one. Well,
the orchestra had finished the symphony and up drew the curtain, when,
instead of a village fete with peasants dancing, the stage was crowded
with savage-looking fellows armed to the teeth, every one of whom held
a blunderbuss levelled at the audience. Meanwhile the doors of the boxes
were opened, and the people inside politely requested to hand out their
money, watches, jewels, in fact, all that they had of value about
them, the pit being treated exactly in the same fashion, for none could
escape, as all the doors were held by the bandits. They carried away
forty-seven thousand francs' worth for the night's work. Indeed, the
Delegato has never risen from his bed since it happened, and expects
every day to be summoned to Rome, or sent off to prison at Viterbo.'

'And why does the Pope's government not take some steps against these
fellows? Why are they suffered to ravage the whole country at their
will?'

'You must ask your master, the Cardinal, that question,' said the
miller, laughing. 'It would be easy enough to hunt them down, now that
they 've got the fever in the mountains, if any one cared to do it;
but the "Pastore," as they call their captain, pays handsomely for his
patent to rob, and he never kills where it can be avoided.'

'And who is this Pastore--what was he?'

'He was a friar. Some say he was once a monsignore; and he might have
been, from his manners and language.'

'You have seen him, then?'

'Seen him! _per Bacco!_ that have I, and to my cost! He comes himself to
take up his "due de Pasqua," as he calls his Easter-dues, which are not
the lighter that he assesses them all before he sits down to supper.'

'Do you mean to tell me that he would sit down to table with you?'

'Ay, and be the merriest at the board too. So full of pleasant stories
and good songs was he one night that one of my boys could not resist
the fascination of his company, but started off the next morning to join
him, and has never returned.'

If Gerald's curiosity was excited to learn many particulars of this
celebrated bandit chief, the miller was only too happy to be questioned
on a theme he loved so well. In his apprehension the Pastore was
no ordinary robber, but a sort of agent, partly political, partly
financial, of certain great people of Rome. This was a theory he
was somewhat vain of having propounded, and he supported it with
considerable ingenuity.

The Pastore himself was described as a happy-looking