Chapter XI: Part III (2)

The sentinel was leaning against the house-wall, his coat-skirt wrapped round the lock of his musket to protect it from the drizzling rain, and looking as if he would gladly have exchanged his solitary guard for a share in the revels of his comrades, when Paco came out, the cup of wine in his hand, and whistling in a loud key a popular Basque melody. The soldier took the welcome beverage from the muleteer, unsuspicious of any other than a friendly motive on the part of Paco, raised it to his lips, and drank it slowly off, as if to make the pleasure of the draught as long as possible. Thus engaged, he did not observe a man lurking in the shadow of an opposite barn, and who, taking advantage of the sentinel's momentary inattention, and of the position of Paco, who stood so as to mask his movements from the soldier, glided across the street, darted into the house, and, passing unseen and unheard before the open door of the guard-room, nimbly and noiselessly ascended the stairs.

The sentinel drained the cup to the last drop, returned it to Paco, gave a deep sigh of satisfaction, and began marching briskly up and down. Paco re-entered the guard room, and placed the cup upon the table.

The wine was beginning to make visible inroads on the sobriety of some of the soldiers, and the propriety of putting an end to the debauch occurred to the non-commissioned officer.

"Come, boys," cried he, "knock off from drinking, or you'll hardly go through your facings, if required."

"Only one glass more, sergeant," cried Perrico. "There is still a pleasant tinkle in the _borracha_."

And he shook the large leathern bottle which held the supply of wine.

"Only one more, then," said the sergeant, unable to resist the temptation, and holding out his glass. Perrico filled it to the brim, and afterwards did the same for three soldiers who still kept their places at the table, the others having composed themselves to sleep upon the benches round the room. For himself, however, as Paco, who stood behind him, had opportunity of observing, the deserter poured out little or nothing, though he kept the cup at his lips as long as if he were drinking an equal share with his comrades.

"Now," said the sergeant, thumping his glass upon the table, "not another drop. And you, Master Perrico, though your father did keep a wine-shop, and your mother carry the brandy-keg, let me advise you to put your head under the fountain, and then lie down and sleep till your turn for sentry. It will come in an hour or two."

"And where shall I be posted?" hiccuped Perrico, who, to all appearance, began to feel the effects of the strong Navarrese wine.

"Under the prisoners' window," was the reply, "where you will need to keep a bright look-out. I would not be in your jacket for a colonel's commission if they were to escape during your guard. To-morrow's firing-party would make a target of you."

"No fear," replied the young man. "I could drink another _azumbre_ and be none the worse for it."

"_Fanfarron!_" said the sergeant; "you talk big enough for an Andalusian, instead of an Arragonese."

And so saying, the worthy sergeant walked to the door of the house to cool his own temples, which he felt were somewhat of the hottest, in the night air. Paco wished him good-night; and lighting a long thin taper, composed of tow dipped in rosin, at the guard-room candle, ascended the stairs to his own dormitory.

The room, or rather kennel, appropriated to the lodging of the muleteer, was a triangular garret already described, formed by the ceiling of the upper story and the roof of the house, which rose in an obtuse angle above it. Its greatest elevation was about six feet, and that only in the centre, whence the tiles slanted downwards on either side to the beams by which the floor was supported. The entrance was by a step-ladder, and through a trap-door, against which, when he reached it, Paco gave two very slight but peculiar taps. Thereupon a bolt was cautiously withdrawn, and the trap raised; the muleteer completed the ascent of the steps, entered the loft, and found himself face to face with Jaime the gipsy.

"Did no one see you?" said Paco, in a cautious whisper.

"No one," replied the esquilador, reseating himself upon Paco's bed, from which he had risen to give admittance to the muleteer. The bed consisted of a wooden _catre_, or frame, supporting a large square bag of the coarsest sackcloth, half full of dried maize-leaves, and having a rent in the centre, through which to introduce the arm, and shake up the contents. The only other furniture of the room was a chair with a broken back. On the floor lay the gipsy's wallet, and his abarcas, which he had taken off to avoid noise during his clandestine entrance into the house. The gipsy himself was busy tying slip-knot at the end of a stout rope about seven or eight yards long. Another piece of cord, of similar length and thickness, lay beside him, having much the appearance of a halter, owing to the noose already made at one of its extremities. The tiles and rafters covering the room were green with damp, and, through various small apertures, allowed the wind and even the rain to enter with a facility which would have rendered the abode untenable for a human inhabitant during any but the summer season. In one of the slopes of the roof was an opening in the tiles, at about four feet from the floor, closed by a wooden door, and large enough to give egress to a man. To this opening Paco now pointed.

"Through there," said he.

The gipsy nodded.

"The roof is strong," continued Paco, "and will bear us well. We creep along the top till we get to the chimney at the further end, just above the window of the prisoner's room. I have explained to you what is then to be done."

"It is hazardous," said the gipsy. "If a tile slips under our feet, or the sentries catch sight of us, we shall be picked off the house-top like sparrows."

"Perfectly true," said Paco; "but the tiles will not slip, and the night is too dark for the sentries to see us. Besides, friend Jaime, ten ounces are not to be earned by saying paternosters, or without risk."

"Risk enough already," grumbled the gipsy. "At this hour I ought to be five leagues away, and if he, on whose service I was bound, finds out that I have tarried, no tree in the sierra will be too high to hang me on."

