r me, all of you; and God keep you! Good-bye, good-bye!"

He ran hastily downstairs to the front door. A moment later only a
little group of silent men and sobbing women stood on the doorstep
watching the carriage as it drove away.

CHAPTER VI.

ARTHUR was taken to the huge mediaeval fortress at the harbour's mouth.
He found prison life fairly endurable. His cell was unpleasantly damp
and dark; but he had been brought up in a palace in the Via Borra, and
neither close air, rats, nor foul smells were novelties to him. The
food, also, was both bad and insufficient; but James soon obtained
permission to send him all the necessaries of life from home. He was
kept in solitary confinement, and, though the vigilance of the
warders was less strict than he had expected, he failed to obtain any
explanation of the cause of his arrest. Nevertheless, the tranquil frame
of mind in which he had entered the fortress did not change. Not being
allowed books, he spent his time in prayer and devout meditation, and
waited without impatience or anxiety for the further course of events.

One day a soldier unlocked the door of his cell and called to him: "This
way, please!" After two or three questions, to which he got no answer
but, "Talking is forbidden," Arthur resigned himself to the inevitable
and followed the soldier through a labyrinth of courtyards, corridors,
and stairs, all more or less musty-smelling, into a large, light room in
which three persons in military uniform sat at a long table covered with
green baize and littered with papers, chatting in a languid, desultory
way. They put on a stiff, business air as he came in, and the oldest of
them, a foppish-looking man with gray whiskers and a colonel's uniform,
pointed to a chair on the other side of the table and began the
preliminary interrogation.

Arthur had expected to be threatened, abused, and sworn at, and had
prepared himself to answer with dignity and patience; but he was
pleasantly disappointed. The colonel was stiff, cold and formal,
but perfectly courteous. The usual questions as to his name, age,
nationality, and social position were put and answered, and the replies
written down in monotonous succession. He was beginning to feel bored
and impatient, when the colonel asked:

"And now, Mr. Burton, what do you know about Young Italy?"

"I know that it is a society which publishes a newspaper in Marseilles
and circulates it in Italy, with the object of inducing