ugh he had never left it. Maddalena hobbling about as before, and
busy enough now, gathering the grapes with her long arms; the dog, who
had grown old and blind of one eye; and in the salon the marks of the
bullets still visible, but the holes in Erminia's portrait had been
carefully repaired. When I went in, the captain was walking up and
down, smoking and reading, but on seeing me he laid aside his book--as
usual verses by his English poet--and heartily shook my hand. He had
spent the whole night between the rocks and woods, lying out to stalk
his game, and only slept a little in the morning. At midnight he was
going out again with three stout fellows who did honour to the Pope's
uniform. If I liked I might go with him.

"I declined with thanks on this occasion, and did not remain long, for
his manner, half fierce and half reckless--as though he were playing a
game of chance--gave me an uncomfortable feeling. On my way home, I
laid a kind of wager as it were with myself--that if seven days passed
without his coming to a bad end, I would print my sonnets to Erminia at
my own expense; if otherwise I would leave them in manuscript. And an
end did indeed come, but whether it could be called good or bad, God
knows, and so to the present day I am in doubt whether I won the wager
or not.

"It was he himself who circumstantially related to me the way things
fell out, so that you can receive my narrative as though you had it
from his own lips. He began to wonder much, he said, that Barbarossa
did not confront him, for his return was nothing else than a direct and
open challenge. Twice when on his rounds with the gendarmes, he had
stumbled upon suspicious-looking characters, but they had not held
their ground--dived out of sight like frogs when the stork appears. He
fancied they did this with the intention of drawing him on further into
the mountains in order to attack him with less risk. So he was glad
when an expedition on a large scale into the Sabina was planned,
although not for the next night, but the next but one, for the soldiers
were determined to get their fill of sleep first, so as to be all the
fresher.

"But the captain could not remain so long inactive, and as he had no
companions--his usual escort preferring a good night to an aimless
ramble--he loaded his double-barrelled gun, called his dog, who seemed
disinclined to follow him, and left his vineyard just as the moon rose.

"Fool-hardy as he was, he yet gua