"You must hope that he will not find it out," said Paco, coolly.

"Did you give the prisoner a hint of our plan?" enquired the gitano.

"I was unable. I visit him but once a-day, to take him his rations, and that at noon. Since I arranged this plan, I endeavoured to get admittance to him, but was repulsed by the sentry. To have insisted would have excited suspicion. He knows, however, that he is to be shot to-morrow, and is not likely to be asleep."

Just then the deep sonorous bell of the neighbouring church-clock struck the hour. The two men listened, and counted ten strokes.

"Is it time?" said the gipsy, who had completed the noose upon the second rope.

"Not yet," replied Paco; "let another hour strike. Till then, not another word."

The muleteer extinguished the light and seated himself down upon the broken chair; the gipsy stretched himself upon the bed, and all was silent and dark in the garret. Gradually, the slight murmuring sounds which still issued from various houses of the little village became hushed, as the inmates betook themselves to rest; and Paco, who waited with anxious impatience till the moment for action should arrive, heard nothing but the heavy breathing of the esquilador, who had sunk into a restless slumber. Half-past ten was tolled; the challenging of the sentries was heard as they were visited by the rounds; and then soon afterwards came the long-drawn admonition of "_Sentinela alerta!_" from the main guard, replied to in sharp quick tones by the "_Aleria esta_" of the sentries. At length eleven struck, and when the reverberation of the last stroke had died away, Paco rose from his chair, and shook his companion from his sleep.

"It is time," said he.

The gipsy started up.

"The money?" was his first question.

Paco placed a small bag in the esquilador's hand, which closed eagerly upon it.

"I promised you ten ounces," said the muleteer, "and you have them there. When you bring me a line in the handwriting of the prisoner, dated from a Christino town, you shall receive a like sum. But beware of playing false, gitano. Others, more powerful than myself, are concerned in this affair, and will know how to punish treachery."

The gipsy made no reply, but feeling for his wallet, put his sandals and one of the ropes into it, and fastened it on his shoulders. Paco slipped off his shoes, twisted the other rope round his body, and opening the door in the tiles, in an instant was on the top of the house. The esquilador followed. Upon their hands and feet the two men ascended the gradual slope of the roof till they reached the ridge in its centre, upon which they got astride, and worked themselves slowly and silently along towards that end of the building in which Herrera was confined. Owing to the profound darkness, and to the extreme caution with which Paco, who led the way, proceeded, their progress was very gradual, and at last an actual stop was put to it by a small but solidly-built stone chimney which rose out of the summit, and within a foot of the extremity of the house. Paco untwisted the rope from round his body and handed it to the gipsy, retaining one end in his hand. The esquilador fixed the noose about his middle, and altering his position, passed Paco, scrambled round the chimney, and seated himself on the verge of the roof, his legs dangling over. Paco gave a turn of the rope round the chimney, and then leaning forward from behind it, put his mouth to the gipsy's ear, and spoke in one of those suppressed whispers which seem scarcely to pass the lips of the speaker.

"Remember," said he, "ten ounces, or"----

A significant motion of his hand round his throat, completed the sentence in a manner doubtless comprehensible enough to the esquilador. The latter now turned himself about, and supported himself with his breast and arms upon the roof, his legs and the lower part of his body hanging against the side wall of the house. Paco kept his seat behind the chimney, astride as before, and gathering up the rope, held it firmly. Gradually the gipsy slid down; his breast was off the roof, then his arms, and he merely hung on by his hands. His hold was then transferred to the rope above his head, of which one end was round his waist and the other in the hands of Paco. All this was effected with a caution and absence of noise truly extraordinary, and proving wonderful coolness and habit of danger on the part of the two actors in the strange scene. As the gipsy hung suspended in the air, Paco began gradually paying out the rope, inch by inch. This process, owing to the light weight of the gipsy, and to the check given to the running of the cord by the chimney round which it was turned, he was enabled without difficulty to accomplish and regulate. In a brief space of time a sensible diminution of the strain warned him that the gitano had found some additional means of support. For the space of about three minutes Paco sat still, holding the rope firmly, but giving out no more of it; then pulling towards him, he found it come to his hand without opposition. He drew it all in, again twisted it about his body, and lying down upon his belly, put his head over the edge of the tiles to see what was passing beneath. All was quiet; no light was visible from the window of Herrera's room, which was at about a dozen feet below him. The mist and thick darkness prevented any view of the sentry; but he could hear the sound of his footsteps, and the burden of the royalist ditty which he was churming between his teeth.

Whilst all this took place, Luis Herrera, unsuspicious of the efforts that were making for his rescue, sat alone in his room, which was dimly lighted by an ill-trimmed lamp. Twelve hours had elapsed since he had been informed of the fate that awaited him; in twelve more his race would be run, and he should bid adieu to life, with its hopes and cares, its many deceptions and scanty joys. A priest, who had come to give him spiritual consolation in his last hours, had left him at sundown, promising to return the next morning; and since his departure Herrera had remained sitting in one place, nearly in one posture, thoughtful and pre-occupied, but neither grieving at nor flinching from the death which was to snatch him from a world whereof he had short but sad experience. Alone, and almost friendless, his affections blighted and hopes ruined, and his country in a state of civil war--all concurred to make Herrera regard his approaching death with indifference. Life, which, by a strange contradiction, seems prized the more as its value diminishes, and clung to with far greater eagerness by the old than the young had for him few attractions remaining. Once, and only once, a shade of sadness crept over his features, and he gave utterance to a deep sigh, almost a sob, of regret, as he drew from his breast a small locket containing a tress of golden hair. It was a gift of Rita's in their happy days, before they knew sorrow or foresaw the possibility of a separation; and from this token, even when Herrera voluntarily renounced his claim to her hand, and bade her farewell for ever, he had not had courage to part. By a strong effort, he now repressed the emotion which its sight, and the recollections it called up, had occasioned him, and he became calm and collected as before. Drawing a table towards him, he made use of writing-materials, which he had asked for and obtained, to commence a long letter to Mariano Torres. This his confessor had promised should be conveyed to his friend.

