ion was decided upon.

The period when Francesco Cenci was accustomed to go to Rocco Petrella
was approaching: it was arranged that Olympio, conversant with the
district and its inhabitants, should collect a party of a dozen
Neapolitan bandits, and conceal them in a forest through which the
travellers would have to pass. Upon a given signal, the whole family
were to be seized and carried off. A heavy ransom was to be demanded,
and the sons were to be sent back to Rome to raise the sum; but, under
pretext of inability to do so, they were to allow the time fixed by the
bandits to lapse, when Francesco was to be put to death. Thus all
suspicions of a plot would be avoided, and the real assassins would
escape justice.

This well-devised scheme was nevertheless unsuccessful. When Francesco
left Rome, the scout sent in advance by the conspirators could not find
the bandits; the latter, not being warned beforehand, failed to come down
before the passage of the travellers, who arrived safe and sound at Rocco
Petreila. The bandits, after having patrolled the road in vain, came to
the conclusion that their prey had escaped, and, unwilling to stay any
longer in a place where they had already spent a week, went off in quest
of better luck elsewhere.

Francesco had in the meantime settled down in the fortress, and, to be
more free to tyrannise over Lucrezia and Beatrice, sent back to Rome
Giacomo and his two other sons. He then recommenced his infamous
attempts upon Beatrice, and with such persistence, that she resolved
herself to accomplish the deed which at first she desired to entrust to
other hands.

Olympio and Marzio, who had nothing to fear from justice, remained
lurking about the castle; one day Beatrice saw them from a window, and
made signs that she had something to communicate to them. The same night
Olympio, who having been castellan knew all the approaches to the
fortress, made his way there with his companion. Beatrice awaited them
at a window which looked on to a secluded courtyard; she gave them
letters which she had written to her brother and to Monsignor Guerra.
The former was to approve, as he had done before, the murder of their
father; for she would do nothing without his sanction. As for Monsignor
Guerra, he was to pay Olympio a thousand piastres, half the stipulated
sum; Marzio acting out of pure love for Beatrice, whom he worshipped as a
Madonna; which observing, the girl gave him a handsome scarl