376

LIFE OF COLONEL MACERONI.

son to bind tliem all, their hands behind their backs. Thewounded factor of the Bishop had been an acquaintance ofBartolomeo’s, who now reproached him with his cruel andbase employment. “ Go back,” said he, “ to your masterand tell him what you have seen ; and tell him how I could,and perhaps in prudence ought, to have sacrificed all yourlives who sought so arbitrarily to take mine and that of mypoor boy, who would not have been respected by the trea-cherous volley you intended to pour upon us. Tell yourBishop that God will punish him if the King does not. Ihave acted in self-defence. I will now help you to gethome.” The bailiff and the surviving sbirri were muchaffected at this address, and swore never again to assist inmolesting him. With great labour, and the assistance ofBartolomeo and his son, the police party were got to acanal by which they reached the neighbourhood of Aversa.

My readers may well conceive the mingled feelings ofdisappointed vengeance, shame, and thirst for blood, thatoverwhelmed the Bishop upon hearing the result of theambush, to lay which had cost so much patient research.However, he dissembled his sentiments and intentions, andpretending to feel admiration for the courage and generosityof his victim, expected to lull his suspicions and put himoff his guard. He even affected to interfere with the police,and caused them to suspend their operations against Barto-lomeo, fearing that lie. might leave the country, and thusdefeat his prospect of taking his life in lieu of a few shillingsof clerical due, alleged to be owing by Bartolomeo.

The scheme of the crafty priest succeeded; his victim,lulled by the sentiments which were uttered for the purpose,remained in his pagliara and pursued, as heretofore, hisavocations of shooting and fishing. I cannot spare roomfor the particulars of the ambush into which he at last wasdrawn. My limits will only allow me to say that, after