"There is nothing to be afraid of, lovely Valeria," I said, in a low tone, as I lingered behind; "be sure I will never betray either your or your rascally--hem! I mean your excellent Croppo. By the by, was that man much hurt that I was obliged to trip up?""Hurt! Santa Maria! he is dead, with a bullet through his heart. Croppo says it must have been magic, for he had searched you and he knew you were not armed, and he was within a hundred yards of you when poor Pippo fell, and he heard no sound.""Croppo is not far wrong," I said, glad of the opportunity thus offered of imposing on the ignorance and credulity of the natives. "He seemed surprised that he could not frighten me the other night. Tell him he was much more in my power than I was in his, dear Valeria," I added, looking tenderly into his eyes. "I didn't want to alarm you; that was the reason I let him off so easily; but I may not be so merciful next time. Now, sweetest, that kiss you owe me, and which the wall prevented your giving me the other night." She held up her face with the innocence of a child as I stooped from my saddle.
"I shall never see you again, Signor Inglese," she said, with a sigh; "for Croppo says it is not safe, after what happened the night before last, to stay another hour. Indeed, he went off yesterday, leaving me orders to follow to-day; but I went first to put your sketch-book under the bush where the donkey fell, and where you will find it."It took us another minute or two to part after this; and when I had ridden away I turned to look back, and there was Valeria gazing after me. "Positively," I reflected, "I am over head and ears in love with the girl, and I believe she is with me. I ought to have nipped my feelings in the bud when she told me she was his wife; but then he is a brigand, who threatened both my ears and my tongue, to say nothing of my life. To what extent is the domestic happiness of such a ruffian to be respected?" And I went on splitting the moral straws suggested by this train of thought until I had recovered my sketch-book and overtaken my escort, with whom I rode triumphantly back into Ascoli, where my absence had been the cause of much anxiety and my fate was even then being eagerly discussed. Myfriends with whom I usually sat round the chemist's door were much exercised by the reserve which I manifested in reply to the fire of cross- examination to which I was subjected for the next few days; and English eccentricity, which was proverbial even in this secluded town, received a fresh illustration in the light and airy manner with which I treated a capture and escape from brigands, which I regarded with such indifference that I could not be induced even to condescend to details. "It was a mere scuffle; there were only four; and, being an Englishman, I polished them all off with the 'box,' " and I closed my fist and struck a scientific attitude of self-defence, branching off into a learned disquisition on the pugilistic art, which filled my hearers with respect and amazement. From this time forward the sentiment with which I regarded my air-gun underwent a change. When a friend had made me a present of it a year before I regarded it in the light of a toy and rather resented the gift as too juvenile. "I wonder he did not give me a kite or a hoop," I mentally reflected. Then I had found it useful among Italians, who are a trifling people and like playthings; but now that it had saved my life and sent a bullet through a man's heart, I no longer entertained the same feeling of contempt for it. Not again would I make light of it--this potent engine of destruction which had procured me the character of being a magician. I would hide it from human gaze and cherish it as a sort of fetich. So I bought a walking- stick and an umbrella, and strapped it up with them, wrapped in my plaid; and when, shortly after, an unexpected remittance from an aunt supplied me with money enough to buy a horse from one of the officers of my friend's regiment, which soon after arrived, and I accepted their invitation to accompany them on their brigand-hunting expeditions, not one of them knew that I had such a weapon as an air- gun in my possession.
