he frontier, which was scarcely more
than two or three miles distant? But one of those for whom he had
risked life, and all that made life worth living, betrayed him. He was
seized and imprisoned again; and with his loss the greater part of the
scheme, in which he had been concerned, came to nothing, or resulted
only in defeat on the frontier, and in the condemnation of thousands of
the patriots to captivity or the scaffold in the capital or the
provincial towns. Before the hour of deliverance came, Mansana was
beheaded and committed to his grave among the dead companions of his
imprisonment, the thieves and murderers, who lay buried in the great
Cemetery of the Malefactors, whence his bones had been removed this
day.

And now his widow was there to await all that was left of him. Shrouded
in her long dark mantle, she stood in front of the crowd that filled
the flag-bedecked churchyard of Mansana's native town. The monumental
tomb was finished, and that day, after the funeral ceremony was over,
it was to be unveiled amid the thunder of cannon, answered by the blaze
of bonfires from the mountains when darkness had set in.

Up towards the hill country, across the dusty yellow of the Campagna,
our procession threaded its way. We passed from one mountain town to
another; and everywhere, far as the eye could travel, it lighted on
bareheaded crowds of spectators. The populace from all the neighbouring
villages had gathered on the line of route. Bands of music filled the
narrow streets with sound, bunting and coloured cloths hung from the
windows, wreaths were thrown as the procession passed, flowers were
strewn before it, handkerchiefs waved, and not a few eyes gleamed
bright through tears. So we came at last to Mansana's native place,
where the enthusiasm with which we were received mounted to the highest
pitch, and where our numbers were now augmented by large crowds of
persons who had joined us on the march and accompanied us for a
considerable distance.

The throng was densest in and about the churchyard. But as a foreigner
I was courteously allowed to make my way through, and was enabled to
take up my position not far from the widowed lady. Many of the
bystanders were moved to tears to see her, standing there with that
still gaze of hers upon the coffin, the funeral wreaths, the silent
crowds. But she did not weep; for all this pomp and ceremony could not
give her back what she had lost, nor could it add one jot to th