rmal report
respecting the details of the capture before proceeding further.
Between these armed and watchful guards, with his legs strapped to a
sturdy mule, his arms tied fast behind him, and his hands heavily
manacled, was the notorious Neri, as dark and fierce as a mountain
thunder-storm. His head was uncovered--his thick hair, long and
unkempt, hung in matted locks upon his shoulders--his heavy mustachios
and beard were so black and bushy that they almost concealed his coarse
and forbidding features--though I could see the tiger-like glitter of
his sharp white teeth as he bit and gnawed his under lip in impotent
fury and despair--and his eyes, like leaping flames, blazed with a
wrathful ferocity from under his shaggy brows. He was a huge, heavy
man, broad and muscular; his two hands clinched, tied and manacled
behind him, looked like formidable hammers capable of striking a man
down dead at one blow; his whole aspect was repulsive and
terrible--there was no redeeming point about him--for even the apparent
fortitude he assumed was mere bravado--meretricious courage--which the
first week of the galleys would crush out of him as easily as one
crushes the juice out of a ripe grape. He wore a nondescript costume of
vari-colored linen, arranged in folds that would have been the
admiration of an artist. It was gathered about him by means of a
brilliant scarlet sash negligently tied. His brawny arms were bare to
the shoulder--his vest was open, and displayed his strong brown throat
and chest heaving with the pent-up anger and fear that raged within
him. His dark grim figure was set off by a curious effect of color in
the sky--a long wide band of crimson cloud, as though the sun-god had
thrown down a goblet of ruby wine and left it to trickle along the
smooth blue fairness of his palace floor--a deep after-glow, which
burned redly on the olive-tinted eager faces of the multitude that were
everywhere upturned in wonder and ill-judged admiration to the brutal
black face of the notorious murderer and thief, whose name had for
years been the terror of Sicily. I pressed through the crowd to obtain
a nearer view, and as I did so a sudden savage movement of Neri's bound
body caused the gendarmes to cross their swords in front of his eyes
with a warning clash. The brigand laughed hoarsely.

"Corpo di Cristo!" he muttered--"think you a man tied hand and foot can
run like a deer? I am trapped--I know it! But tell HIM," and he
indica