signal of danger, and fled, without waiting till the stipulated hour at which I had sent the cheque. The brigand chief had removed too far off to hear these shots but my son had won, as I had foreseen he would, upon whatever of good nature had remained in the composition of the robber. He had felt that, if the ransom were paid, he was bound to release him; and if it were not paid and they were compelled to flee, he would be an incumbrance upon their flight, while his death would be a bootless cruelty.

These chapters being dedicated not so much to detailing a personal outrage upon ourselves as to shewing what was and is the state of police in Tuscany, let us now see what measures were taken to vindicate what is sometimes pleasantly called the outraged majesty of the law.

CHAPTER XXIX.

DOING NOTHING.

The carabineers.-Suspicions.-Loitering.-The detective police. The wounded horse.

ABOUT Sunrise, I had arrived with the patrol, with which I had toiled throughout the night, at the farm of Peretola, and had there received the joyful news that my son had left them shortly before, and was on his way home. We also passed homewards. Arrived near the spot where the robbery was committed, we saw two men coming across the meadow. The brigadier halted, and called to them. What were they? What were they doing there?

"They were dealers in anything they could buy or sell they had heard that there had been a robbery and a horse killed on that spot, and were come to see if they could pick up anything, or could skin the horse."

They carried long suspicious-looking knives or

stilettoes, but were known in the country as what they represented themselves to be; and I said to the carabineer that they had evidently nothing to do with the robbery.

"I cannot go back to Florence with my hands empty, without arresting some one," he replied; and took the men along with us.

When I reached home, I found groups of soldiers of different arms-groups of National Guardsgroups of contadini-lying about on the grass. Captain Samballino, of the Guard of Sicurezza, and Captain Gandini, of the Carabineers, had just arrived in carriages-following their men who had come out before under petty officers. There, too, was the civil functionary, the Delegato del Governo, who had also arrived to make inquiry and to take down depositions. They all expressed themselves horror-stricken at the event: they chatted, and examined such prisoners as were brought in: they ate and drank and the table was laid a score of times in the servants' hall for the different bodies of military, of National Guards, and of peasantry. No excess was committed; and yet our steward wrote down five barrels of wine, about three hundred and fifty bottles, as having been sent up for them on this and the following days. This

demonstrates the number of people who kindly

offered their aid.

Che! che!" exclaimed Captain Samballino to the captain of Carabineers, when my companion the brigadier brought in the two prisoners he had made. "Che! che! your fellows have arrested two innocent men, while there stands the guilty one! Look at his face!" he exclaimed, pointing to my ground keeper, Agostino.

The retired attorney, Masini, was there; and, almost with tears in his eyes, besought them not to suspect Agostino, for that he was a really faithful servant.

But the great difficulty with these gentry was that they did not seem to know their own business. The officers asked me to persuade the Delegate to permit them to arrest Agostino. The Delegate looked mysterious, and said he would see about it later that the Judge of Public Instruction was coming out, and that he would see what was to be done. And so the day wore away. Every now and then, some unfortunate stranger was caught, brought in, examined, and either dismissed or given in charge to the troopers. One patrol that had been examining the spot where the robbery had happened, brought in a pair of spectacles and

VOL. II.

21

a short carbine they had found; also a brooch-pin belonging to my wife. In the evening, the big wigs went away-leaving six mounted and six dismounted Carabineers to protect the house and to search for any one they could find, especially the man named Pallandra, whom public opinion declared to have been with the gang; and, indeed, Whittingham said that, while a prisoner, he had heard the robber chief call some one by that name and give him an order.

On the following day, the soldiers still patrolled the neighbourhood during such time as they could spare from the public-houses and from the society of my neighbour the ex-attorney. My son believed that he could recognise the fowling-piece that had been in the hands of the chief of the brigands, and which he had heard that worthy person order to be carried back to some place in the direction of the public house of the Lago. Remembering that Agostino had declared that, at the moment of the attack, when he was at this osteria, the landlord had refused to lend him his gun, we thought that the piece might possibly have been otherwise engaged: and I sent Whittingham to go down and ask to see it. He found a party of Carabineers stationed at the house, and