spiracy. You must keep the people in play, bribe them to your interests. Give them money, madam, rich golden ducats by the handful, glittering tangible ducats which in their brutish eyes will outvalue all the treasures so wantonly consumed by you upon your bonfires. It is gold, heaped-up gold which prevails among the ignorant. Where the gold is, there will the heart of the populace be also. Not a hundred Cardinals with all the forces of anathema behind them may hope to withstand the power of almighty gold." He sank back wearily and continued to mutter in an undertone. For myself, I shrugged my shoulders and said nothing. Donna Claudia proved more impatient. "Are we alchemists?" she said scornfully. "Can we make gold from lava? Your advice is fair, signore -were we of the stamp of Battista Porta or Albertus Magnus!" Muzio bent forward softly and patted me upon the knee. "Sir," he said, "I have journeyed much and far, and learnt to judge the character of men and women. And I have learnt to love liberty for its own sake, and not for the sake of those who preach it. I perceive that you have acquired the art of keeping silence; I trust that you have further acquired that of thinking. I have come to you to-day with a suggestion; to you especially, not because I think you better than your fellows, but because I fancy that you will better understand me. You are, sir, an indifferent chess-player, but you are not without a modicum of common-sense. I might have gone straight to Masaniello, I might have gone straight to Il Signore. Like our Lady of Conspiracy, they would have formed their own conclusions ere I had finished speaking. You will again forgive me, madam. I know the hare-brained character of Neapolitans. Since I have been in Naples I have met but one man of discretion." "Yourself," retorted Donna Claudia quickly. "Perhaps," said Muzio. "And one woman." bowed in shaking fashion, grinning slily. He Donna Claudia rose up and kissed him on the forehead. "You dare say that," she cried. "You who have known me since my childhood!" Muzio was chuckling to himself inaudibly. "Ahem," he said, and turning to me, "Go to the casement, sir, and tell me what you see there." I fell in with his mood and allowed my gaze to wander over the blue expanse of the Bay. "Water," I said laconically. The old man pulled himself erect with a sudden jerk. "Listen," he said. "To-night or to-morrow night there will be a sail upon that water, and a ship will cast anchor in the Bay. Those in command, knowing nothing of events on shore, will be unsuspecting. Immediately upon its arrival an officer of the German Guard will board the vessel." "And then?" cried Donna Claudia and I in the same breath. The "The rest may be left to your discretion. It may be, indeed, that I shall be able to advise you. officer will be yourself, signore. You are not a Neapolitan, and you are therefore the less likely to bungle matters in the scatter-brained fashion which distinguishes our Southerners. The details may be left till later. I would merely remark that every three years it is the custom for a ship to convey to Spain the plundered treasure of our citizens. The vessel will have already loaded a certain amount of cargo at Palermo-perhaps, who knows, at other places also. It would certainly be curious, not to say amusing, if, instead of collecting tribute from Naples, Spain were reluctantly compelled to contribute-shall we say the spoils of Sicily ?-towards the Cause which for the moment we have so much at heart. I venture nothing more than a suggestion, maybe the idle dreaming of an old and garrulous philosopher. But it would be a pleasant surprise for Masaniello; it might even secure his position at a crisis. It is wonderful what an effect may be produced by the spectacle of a few buckets full of gold." I was afoot and pacing. I seemed on the instant to be calculating many things: plannings, resources, chances. I fingered my sword and answered quietly: "I will attempt it." Muzio got to his feet. He nodded and grasped me by the hand. And with that there came a cry from Donna Claudia. "Signore," she said, "if you will permit a woman to join in this great enterprise I laughed light-heartedly and her eyes met mine. She flung her arms about the neck of Muzio. "You dear old man," she said, "you dear old man.” But gruffly Muzio took our hands in his. "Come," he said, with an affectation of impatience. "Let us go to the Mercato and see for ourselves what manner of man is this who rules the city." And turning his head slightly as he drew us nearer, he quoted shrilly, "Rari quippe boni, numero vix sunt totidem quot Donna Claudia glanced at him and me, then disengaged her hand from his and burst out laughing. "I am no scholar," she said, curtseying. CHAPTER XVIII THE CAPTAIN-GENERAL IMMEDIATELY above the gilt and ivory cabinet presented to me by the inhabitants of Venice in recognition of my services during the memorable succession of sea-fights which, in the year 1655, culminated in the crushing defeat sustained by the Turks at Scio, there hangs in my library a remarkable picture from the brush of Micco Spadaro portraying the market-place of Naples as it appeared under the short-lived government of Masani The Fisherman of Amalfi is represented seated upon a rough wooden platform, before which some ropedancers are engaged in performing for his delectation. He wears long white linen slops or drawers, a blue shirt torn and dirty exposing his throat and breast, and is barefooted. A rusty sword hangs by his side, and he holds tightly clenched in his hand a small medallion of the Madonna del Carmine. The lower portion of the face expresses melancholy; the mouth is sullen if not peevish; the pose of the body is one of drooping lassitude; while the eyes, on the contrary, are sparkling with so great an animation and vivacity as almost to suggest an endeavour on the part of the artist to depict two dissimilar natures on a single countenance. whimsical idea is heightened by a study of the details of the painting which, like all the productions of its author, is especially noticeable for the care bestowed upon its grouping and accessories. Posturing airily This upon a taut-drawn rope we see a pair of gymnasts, the younger of whom, a lad in silken fleshings, appears to be blowing kisses to the crowd. Below them their comrades are indulging in a variety of antics, some executing somersaults and others lying upon their backs, while one is swallowing a sword and another breathing flames between his lips. They are surrounded by boys and young men, the former with little more than a cloth about their loins, the latter attired in gaudy raiment more often than not disfigured with bloodstains and partially destroyed by fire. Prominent among these last there stands a youthful stalwart figure, with fair hair and a pink and white complexion, in whom, with a natural bashfulness, despite the abundance of good looks with which the painter has endowed him, I am able to detect a certain resemblance to my forgotten self. Beside me, a dazzling vision of reposeful beauty, is Donna Claudia, and again beyond, with his back turned to the mountebanks, a senile, shrivelled-up old man, with his mantle half-fallen from his shoulder as he essays to draw our notice to the scene upon which his gaze is fixed. There in the middle of the market-place, in strange juxtaposition to the riotous merriment about it, lies opposite to the Church of the Carmelites an open space at which a naked child is staring with a look of fascination and of shivering terror. His gaze is concentrated upon a number of bloody heads ranged in a double row around a marble pedestal, upon which there is no longer to be seen a statue; his hand is directed towards the gibbet, and hovers over a wheel upon which still lingers, doubled and convulsive, a half-dead remnant of humanity. Death in the centre, the multitude intent upon the gay and unheeding acrobats, Masaniello blending as it were upon his countenance the conflicting passions of the moment: I have but to look up at Micco Spadaro's picture and the memories come to me with a rush, a flow of emotion, which, as I sit at my desk, wellnigh deprive me of coherent utterance. As the painter afterwards painted it from memory, so indeed was the scene when Donna Claudia, Don Muzio, and I found ourselves that day in the Mercato. My mind full of the scheme which had been propounded by the chess-player, I gave at first but scant attention to the rapid orders and instructions which from moment to moment |