n at Chianciano.'

"For a few minutes all was bustle and preparation.

"'Here I am,' cried Rina, running in, attired in her Roman peasant's
dress.

"'_Usseri, Usseri_!' said the innkeeper.

"'Off with you!' cried the captain, and every one hurried towards the
stairs.

"'The devil!' said the captain, turning to me, 'you are forgetting your
bass, I think.'

"I took the bass. I would willingly have crept into it. Two horses stood
ready saddled at the house door.

"'Well, Monsieur le Musicien,' said Rina, 'do you not help me to get on my
horse? You are not very gallant.'

"I held out my arm to assist her, and as I did so she put a small piece of
paper into my hand.

"A cold perspiration stood upon my forehead. What could this paper be? Was
it a billet-doux? Had I been so unfortunate as to make a conquest, which
would render me the rival of the captain? My first impulse was to throw
the note away; but on second thoughts I put it in my pocket.

"'_Usseri, Usseri_!' cried the innkeeper again, and a noise like that of a
distant galloping was heard. I scrambled on my horse, which two of the
robbers took by the bridle; two others led that of Mademoiselle Rina. The
captain, with his carbine on his shoulder, ran beside his mistress, the
lieutenant accompanied me, and the remainder of the band, consisting of
fifteen or eighteen men, brought up the rear. Five or six shots were fired
some three hundred yards behind us, and the balls whistled in our ears.
'To the left!' cried the captain, and we threw ourselves into a sort of
ravine, at the bottom of which ran a rapid stream. Here we halted and
listened, and heard the hussars gallop furiously past on the high-road.

"'If they keep on at that pace, they'll soon be at Grossetto,' said the
captain laughing."

This is the unfortunate musician's first essay in horsemanship, and when,
after twelve hours' march across the country, with his bass strapped upon
his shoulders, he halts at the inn at Chianciano, he is more dead than
alive. He remembers, however, to read Mademoiselle Rina's note. From this,
and a few words which she takes an opportunity of saying to him, he finds
that she is an opera-dancer named Zephyrine, who had had an engagement a
year or two previously at the Marseilles theatre. She had since
transferred herself to the Teatro de la Valle at Rome, where the bandit
captain, Tonino, happening to witness her performance, became enamoured of
her, and laid a plan for