by all the
fatigue of his journey coupled with the fever of enthusiasm that had
consumed him during the morning. And as though dazed, intoxicated by the
hasty meal which he had just made--a couple of eggs and a cutlet--he
flung himself upon the bed with the idea of taking half an hour's rest.
He did not fall asleep immediately, but for a time thought of those
Boccaneras, with whose history he was partly acquainted, and of whose
life in that deserted and silent palace, instinct with such dilapidated
and melancholy grandeur, he began to dream. But at last his ideas grew
confused, and by degrees he sunk into sleep amidst a crowd of shadowy
forms, some tragic and some sweet, with vague faces which gazed at him
with enigmatical eyes as they whirled before him in the depths of
dreamland.

The Boccaneras had supplied two popes to Rome, one in the thirteenth, the
other in the fifteenth century, and from those two favoured ones, those
all-powerful masters, the family had formerly derived its vast
fortune--large estates in the vicinity of Viterbo, several palaces in
Rome, enough works of art to fill numerous spacious galleries, and a pile
of gold sufficient to cram a cellar. The family passed as being the most
pious of the Roman _patriziato_, a family of burning faith whose sword
had always been at the service of the Church; but if it were the most
believing family it was also the most violent, the most disputatious,
constantly at war, and so fiercely savage that the anger of the
Boccaneras had become proverbial. And thence came their arms, the winged
dragon spitting flames, and the fierce, glowing motto, with its play on
the name "_Bocca sera, Alma rossa_" (black mouth, red soul), the mouth
darkened by a roar, the soul flaming like a brazier of faith and love.

Legends of endless passion, of terrible deeds of justice and vengeance
still circulated. There was the duel fought by Onfredo, the Boccanera by
whom the present palazzo had been built in the sixteenth century on the
site of the demolished antique residence of the family. Onfredo, learning
that his wife had allowed herself to be kissed on the lips by young Count
Costamagna, had caused the Count to be kidnapped one evening and brought
to the palazzo bound with cords. And there in one of the large halls,
before freeing him, he compelled him to confess himself to a monk. Then
he severed the cords with a stiletto, threw the lamps over and
extinguished them, calling to the Co