ll his Majesty passed the Irish Legion in review, and addressed them
some words of loyal compliment."

"Why did n't he tell you," said the Prince, sarcastically, "that seventy
of the scoundrels have taken service with Garibaldi, some hundreds have
gone to the hills as brigands, and Castel d'Ovo has got the remainder;
and it takes fifteen hundred foot and a brigade of artillery to watch
them?"

"Did you hear this, Maitland?" cried Caffarelli; "do you hear what his
Excellency says of your pleasant countrymen?"

Maitland looked up from a letter that he was deeply engaged in, and
so blank and vacant was his stare that Caffarelli repeated what the
Minister had just said. "I don't think you are minding what I say. Have
you heard me, Maitland?"

"Yes; no--that is, my thoughts were on something that I was reading
here."

"Is it of interest to us?" asked Caraffa.

"None whatever. It was a private letter which got into my hands open,
and I had read some lines before I was well aware. It has no bearing
on politics, however;" and, crushing up the note, he placed it in his
pocket, and then, as if recalling his mind to the affairs before him,
said: "The King himself must go to Sicily. It is no time to palter.
The personal daring of Victor Emmanuel is the bone and sinew of the
Piedmontese movement. Let us show the North that the South is her equal
in everything."

"I should rather that it was from _you_ the advice came than from _me_,"
said Caraffa, with a grin. "I am not in the position to proffer it."

"If I were Prince Caraffa, I should do so, assuredly."

"You would not, Maitland," said the other, calmly. "You would not, and
for this simple reason, that you would see that, even if accepted, the
counsel would be fruitless. If it were to the Queen, indeed--"

"Yes, _per Bacco!_" broke in Caffarelli, "there is not a gentleman in
the kingdom would not spring into the saddle at such a call."

"Then why not unfold this standard?" asked Maitland. "Why not make one
effort to make the monarchy popular?"

"Don't you know enough of Naples," said Caraffa, "to know that the cause
of the noble can never be the cause of the people; and that to throw
the throne for defence on the men of birth is to lose the 'men of the
street'?"

He paused, and with an expression of intense hate on his face, and a
hissing passionate tone in his voice, continued, "It required all
the consummate skill of that great man, Count Cavour, to weld the two