These words, although spoken in a low tone,
were overheard by the priest, who stood for a
moment as if paralysed, but recovering
immediately he cast an indignant glance upon the dying
man, and said, " Confession is not an act of
espionage. You labour under delusions now.
Your mind is not as it should be. I shall leave
you for a short time until you recover from your
present madness." He then withdrew, but a
moment afterwards the turnkey entered the room,
and, approaching Sciarrone, told him he had
scandalised all in the hospital, and he was
consequently to be gagged, manacles being also placed
on his wrists and a double chain on his feet; to
this information he added that he should go now,
but only to return in a few minutes. The man,
indifferent to all these threats, as he was not
yet gagged, told aloud all that had been said to
him. The patients then began to remark on
the fact that great trouble was taken to obtain
the confession of a political prisioner, but little
or none to get that of a common criminal. The
chaplain, informed of what was passing, again
entered the room, and, approaching Sciarrone,
said, " If you die without the pale of the Holy
Roman Catholic Church, you cannot receive
Christian burial. Your body must be food for
fishes." A friend of the dying man now asked
the chaplain to retire for a moment that he might
reason a little with his friend. The priest having
withdrawn, after a long argument Vincenzo was
prevailed on to make a confession, or rather
to pretend to make one to save his family the
suffering it would cause them to know that his
soul had been cast out of the Church and his
body after his death thrown into the sea.

Our new governor was an old and very
ugly-looking man, thickly marked by small-pox, witlh
a coarse voice, and a fierce stern aspect. Being
bald, he wore a rudely made old wig, which added
to the unsightliness of his appearance. He
attended mass every morning, remaining on his
knees the entire time, having in his hand a long
rosary, his lips constantly moving as the beads
slipped through his fingers. He also went to
confession and received communion very
regularly. On his arrival at the prison he proclaimed
his orders from the king personally that we
should wear the chain constantly by day and
night, and that we were to be punished by the
bastinado if we tampered with the chain itself.
After this he entered the rooms attended by
soldiers in order to examine our chains, but he
was not satisfied with the close examination of
the turnkeys until he himself looked with his
hawk's eyes over and over again upon our irons.
All the chains which were polished or had wide
rings were exchanged for rusty fetters and narrow
rings. Woe, then, to him who had the
misfortune to get a very close ring fitting tightly
on his ankle, as there was now no way to have
it exchanged for a looser one. The examination
of the chains being finished, he ordered our
persons to be strictly and regularly searched.
Thinking that the inferior officers might be
bribed, he asked and received permission from
Naples that some gendarmes should be sent to
the Bagnio for the purpose of watching the
prisoners as well as the turnkeys themselves.
As he had been informed that we occasionally
received intelligence, letters, or newspapers from
without, he insisted on having everything that
passed out or in at the prison searched rigorously.
Every visitor went through the same ordeal,
being obliged even to take off his boots or
shoes. In spite of all this rigour we still found
means to hear from our friends, as those officers
who did not enjoy the confidence of Acuti did
everything in their power to deceive him. But
everything done on one day, no matter how
privately, was sure to be known the next, through
treachery of some false liberals who hoped to
escape from, prison as the reward of their
baseness.

As Acuti, notwithstanding all his caution,
was still persuaded that the turnkeys took
bribes from us, in spite of his threats, he ordered
that no money should reach our hands. This
was a mortal blow, as it was money alone
which enabled us to obtain some little comfort,
moral and physical. We got two sheets of paper
once a month, stamped with the prison seal, and
had all to write, if we wished to communicate
with our friends, on the same day. These
letters were so long under official examination
that they usually were not delivered within a
month. Sometimes the lining of our clothes was
removed. Water was measured to us, so that we
had scarcely enough to quench our thirst, and
could not wash our faces. No day passed on
which a political prisoner was not either beaten
or sent to Naples to undergo a new trial. A
word, a smile, a look, was sufficient to draw
down on us Acuti's vengeance. But there is
no suffering without some little comfort. Acuti
had two daughters, who were to us angels of
pity. They did all in their power to baffle their
father's plans against us. If he intended to
surprise us, they took care to let us know. If
he had taken a particular dislike to any one of
us, one of those gentle girls warned him to be
upon his guard. These little favours were most
soothing, for they showed that our miseries were
felt at least by some beings upon earth. Under
the rigour of this reign of terror we all became
afflicted with palpitation of the heart. The very
appearance of Acuti seemed to check the heart's
action. Our tyrant knew this, and was happy.
Ferdinand also receiving information of it,
encouraged his vile instrument to persevere in
cruelty, and to give him a clear mark of his
approbation, changed the commander of the town of
Procida, who was not a very cruel man, for
another of Acuti's stamp.

The common criminals shared all our indignation.
Meanwhile the chamber-keepers, who could
not, in consequence of Acuti's prohibiting the
entrance of money into the prison, obtain
anything from us, stirred up the minds of all against
him; the comiti and turnkeys themselves, who
were abused as much as we were, longed for his
removal. The gendarmes were sick of torturing
us, at the caprice of a wicked fool, and the
inhabitants of Procida itself were moved at the