He had written but a few lines, when a slight sound at the room window roused his attention. The noise was too trifling to be much heeded; it might have been a passing owl or bat flapping its wing against the wooden shutter. Herrera resumed his writing. A few moments elapsed, and the noise was again heard. This time it was a distinct tapping upon the shutter, very low and cautious, but repeated with a degree of regularity that argued, on the part of the person making it, a desire of attracting his attention. Herrera rose from his seat, and obeying a sort of instinct or impulse, for which he would himself have had trouble to account, masked the lamp behind a piece of furniture, and hastening to the window, which opened inwards, cautiously unlatched it. A man, whose features were unknown to him, was supporting himself on the ledge outside, his legs gathered under him, and nearly the whole of his thin flexible body coiled up within the deep embrasure of the window. Putting his finger to his lips, to enjoin silence, he severed, by one blow of a keen knife, a cord that encircled his waist, and then springing lightly and actively into the room, closed the shutter, since the opening of which, so rapid had been his movements, not ten seconds had elapsed.

Although the motive of this strange intrusion was entirely unknown to him, Herrera at once inferred that it boded good rather than evil. He was not long left in doubt. The esquilador pointed to Herrera's wounded arm, the sleeve of which was still cut open, although the wound was healed, and the limb had regained its strength.

"Have you full use of that?" said he.

"I have," replied Herrera. "But what is your errand here?"

"To save you," answered the gipsy. "There is no time for words. We must be doing."

And making a sign to Herrera to assist him, he caught hold of one end of the heavy old-fashioned bedstead, which had been allotted to the use of the wounded prisoner, and with the utmost caution to avoid noise, lifted it from the ground and brought it close to the window. Then, taking a rope from his wallet, he fastened it to one of the bed-posts. Herrera began to understand.

"And my companions," said he. "They also must be saved. My room door is locked, but the next window is that of their apartment."

"It is impossible," said the gipsy. "_You_ may be saved, perhaps; but to attempt the rescue of more would be destruction. Look here."

The gipsy extinguished the lamp and, stepping upon the bed, reopened the shutter, and drew Herrera towards him.

"Listen," said he, in a low whisper.

The tread of the sentry was heard, and at that moment, the glare of a lantern fell upon the trees, bordering a field opposite the window. Beyond that field the ground was broken and uneven, covered with tall bushes, fern, and masses of rock, and sloping upwards towards the neighbouring hills. The light drew nearer; the sentry challenged. It was the relief. Their heads in the embrasure of the window, Herrera and the gipsy could hear every word that passed. The man going off sentry gave over his instructions to his successor. They were few and short. The principal was, to fire upon any one of the prisoners who should so much as show himself at a window.

By the light of the lantern which the corporal carried, Paco, who was still peering over the edge of the roof, distinguished the features of the new sentry. They were those of Perrico the Christino deserter. The relief marched away, the sentinel shouldered his musket, and walked slowly up to the further end of his post.

"Now then," said the gipsy to Herrera, "fix the rope round your waist. We will let him pass once more, and when he again turns his back, I will lower you. I shall be on the ground nearly as quickly as yourself, and then keep close to me. Take this, it may be useful."

And he handed him a formidable clasp-knife, of which the curved and sharp-pointed blade was fitted into a strong horn handle. With some repugnance, but aware of the possible necessity he might find for it, Herrera took the weapon. The rope was round his waist, and, with his hands upon the embrasure of the window, he only waited to spring out for a signal from the gipsy, who was watching, as well as the obscurity would permit, the movements of the soldier. The night was growing lighter, the wind had risen and swept away the mist from the fields, overhead the clouds had broken, and stars were visible, sparkling in their setting of dark blue enamel.

"Now!" said the gipsy, who held the slack of the rope gathered up in his hands. "No, stop!" cried he, in a sharp whisper, checking Herrera, who was about to jump out, and drawing hastily back. "Hell and the devil! What is he about?"

The window of the room was nearly at the extremity of the sentinel's post, so that, during one period of his walk, the soldier's back, owing to the slow pace at which he marched up and down, was turned for a full minute. It was upon this brief space of time that the gipsy had calculated for accomplishing his own descent and that of his companion. He had allowed the soldier to proceed twice along the whole length of his post, meaning to avail himself of the third turn he should take. But to his surprise and perplexity, when the man passed for the third time, he left his usual track, moved some twenty paces backwards from the house, and gazed up at Herrera's window. Apparently he could distinguish nothing; for, after remaining a few moments stationary, he again approached the wall of the house, looked cautiously around him, and, giving three low distinct coughs, continued his walk. Without pausing to consider the meaning of this strange proceeding, the esquilador caught Herrera's arm.

