmost brutality,
and constantly threatening his life with their
pistols, guns, and knives. One great game in
which they indulged, was thrusting their knives
quickly between his body and his arms. Their
captive says, "I never allowed myself to show
the slightest fear, and always told them that it
was nothing to die, it was soon over, and that
the next world was far better. They all have
the most abject fear of death, and I always tried
to impress them with the idea that Englishmen
never fear to die, and that, if they wished it,
they were perfectly welcome to take my life, as
it would save me and my friends so much
trouble. I felt sure that in a short time they
would discontinue trying to frighten me, when
they found out that I only laughed at their
attempts, and ridiculed them for their fear of death."

It was the only thing to make them respect
him, though another time it was a chance whether
the English spirit would lead to good or evil for
him. They were going up a very steep ascent,
when Generoso, who was immediately behind
Mr. Moens, "kept hitting and poking me with
the barrel of his gun, because I did not ascend
as quickly as he wished, though I was close
behind the man before me. At last I turned
round in a pretended rage, and with my stick
in both hands, raised it over his head. He
shrank back and brought his gun up to his
shoulder with an oath. Two or three ran up.
I caught hold of him, but at the same time they
abused me, and seemed quite taken aback at the
idea of a ricattato threatening one of themselves.
I told them I walked as well as they did, and I
would not be bullied, so it was no use attempting
it—that they might kill me if they wished,
and the sooner the better. I found this answer
capitally, and I was never touched again while
on the march, and it was from this moment that
they began to respect me a little for my apparent
disregard of death; and when we arrived at the
camp-fire, it was immediately narrated how I had
threatened to kill a companion, this being the term
they always use when speaking of each other."

These camp-fires on the mountains are the
really picturesque circumstance of a brigand's
life, and when lying round them the only time
when he is picturesque; for his uniform, which
looks well enough when new, soon gets torn
and dirty, and incomplete—this article being
left behind in a sudden flight—that article
falling as a legacy to an accommodating peasant
who has taken it to wash or to repair, and
on whose hands the unexpected appearance
of troops finally throws the dangerous treasures
—while, as for the gay foppery of rings and
chains and coloured scarves and kerchiefs, and
all the rest of the stock adornments, they exist
certainly, but they appear only on rare festal
days, when the times are considered safe, and
finery and jollity not out of season. But these
times are very rare; the main object of a
brigand's life being to procure food, either by
"tithes in kind," levied in unfriendly districts,
or by exchange and barter when the peasants
are of a more commercial and obliging frame of
mind, or as future ransom-money in the shape
of defenceless wayfarers with families who