was; or he had been on the hills near Salerno, hunted
and hungry; or his company had descended upon some travelers going to
Paestum, made a successful haul, and escaped into the steep mountains
beyond. He didn't intend to become a regular bandit, not at all. He
hoped that something might happen so that he could steal back into
Sorrento, unmarked by the government; or, at least, that he could escape
away to some other country or island, where Fiammetta could join him.
Did she love him yet, as in the old happy days? As for him, she was now
everything to him; and he would willingly serve three or thirty years
in the army, if the government could forget he had been a brigand,
and permit him to have a little home with Fiammetta at the end of the
probation. There was not much comfort in all this, but the simple fellow
could not send anything more cheerful; and I think it used to feed the
little maiden's heart to hear from him, even in this downcast mood, for
his love for her was a dear certainty, and his absence and wild life did
not dim it.

My informant does not know how long this painful life went on, nor does
it matter much. There came a day when the government was shamed into
new vigor against the brigands. Some English people of consequence (the
German of whom I have spoken was with them) had been captured, and
it had cost them a heavy ransom. The number of the carbineers was
quadrupled in the infested districts, soldiers penetrated the fastnesses
of the hills, there were daily fights with the banditti; and, to show
that this was no sham, some of them were actually shot, and others were
taken and thrown into prison. Among those who were not afraid to stand
and fight, and who would not be captured, was our Giuseppe. One day the
Italia newspaper of Naples had an account of a fight with brigands; and
in the list of those who fell was the name of Giuseppe---, of Sorrento,
shot through the head, as he ought to have been, and buried without
funeral among the rocks.

This was all. But when the news was read in the little post office in
Sorrento, it seemed a great deal more than it does as I write it; for,
if Giuseppe had an enemy in the village, it was not among the people;
and not one who heard the news did not think at once of the poor girl
to whom it would be more than a bullet through the heart. And so it was.
The slender hope of her life then went out. I am told that there was
little change outwardly, and that she was as