"Out with you," said he, "and quickly!"

Herrera darted through the window, hung on for one instant by the edge, and let himself go--the gipsy, with a degree of strength that could hardly have been anticipated in one so slightly built, holding the rope firmly, and lowering him steadily and rapidly. The moment that his feet touched the ground, the gipsy sprang out of the window, and, grasping the rope, began descending by the aid of his hands and feet, with the agility of a monkey or a sailor boy. Before he was half-way down, however, the sentinel, who had reached the end of his walk, began retracing his steps. Hererra's heart beat quick. Hastily cutting the noose from round his waist, he pressed himself against the wall and stood motionless, scarcely venturing to breathe. The sentinel approached. Dark though it was, it seemed impossible that he did not already perceive what was passing. Gliding along close to the wall, Herrera prepared to spring upon him at the first sound uttered, or dangerous movement made by him. The soldier drew nearer, paused, let the but of his musket fall gently to the ground, and clasped his hands over the muzzle. Herrera made a bound forward, and clutching his throat, placed the point of his knife against his breast.

"One word," said he, "and I strike!"

"At the heart of your best friend," replied the soldier, in a voice of which the well-known accents thrilled Hererra's blood.

"Mariano!" he exclaimed.

"Himself," replied Mariano Torres.

Just then the gipsy, who had reached the ground, sprang upon the disguised Christino, and made a furious blow at him with his knife. Torres raised his arm, and the blade passed through the loose sleeve of his capote. Herrera hastened to interfere.

"'Tis a friend," said he.

The gipsy made a step backwards, in distrust and uncertainty.

"I tell you it is a friend," repeated Herrera--"a comrade of my own, who has come to aid my escape. And now that you have rescued me, act as our guide to the nearest Christino post, and your reward shall be ample."

The mention of reward seemed at once to remove the doubts and suspicions of the esquilador. Returning to the rope which dangled from the window, he cut it as high up as he could reach.

"They may perhaps miss the sentry and not the prisoner," said he.

At that moment a dark form turned the corner of the house.

"Who goes there?" exclaimed a voice.

"This way," cried the gipsy, and springing across the road, he dashed down a bank, and with long and rapid strides hurried across the fields.

"Who goes there?" repeated the deep hoarse tones of Major Villabuena "Sentry, where are you? Guard, turn out!"

The flash and report of Mariano's musket, which he had left leaning against the wall, and which Don Baltasar found and fired, followed the words of alarm. The bullet whistled over the heads of the fugitives. In another instant all was noise and confusion in the village. The rattle of the drum was heard, lights appeared at the windows, and the clatter of arms and tramp of man and horse reached the ears of Herrera and his companions. Soon they heard a small party of cavalry gallop down a road which ran parallel to the course they were taking. But in the darkness, and in that wild and mountainous region, pursuit was vain, especially when one so well skilled as the gipsy in the various paths and passes directed the flight. In less than half an hour, the three fugitives were out of sight and sound of the village and their pursuers.

After six hours' march, kept up without a moment's halt, over hill and dale, through forest and ravine, the intricacies of which were threaded by their experienced guide with as much facility as if it had been noonday instead of dark night, Herrera and Torres paused at sunrise upon the crest of a small eminence, whence they commanded a view of an extensive plain. On their right front, and at the distance of a mile, lay a town, composed of dark buildings of quaint and ancient architecture, surrounded by walls and a moat, and on the battlements of which sentries were stationed; whilst from the church tower the Spanish colours, the gaudy red and gold, flaunted their folds in the morning breeze.

"What place is that?" said Torres to the guide.

"It is the Christino town of Salvatierra," replied the gipsy, turning into a path that led directly to the gate of the fortress.

SICILIAN SKETCHES.

SYRACUSIANA.

FOUNTAIN OF ARETHUSA.

After three hours' steaming from Catania, we were in the harbour of Syracuse; but it was at two in the morning, and we could not go ashore. A little scuttling takes place overhead while the Mongibello litters her two hundred and forty horses for the night; and, when this is accomplished, all is silent, and we sleep in the moonlit mirror. In two hours more the last star had dropped out of its place; and in another, rosy morn found us all in activity, and on deck, examining a most unprepossessing _paysage_, and contemplating, for many a league, the wretched coast road which must have been our doom if we had _not_ come by sea--so, for once, we had chosen well! Our alternative would have consisted in two days' swinging in a _lettiga_, in facing malaria in the fields, with nothing but famine and fever-stricken hamlets to halt at, and even these at long intervals. There were, to be sure, places enough of ancient _name_, in D'Anville's Geography, along the coast, but nothing _beyond_ the name itself. This is so exactly the case, that even with the beautiful and authentic money of _Leontium_ before us, we did not land at _Lentini_! There is nothing so utterly confounding as the contemplation of _money_, every piece of which is a _gem_, on spots where no imagination can conceive the city that coined it. We are not long before we begin to cater for new disappointment, in the desire to be conducted without delay to the fountain of _Arethusa_. Accordingly, a quarter of a mile's distance from our locanda, under the rampart of the old _Ortygia_, and in the most uncleanly suburb of modern Syracuse, the far-famed spring is pointed out to our incredulity; and we are at once booked with the many who, having got up a suitable provision of enthusiasm to be exploded on the spot, are obliged to carry it away with them. A vile, _soapy washing-tank_ is Arethusa, occupied by half-naked, noisy laundresses, thumping away with wooden bats at brown-looking linen, or depositing the wet load that had been belaboured and rinsed on the bank, gabbling, as they work, like the very _Adonizousoe_ of Theocritus, (himself, as he informs us, a native of Syracuse.) A man lay sleeping with his dog beside him; a number of mahogany-coloured children, quite naked, were sprawling on the parapet-wall, covered with flies, but fast asleep! A poor bird, a descendant of the [Greek: Adones Sikelikai], a nightingale of the soil, _with his eyes put out, that he might not know day from night, and so sing unconsciously, sang to us as we passed_! But the affair was destined, in a single moment, to become ludicrous as well as disappointing. Our guide, Jack Robertson, (so named by an English man-of-war's crew that had, as he said, kidnapped him during the war,) quite mistaking the _nature_ of our disappointment, said, consolingly, "You come _dis_ way, sir; down here I show you _more gals' feet, wash more clothes_;" on which intimation we certainly followed him down a few steps, when, pushing back a wooden door, we entered at once into a large roofed washing-house, along the floor of which still ran the sadly humiliated Arethusa! We praised the beauty of the young washerwomen, and departed--Jack Robertson having considerably more to say on the subject than would interest the reader to know; and which, in fact, we could not tell, without violating what was evidently imparted in confidence.

