ion, too, I would ask another favor: let the poor
fellow take his sleep out. It will be quite time enough for me to see
him when he awakes."

The Podesta turned a look of mingled wonder and pity on the man who
could show such palpable weakness in official life; but he evidently
felt he could not risk his dignity by concurrence in such a line of
conduct.

"If your Excellency," said he, "tells me it is in this wise prisoners
are treated in your country, I have no more to say."

"Well, well; let him be brought up," said L'Estrange, hastily, and more
than ever anxious to get free of this Austrian Dogberry.

Nothing more was said on either side while the brigadier went down
to bring up the prisoner. The half darkened room, the stillness, the
mournful ticking of a clock that made the silence more significant, all
impressed L'Estrange with a mingled feeling of weariness and depression;
and that strange melancholy that steals over men at times, when all the
events of human life seem sad-colored and dreary, now crept over him,
when the shuffling sounds of feet, and the clanging of a heavy sabre,
apprised him that the escort was approaching.

"We have no treaty with any of the Italian Governments," said the
Podesta, "for extradition; and if the man be a galley-slave, as we
suspect, we throw all the responsibility of his case on you." As he
spoke, the door opened, and a young man with a blue flannel shirt and
linen trousers entered, freeing himself from the hands of the gendarmes
with a loose shake, as though to say, "In presence of my countrymen in
authority, I owe no submission to these." He leaned on the massive rail
that formed a sort of barrier in the room, and with one hand pushed back
the long hair that fell heavily over his face.

"What account do you give of yourself, my man?" said L'Estrange, in a
tone half-commanding, half-encouraging.

"I have come here to ask my consul to send me on to England, or to some
seaport where I may find a British vessel," said the man, and his voice
was husky and weak, like that of one just out of illness.

"How did you come to these parts?" asked L'Estrange.

"I was picked up at sea by a Greek trabaccolo, and landed at Antivari;
the rest of the way I came on foot."

"Were you cast away? or how came it that you were picked up?"

"I made my escape from the Bagni at Ischia. I had been a galley-slave
there." The bold effrontery of the declaration was made still more
startling by a