ANOTHER DESPATCH.
On the evening of the next day Macleod put into my hand a despatch for the general, containing an account of the capture of Crotona, with a list of the prisoners, stores, and casualties. With this document I had to set out forthwith for the castle of Scylla, where Sir John Stewart, with the brigade of Colonel Oswald, was pushing the siege in person against a French garrison, which made a most resolute defence. The French soldiers were commanded by the Marchese di Monteleone, who, by some unaccountable means, had passed the piquets of the Masse, and contrived to reach the fortress from the distant camp at Cassano; his known bravery well entitled him to assume the command.
At first I was chagrined at the idea of a journey of more than a hundred miles through such an extraordinary country; but, understanding that Marco of Castelermo had offered to be my guide and companion by the way (and on my return, if necessary), I looked forward to the long ride as a probable source of pleasant and exciting adventures; for every day brought forth something new and stirring during our campaign in these turbulent provinces, and every rood of ground over which we marched was rich in the recollections of the past.
The morning gun aroused me next day by dawn, and with alacrity I quitted my couch, which consisted of nothing more luxurious than a wooden bench and my horse-cloak.
Through the open iron lattice the brightening east gave promise of another glorious Italian day; a cold, grey light spread over the sky, distinctly revealing the most distant points of the scenery even so far as the peaks of Santa Severina, (famous for that wine which Pliny of old so much commended), and the little city of Strongoli perched on the summit of a lofty mountain rising up abruptly from the shores of the Ionian sea. The sun was yet far below the horizon, and the streets of Crotona, the dark courts and blood-stained walls of the citadel, were yet gloomy, silent, and still. Masses of shattered masonry, splinters of shells, scattered shot, broken gun-carriages, with here and there a corpse which our fatigue parties had not yet removed, and coagulated pools of blood crusted on the pavement of platform and parapet, yet met the eye, attesting the valour of the garrison and the slaughter of the siege. With his plaid and feathers fluttering on the breeze, a sentinel of the Ross-shire Buffs trod to and fro by the flag-staff, and the hour being early, and no one stirring, he chanted a song to cheer his lonely post; he sang of a land which had more charms for him than bright Ausonia, and his thoughts were amid the pathless glens and savage solitudes of Ross.
The clatter of hoofs on the pavement, as our horses were led into the court, and the appearance of the tall figure of il Cavaliere di Malta, muffled in an ample black cloak with a scarlet cross, and booted and spurred for the road, made me hurry forth to meet him.
"Now, signor," said Marco, as he put his foot in the stirrup, "look well to your girths and pistols, for we may have often to trust more to our horses' heels and a flying shot than to downright valour. Many a mile of wild wood, deep morass, mountain gorge and desert plain, must be passed between this and Scylla; and it is very unlikely that we shall be permitted to travel so far without having a brawl of some kind."
"I trust your provincial gentlemen of the road will not find us quite unprepared, at all events," said I, leaping into my saddle, and examining my holsters.
"Basta! for myself I care little, being able to keep any man at arm's length; but in a gorge like la Syla, hedged by the rifles of a thousand banditti, the wisest policy is to take off one's hat. The country through which we must pass swarms with the followers of Scarolla, Frà Diavolo, Benincasa, Gaetano Mammone, and lastly, the terrible Francatripa, the king of St. Eufemio."
"And on each of these matchless vagabonds, the court of Palermo has bestowed the star of St. Constantino, and a colonel's commission!"
"On all, save the horrible Scarolla."
"But Francatripa is said to be chivalrous and brave, and a perfect hero of romance, though a mountain robber."
"You may chance to find him an incarnate fiend!" said Castelermo, as we rode off: "ay, worse than a fiend if it suits his humour; and as for chivalry, basta! I cannot see any in a bearded capobandito, with satan in his heart, and a belt round him garnished with poniards and pistols. Yet Francatripa's actions are formed after a noble model: it is his greatest pride to be considered like poor Marco Sciarra, Re-della Campagna."
"He was a prince among Italian bandits! I remember having read that once in the mountains of Abruzzo, his band plundered a poor wayfarer, whom they bound with cords and brought before him.
"Well, signor," said the robber king, "what are you?"
"Only a poor poet, Messer Marco."
"Good!" replied the other, his frown relaxing.
"Your name?'
"Torquato Tasso of Sorrento."
"What! the author of——"
"Gierusalemme Liberata," said the prisoner, bowing profoundly. A shout of acclamation burst from the band, and the 'king of the open country' knelt on the sod, kissed the hand of the poet, and restoring to him his baggage, escorted him in person beyond the dangerous passes of the mountains.