JACK ROBERTSON AND THE PROFESSOR OF ELOQUENCE.

Under the guidance of the aforesaid Jack Robertson, we had visited two rival collections of coins, the property of two priests, and certainly the finest we had seen in Sicily. Those of _Syracuse_ in silver, of the _first_ or largest module, (_medaglioni_ as they are technically called,) are for size and finish deservedly reputed the most beautiful of ancient coins; and of these we saw a full score in each collection. We might indeed have purchased, as well as admired, but were deterred by the price asked, which, for one perfect specimen, was from 45 to 50 crowns, (£7 or £8 sterling.) These coins are among the largest extant. On one side, the head of Arethusa is a perfect gem in silver, (the _hair_ especially, treated in a way that we have never seen elsewhere;) on the other, is a _quadriga_. One of these ecclesiastics dealt like any other dealer. The other consulted the dignity of the church, and employed a lay brother to impose upon strangers who buy in haste to repent at leisure; for even among the picked, select, and _winnowed_ coins of the man who knows what he is about, there are always false ones. Having shown that we are _au fait_ both as to the _thing_ and the market-price--that we had read Myounet, and were acquainted with the sharp eyes of _de Dominicis_ at Rome, we pass immediately for an English _dealer_; and suspicion becomes conviction, when, taking up a gold Philip, we remark that "all trades must live," and that our price must depend upon his "_quanto per il Filippo_?" "You will not scruple, I suppose, to pay forty-seven dollars!" "Thirty-seven is plenty."--"_Pocket Philip._" "Sir," said we to our employé as we went home, "you are a _rogue_ to have brought us to that cheating priest." "Not so, sir," said the Siculo-Inglese Jack Robertson, "they tell here priest _not_ cheat, always deal _square_--have that character indeed, sir;" and he proceeded to conduct us to another priest-collector, who, in this instance, had gone out to dine with a friend. Jack, however, said he would soon bring him back, dined or undined; and in ten minutes he returned in high spirits at his success. "Always trust _me_, sir! Me no fool, sir! As soon as I see him, sir, I say, you got _coins?_ He say '_yes_.' Den you show what you got _directly_ to English gentlemen. 'No, I won't,' he tell me--'I take my dinner here wid my friends, and after dat I come see English gentlemen.'" Rather a cool thing we thought for a _dealer_ to keep his customers waiting; but, whenever one wants any thing, one can always afford to wait a little, and Jack informed us that he had learned from the padré's servant that his master always dines in a quarter of an hour. The quarter of an hour up, we send again, but our messenger comes back empty-handed. "Well, where is your friend?" "He no friend of mine, sir! He very angry! Not my fault, sir," "Angry? what is he angry about?" "Because I say to him only this, sir--'_Other_ priest ask gentleman _too much_--hope you not _very dear too_, sir;' to which he say, '_You damn fool_, I don't sell coins!' _Den_ I beg his pardon, and he ask me sharply, '_Who_ say I sell coins?' 'Sir,' I say, 'all the whole world say so.' Den he say, '_D--n all the whole world_; and when any body tell you this again, say Abate _Rizzi_ call him a d----d fool, and say he may go to h-ll!!!'" "Abate Rizzi!! why, that is the _Professor of Eloquence_ to whom we were to be introduced yesterday." "Yes, sir," says Jack, "and here he comes," glancing up the street. We now see a personage, whose staid deportment and gait declare him to be much beyond the age when it may be thought allowable to swear. "You rascal, you have been telling us a lie; that gentleman could never have said, damn the whole world." "He did not speak it in _English, sir_." "Not speak it in English? why, what did he say?" "Sir, he say, '_Cazzo! questa é una minchioneria!_' that means 'damn fool,' sir,--'_dettia tutti d' andare al diavolo_,' that be the same as tell every body go to h-ll!!" (the translation in this case we thought not _so_ bad;) we had not, however, time to discuss the matter, for the Professor of Eloquence, who had indulged our servant _pro re nata_ with so very unusual a specimen of his art, was at our elbow. We saluted him courteously, but offended dignity was apparent in a grave face of considerable _church_ power; we therefore subjoined to the ordinary salutation much regret at the awkwardness of our guide, and apologised for intruding on his repose; which apologies, and further explanations, immediately changed the current in our favour. Jack, too, regretted he had been so indiscreet as to be misled by _current reports_; but _this_ was to rouse the calmed resentment into a new explosion. "_Who_," he demanded, in very Demosthenic accents--"_who_ had dared to affirm that he had ever sold a coin?" We went in, saw his very beautiful collection, the Professor himself doing the honours with so much obligingness, that we left him convinced that he neither sold coin nor dispensed anathemas.

