the
people. The Fisherman put to death many poor musicians merely because
they had been in the service of Maddaloni. The Duke's correspondence was
intercepted, but as it was written in cipher it only increased the
suspicion. The new master of Naples repaired himself to the palace of
Carafa, and wanted to dine there; but he changed his mind, and had a
dinner served up with great pomp at a neighboring convent.

While he was eating there, some of his people dragged thither two
portraits of the Duke and his father, Don Marzio. Upon them he vented
his childish rage; smashed the frames; cut out the heads, which he put
on pikes, which he commanded to be placed on the table before him. On
his return from the market he put on a suit of Carafa's clothes, of blue
silk embroidered with silver; he hung on his neck a gold chain, and
fastened in his hat a diamond clasp, all the property of his enemy who
had escaped. Then he flung himself on a horse, drew forth his pistols
with both hands, and threatened to shoot anyone who approached him, or
who showed himself at the windows, galloped to the sea, where was the
gondola of the Viceroy, undressed himself in it, was dried with fine
Dutch linen, and put on a shirt of Maddaloni's trimmed with lace; and
hearing that Maddaloni had gone toward Piedimonte d'Alife, he ordered a
troop of two thousand men to march thither and seize him. But as these
men, undisciplined in arms, as usual played their parts as heroes better
in the streets than in the open field, they fared wretchedly.

The Prince of Colobrano, a cousin of the Duke's, with some other
friends, surprised them suddenly in the mountains with not more than a
hundred men. Many perished in battle, others of their exertions and
hunger, and, when the intelligence of Masaniello's unfortunate end
reached them, the wretched remainder of the troops returned to Naples.

Masaniello's supremacy was approaching its termination--madness and
cruelty strove within him. It was the worst kind of mob rule. At the
entrance of the Toledo, not far from the royal palace, a high gallows
was erected. Every complaint was listened to, and no defence; no one
felt secure in his home or in his family; the houses of the nobility all
stood empty, and the most sensible of the people saw that the
continuation of this state of things could only lead to universal ruin;
the churches were profaned under the pretext that treasure or banditti
were concealed in them; the terr