"All this, and much more, I have heard in the nursery; but as neither of us happen to be a Tasso, and king Marco has long since gone to the shades, any adventure we may have with his successors and imitators will not terminate so pleasantly. Look there, signor, and behold a competition of minstrels! Hark! we shall hear music equalling the pipe of Hermes!"
Under the vine-covered verandah of a cantina, sat six or eight of the Chasseurs Britanniques, and Free Calabrians, who, by the red appearance of their eyes, had evidently been carousing all night, and were yet dreaming over their half-drained flagons; while the empty jars, cards and dice scattered on the board, informed us that they had enjoyed the night so merrily that they were not yet inclined to separate.
An itinerant performer on the zampogna, or Italian bagpipe, was playing for the entertainment of the drowsy revellers, when a gigantic Scot in dark tartan, one of Macleod's regimental pipers, passed by on his way to the Strada Larga, to play a rouse for the soldiers billeted there. Stopping before the cantina, the Scottish piper surveyed with surprise and curiosity the little chanter and inflated skin of the Calabrian's primitive bagpipe; while at the music of this feeble reed, the face of the Highlander gradually contracted, from a ludicrous expression of wonder, to a formidable scowl of Gaelic contempt. He threw the three long drones of the great war-pipe over his left shoulder, and puffing up its mighty bag, in an instant poured forth the wild northern pibroch of the race of Seaforth. The strange variations and tremendous din of the Highland bagpipe astounded the poor little zampognatore, whose notes were lost amid the shrill and sonorous tempest which poured forth so volubly from the pipe of the Highlander; whom he regarded for a time with a droll look of silent wonder, and then slank away, retreating backwards, while his stalwart rival strode after him, taking step for step, and blowing fiercely, as he literally "walked into" the discomfited Italian.
Discordant as the "war-note" of clan Kenneth must have been to the nice Italian ear of Castelermo, he would fain have stayed to listen; but his fiery Neapolitan horse had no such inclination: after snorting and prancing, it set off at a speed which soon left far behind the towers and ramparts of Crotona.
During the cool morning our ride was a very pleasant one, as the road lay through a level part of the country, covered with rich crops and studded with little villages and olive groves, interspersed with lofty elms and clumps of pale green willow overhanging gurgling rivulets; but the scene changed as we penetrated among the mountains, where we rode on for miles without encountering a human being, save perhaps some smoke-begrimed charcoal-burner, or bandit-like peasant, in pursuit of the red deer which abound in those wild places. At times the road wound between the green and solitary hills, through gorges like the bed of a dried up river, where the rocks frowned grimly, rising up on each side like walls of basalt or iron: but they were not devoid of beauty, for in their clefts flourished the daphne and the rhododendron, blue monk's-hood, pink fox-glove, and the whortle-berry; while the bronze masses of dark Italian pines shed their sombre influence over the scene from the summit of the cliffs above.
The scorching heat soon compelled us to take shelter in the hut of a shepherd during the sultry noon. We met him on the lonely mountains with his flock of goats, the tinkle of whose brass bells awoke the echoes of the hollow valley whence they were ascending. He walked lazily in front, playing drowsily on the zampogna, and the herded flock followed in close order behind, drawn after him either by the charms of his pipe, or by the dread of a sharp-nosed sheepdog with long white hair, who formed the rear guard, and watched his fleecy charge with red ferret-like eyes. His poor cabin could afford us nothing more than a morsel of coarse cake, a handful of olives, and the manna or congealed dew, which in the morning is gathered on the mulberry leaves in Calabria; in lieu of wine we had a draught of the limpid water that gurgled from a rustic fount, supplying the duct or hollowed tree that lay before the door, and was half buried in the turf for the convenience of his flock.
The shepherd was clad in a doublet and waistcoat of rough undressed skins with the wool outside, fastened by ties of thong or horn buttons, red cotton breeches, and a broad-leafed hat of plaited straw adorned with a clay image of the Madonna; long uncombed locks waved in sable masses on his brawny breast and muscular neck, which like his legs and feet were sunburnt and bare; a pouch and knife hung at his girdle, and his face, which perhaps had never been touched by a razor, was fringed by a short and thick black beard. In ideas and manners he was perhaps little different from the shepherds who inhabited these very mountains when the trumpets of Hannibal awoke their echoes; only he prayed not to "thundering Jove" but to Madonna, believed in the miracles of St. Hugh and the holy Eufemio instead of the amours and valorous deeds of Pan, and kept Lent in lieu of the Lupercalia of the Latins.
"Everything here seems centuries behind northern Italy, in the march of civilization," I observed to my friend and cicerone.