EAR OF DIONYSIUS.

"Lautumias Syracusanas omnes audistis; plerique nostis. Opus
est ingens magnificum regumac tyrannorum. Totum est ex saxo in
mirandam altitudenem depresso, et multorum operis penitus
exciso. Nihil tam clausum ad exitus, nihil tam septum undique,
nihil tam tutum ad custodias, nec fieri nec cogitari potest."

Half an hour's shaking in a _lettiga_ brings us without a stumble, by the old forum of Syracuse, to the Ear of Dionysius, and those other stone quarries so well described in the above passage from Cicero _in Verrem_. We alight at the embouchure of these most striking excavations, and, descending a very steep short hill, wind through a small garden of exquisite vegetation, and are in the first _lautumia_ of the series. Here, deeply embayed in a colossal cave, we behold the marks of the ancient pick-axe, and the niches, as it were, in which the labourers sat while they chiselled out the extraordinary work, fresh as if they had been done yesterday! Shapeless and half-fashioned masses, _ebauches_ of columns for temples which never came into the possession of capitals, or the support of entablatures--unborn Dorics of the Greek portfolios are here. The sun striking obliquely from the mouth into the interior of the cavern, made the green vegetation all hoary in the slanting light. Fires in dark caverns are favourite subjects with some painters. We admire them not, but we would have liked to take a sketch of one here for the sake of poor Nicias and his fellow captives. A party of men is collected round a caldron with a fire blazing beneath it; another group is seated at a long table eating; some feed the immense boiler with new supplies from a heap of dirty-looking earth-stained _salt_. Others test the quality from time to time of that which has been purged and crystallized. It was the native nitre of the country on which they were occupied, and the test was its deflagration. In passing out of the _first_ of the line of quarried caverns to go to the _Ear_, which is the last, we are struck with the beauty of the garden into which it opens, which is found in possession of many unfrequent flowers and plants, such as had not prospered even here, but for the singularly sheltered disposition of the spot. Against the wall there grew a magnificent _Smilax sarsaparilla_ in full maturity. A decoction of the twigs of that tree cured the gardener, as he assured us, of an obstinate pain in both shoulders that no other medicine would touch; which testimony in its favour made us look with an added interest on the cordate leaf, and small white verbena-looking flower, of certainly the first, and in all probability the last, _Smilax sarsa_ we should ever see _growing_. We cut off from the main stem an arm about the thickness of an ordinary-sized bamboo, and, like it, knotted, for a souvenir of the place and the plant. In this same garden the tea-plant thrived; the proprietor, Count S----, makes an annual _racolte_ of its leaves, which he keeps for his own teapot. Another curiosity is the _Celtis australis_ or _favaragio_, a tree that bears fruit of the size of a pea, with a stone kernel; a trumpet-flower of spotless white, belonging to the _Datura arborea_, measured a whole foot and a half from lip to stalk! But it were vain to dwell on the novelties of a garden which is _all_ novelty to an English eye, and full of variety to the Italian himself; a garden equally unique in its position and productions. The _Ear_ is probably the most wonderful acoustic contrivance in existence; and that it was the work of studious design, is proved by a _second_ one _commenced_ in a neighbouring quarry--commenced, but not further prosecuted, evidently because it would not answer, from the soft, chalky material of the wall on one side. Its _external_ shape of the conch is that of the ass's ear. The aperture, through which the light now enters from its further end, and from a height of one hundred and twenty feet, was till lately not known to exist; it not being supposed that the _Ear_ had any _meatus internus_ corresponding with the _external one_. The accidental removal of a quantity of loose stones from above, revealed a narrow passage of from twenty to thirty feet in length, and opening directly into the cave. This internal opening is situated almost immediately over the amphitheatre, one hundred and twenty feet above the _floor_ of the cavern, and (measuring in a plane) is one hundred and eighty feet from the external opening.

Having rent paper, which made an incredible noise, and let off a Waterloo cracker, which reverberated along the walls like thunder, and done other deeds of the same kind below, we ascended, and walking over the _back_ of the cavern, presently came upon the passage which leads to its _inner_ opening; and there, leaning over a parapet wall, (in doing which we almost exclude the feeble light that penetrates into the cavern from behind,) we are startled by a very audible but faint whisper, which comes from our friend below, asking us to declare our present sensations. We reply in the same faint whisper; and are immediately apprised of its safe arrival by _another_. One hundred and eighty feet separate the parties. In the stillness of that half-lit cavern, not only were our faintest whisperings conveyed, but we could hear each other breathe! This was a place to come and see!

SANTA LUCIA AND THE CAPUCIN CONVENT, &c.

Some Franciscans told us that Saint Lucia was stabbed close to a granite column, in a subterranean chapel in their church, in the _fourth century_, and _under Nero_!--so ignorant are these men even about what it concerns them to know. They show a silver image, which a dozen men can, they assure us, scarcely lift. The body of the saint is not, however, here, but at Venice. "No; we have but one rib and a thumb," said the padré! "but we have two very handsome _dresses_ which she wore--one red, the other blue." Cast-off clothes, then, will do for relics! In returning to the church, they tell us of a blind old general who came hither on purpose to obtain the intercession of: Santa Lucia, (who had her own eyes put out,) to remove this calamity; with success of course, for they never record failures in church _clinique_. "Do you believe the cure?" we ventured to ask. "Why not? il miracolo e _autenticato_." "No!" said his companion, "_autorizzato_! The distinction is, that the church _authorizes_ the declaration of some lies as miraculous, but declines to make herself responsible for the reality of others!" Round the Capucian church certain stanzas are written, under what are called the fourteen _stazioni_ or stations of the cross, (places where our Saviour is supposed to have halted, or fainted under his load, on his way to Calvary.) Stanzas we were at first profane enough to attribute to Metastasio, but afterwards found that it was only the _metastasis_ of his metre adapted to the use of the church. They are much better than most of our sacred poetry, as it is strangely miscalled, which is frequently neither poetry nor common sense:--

"Il sol si oscura,
E in fin la terra
Il sen disserra
Per grand dolor;
Morto è il Signore!
O Peccatore,
Se tu non piangi,
Sei senza cuor!

"Deh, madre mia,
Con quant' afflitto,
Piangendo, al Petto,
Stringi Gesù!
Io, l'ho fer ito,
Ma son pentito--
Non più peccati,
Non più, non più!

"Dal tuo sepolcro,
Non vo partire,
Senza morire,
Ma qui starò;
Finchè 'l dolore
M'uccida il core,
L'alma piangendo
Qui spirerò!" &c. &c.

The Capucins live on a hill in the only good air in the vicinity of Syracuse; in their precincts we found ourselves fairly attacked on _Luther's_ quarrel, and expected to take up cudgels ecclesiastic on that worn-out controversy--one of our Capucins vaunting himself ready and able to bleed for the _truth_. Liberal ideas are not common in the cloister. "You aver," said he, "that Roman Catholics may be in a way of salvation; we by no means return the compliment--but as both Lutherans and Calvinists agree in believing thus charitably of _us_, and not of one another, it seems a pretty strong argument in our favour." With such high subjects did our apparently very much in earnest friends entertain us, in a garden planted amidst those quarried prisons of the captive Athenians. A man attempted to-day to put off some bad coins upon us, which we recollected to have had offered to us by another hand--still we only hinted that they were forgeries, and declined purchasing. While this was in progress, another person came up properly introduced, with an _enlarged spleen_, which was _certainly_ authentic. We tell him that such indurations of viscera require a _very long time_ indeed for removal: and that malaria is their origin This convent possesses one of those revolting vaults, which dry up and preserve the corpse in the form of mummy; a huge trap-door flapped its wooden wings, and gave us admission into a large subterranean apartment, wherein we presently stood in the midst of defunct brethren arranged along the walls, as if they stood in chapel at their devotions! On the floor thirty or forty light boxes looked like orange chests, with custom-house hieroglyphics on their lids; but they were marked with proper and even high-sounding names, and were in fact the coffins of barons, counts, and prelates, transported here to have the _benefit of the air_, and there accordingly they lay unburied, to profit by the antiseptic qualities of the soil. We looked at a baron or two, and saw something like a huge caterpillar beginning to change into a chrysalis; a grub mummy dressed out in old Catanian silk, and so enveloped in cobwebs, that you could with difficulty make out the central nucleus of shrivelled humanity. "_Questo_," said our cowled conductor, "è il Barone Avellina, morto di cholera, anno ætatis fifty-six; he loved our order! here is another equally good-looking personage," said he, exposing a corrugated face and dark hair, frightfully at variance with a blue silk handkerchief, and all the funeral gear of twenty years ago. This was another victim to that awful visitation; his feet and hands were covered with faded herbs, rosemary, and lavender; first placed in the coffin at the time of his decease, and renewed every year by friends, when the cobwebs of the year preceding are brushed away. One elder, the pride of the collection, had lain in his court-suit for nearly a hundred years, the aforesaid aromatics having kept off the moths all this time. The room felt dry, and, except for the _company_, what one calls _comfortable_. Knee-buckles and shoe-buckles, and steel-hilted swords, do not rust here, and white cravats and embroidered waistcoats might almost return to the world! The Capucins themselves are disposed in niches, and each has a text from Scripture over his cowl. "Do you _prepare_ these mummies?" we enquire "_Nienti preparati, signor!_ We only lay them to dry in yonder room over a sink, and when they have lain four months, we take them out and complete the process in another room, where the sun comes; after which we dress them and place them here." These Capucins, they tell us, are the strictest of all sects of Franciscans. From the sights of the mummy chamber, we see at least that they are not idle, and must always have a job on hand. Females, if _not_ Catholic, are here admitted to see the grounds, and they offer wine and bread for our refreshment, which we, thinking of their _wallets_, decline on the plea of _anorexia_. Near the Capucins is the Church of _San Giovanni_, a singularly wild spot, in the midst of bad air, and within reach of the Ear of Dionysius. We descend with a fellow filthier than the filthiest Capucin, calling himself a hermit, to guide us in the vast catacombs over which the hermitage stands. It was a trial to follow him--the rank woollen dress, uncleansed till it falls to pieces, diffuses an odour which, in such confined passages, is particularly unpleasant. Cleanliness, says an English proverb, is next to godliness; but, in cowled society, it assuredly forms no part of it. Catacombs, in general, are called interesting--we never saw one in which we did not pay heavy penalty for gratifying curiosity. Those of Syracuse are vast indeed; spacious arcaded streets intersect each other in all directions, and your walk throughout lies between lengthening files of niches, cut into the walls for coffins, tier above tier, like berths in a steamboat, conducting here and there into a circular apartment, with a cupola and a central aperture, looking out upon the wild moor above.