"Truly we have got amongst fauns and satyrs here," replied Castelermo, as he drank from a pitcher of cold water with no very satisfied air. "Basta! was the Arcadia of Virgil like this? Hark you, Signor Menalcas (if that be your name), does not the villa Belcastro lie somewhere near these wild mountains?'
"Yes, illustrissimo," replied the poor rustic, quite abashed by the hauteur of the Maltese knight; "about a league beyond the Tacina, among the wooded hills."
"Good! I hope we shall procure better quarters and entertainment than this poor den can afford."
"I have been often plundered by the French marauders, signor," said the goat-herd humbly.
"And this villa Belcastro: do you know the way to it?"
"Yes, Signor Cavaliere; but a thousand golden ducats would not bribe me to be your guide thither!"
"Why so, fool?"
"My shoulders ache at the recollection of the scurlada. The Cavaliere di Belcastro——"
"Has a very bad name in the neighbourhood. Ah! I heard that even at Palermo. And so, Signor Sylvanus——"
"My name is Renzo Grolle," said the herd, angrily. "The sbirri at the villa allow no one to approach within rifle shot of the gates; as the noble signor makes the French war a pretext for many an act of oppression. I was scourged like a mule for leading a poor monk of Cassano there a few days ago: and yet, perhaps he proved no unwelcome guest. Whom think you he was, illustrissimo? Why, the great Marchese di Monteleone in disguise; and on his way to Scylla! Madonna! I discovered that afterwards, when he was beyond the reach of my knife! His excellenza of Belcastro can act the robber, as well as the king of St. Eufemio: but, perhaps, the less I say the safer for myself, and I trust to your honour in being scatheless for what I have said already. His dungeons are deep; and I am but a poor peasant, whom he might crush by a word."
"At this age of the world, can such things be?" asked I, touched by the poor man's terror and humility. "A devil of a fellow this: we will pay him a visit out of pure spite. What say you, Signor Marco?"
"By all means," replied the cavalier, as we took the road again. "His sbirri will scarcely dare to fire on me; and we can make our quarters good in the king's name. Basta! let Signor Belcastro look to himself, if swords are drawn: I believe I have met him before, and if my suspicions are just, I shall not spare steel on him."
"There is then some story connected with him?"
"And to the old tune,—Italian jealousy. He is said to be married to a beautiful Neapolitan, whom he espoused during a sudden love-fit; but in consequence of some trifling affair when residing at Venice during the carnival, he became inflamed with jealousy, like an old fashioned husband of the "Ancient Tales," and poniarded an officer of the Dogale Guard. Bringing his lady into this wild country, he has ever since kept her a close prisoner, and held himself in such strict seclusion, that his residence was unmolested by the French; but only because it was unknown to them: or perhaps he is an ally; for Buonaparte, anxious to root out from Italy the last traces of the feudal system, has given Regnier orders to demolish every castle and fortified villa in the Calabrias. In one of these ancient dwellings, which can easily be made a strong place for defence, Belcastro keeps his beautiful wife a close captive. I doubt not but she has been perfidious: in the course of my intrigues with the sex, I have found more than one woman so!"
"I have always heard, signor, that you were somewhat too sarcastic on the good faith of your dark-eyed countrywomen."
"By Sant Ermo! I have cause to be so," he replied, while his dark brows contracted, as they always did when he was in the least excited, and his eyes sparkled fire from beneath the shade of his black velvet baretta or forage cap, which was adorned with the Maltese cross, and the letters, I.H.S. in red enamel. "There was a time," he continued, half communing with himself, "when I was the gayest cavalier on the Corso of Naples, or the Marina of Palermo. It was generally allowed that none dressed more gaily, rode more gracefully, played and drank more deeply than Marco of Castelermo. No man's opinion went further in all matters of taste, fashion, or dissipation; whether it was given on a new collection of antiques or paintings, a choice of wines, a racehorse, a new carriage, or the belle of the season. My word was a fiat in the fashionable world. Basta! I was not then a commander of Malta. God and St. John forgive me! if it was rather in a sinful spirit of revenge and chagrin than a holy sentiment of veneration and religion, that I girded on the sword and mantle of that most sacred brotherhood. There is a pleasure, a morbid one though it be, in telling one's griefs; and since you have half acknowledged to me your passion for the fair cousin of my friend Santugo" (I had never told this sharp-sighted Italian a word about it), "I should not behave with more reserve to you."
He paused for a moment: old recollections, long forgotten but once-cherished sentiments, hopes and fears arose in quick array before him; and his dark and noble features became flushed, as with that lively frankness which so often characterizes the better classes of his countrymen, he commenced as follows.