SHARKS, FIREFLIES, &c.

We form to-day the acquaintance of an intelligent medical practitioner and collector in natural history, from whom we learn that there are eight different species of dog-fish (_Squalus_) along the Syracusan coast. This animal, to the popular fame of whose injurious exploits we had hitherto yielded unabated confidence, appears fully to justify his West Indian character. An "ancient mariner" told us, that full forty miles from Syracuse, a shark, which had been following him for a long time, thrust his head suddenly out of the water, and made a snap at him; and if the boat had not been a _thunny_ boat, high in the sides, there is no saying how much of him might have been extant! A pair of trousers drying in the sun over the side of the boat should have small attraction for a shark, but he _took_ them on _speculation_. At one of the principal thunny fisheries near Catania, the fishermen have fixed upon poles, like English kites on a barn-door, _pour encourager les autres_, two immense sharks' heads as trophies--the jaws at full gape, exhibiting four sets of teeth as sharp as harrows, and as white and polished as ivory. They always wish to decline any dealings with this formidable foe, though his flesh is in repute in the market, and he weighs from two thousand five hundred to four thousand pounds. But Syracuse has no reason to complain of scarcity, or to eat shark's flesh from necessity; most of the _Scomber_ family,--the _alatorya_, the _palamida_, and a fine gray-coloured fellow which the fishermen call _serra_, frequent her coast; then there is the _Cefalo_--the ancient _mugilis_, our gray mullet--and the sea-pike, _Lucedimare_, whose teeth and size might well constitute him lieutenant to the dog-fish,--all these came to table during our stay; but we did not meet with one very superior fish known to the ancients as the _Lupus_, (_labrax_ of the Greeks,) which abounds when in season, and is known in every comfortable _ménage_ along the Sicilian coast; his Linnæan name is _sparus_. On the shore are to be picked up occasionally two small kinds of shells _peculiar_ to Sicily, of which our intelligent acquaintance is so obliging as to give us specimens. We never saw or heard of a firefly in Sicily. Professor Costa of Naples, though he doubted the fact of there being none, had never seen any in his frequent entomological trips to that island. This beautiful insect, so common about Florence and Rome, and in central Italy, is extremely rare about Naples; nor does this seem to be from their disliking the sea, for we never saw so _many_ as at _Pesaro_, on the Adriatic;--no insect, then, is more _volage_, or uncertain as to place, than the firefly. The only poisonous _reptile_ of Sicily is the _viper_, of which there seem to be several varieties. A beautiful blue thrush (_Turdus cyaneus_), a great _talker_, much prized, and _high-priced_ too, when he has been taught to speak, is found in the rocky clefts about Syracuse. The heat and brilliancy of the sunshine render it extremely difficult, we are told, to preserve collections in natural history. All the water drunk here is _rain water_. The butter, fruit, and vegetables of Syracuse are, in the month of May at least, bad, very bad; but its _Muscat_ wine, its _Hybla_ honey, and its fish, are all of superior quality.

The honey of that hill needs not our praise,

----"quæ nectareis vocat ad certamen
Hymetton,
Audax Hybla, favis."

For ourselves, after tasting the confection of the Attic as well as of the Sicilian bee, we know not which is the greater artist, or which operates on the finer material; but the _best_ honey in Europe, in our opinion, comes from the apiaries of Narbonne.

A CONSULTATION.

We had given advice, and were preparing to go, when another candidate comes forward, and, with suitable gesticulation, _so_ placed his hands that we could not help saying, "Liver, eh?" "_Eccelenza_, si!" "Dopo una febbre?" "_Illustrissimo_, si!"--Folk now beginning to wink approvingly at our sagacity, we were looking exceeding grave, when a pair of Sicilian eyes set in a female head put us quite out by evidently taking us for a conjurer, and so setting at once our ethics, our pathology, and our Italian dictionary at fault. Still the surgeon congratulates the room on the "_lumi_" brought to it by the strange doctor, approves of the prescription, and corroborates our opinion that the "Signore _Don Jacomo_" _Somebody_ was the incontestable possessor of a "_flogosè chronica del fegato!_" We now said we must go; and _two_ children ran for our hat, the man with the liver kisses our hand, others seize our coat-skirts, and the guide, Jack Robertson, carries the mace and leads the way, and puts himself at the head of the procession homewards; and glad were we to escape the embarrassment of curtsies and courtesies, to which we are unused, and far too extravagant ones to admit of reply. Come! the best of fees is a poor man's gratitude; but from poor or rich, at home or abroad, it is seldom that medical men walk off so magnificently.

EXCURSION TO EPIPOLÆ.