s of the regiment played with the
pair; for, to the shame of men be it said, it is not a rare thing to
see persons gambling together around a green table who, when the game is
finished, will not bow to their companions, feeling no respect for them.
Montefiore was the man with whom Bianchi made his bet about the heart of
the Spanish sentinel.

Montefiore and Diard were among the last to mount the breach at
Tarragona, but the first in the heart of the town as soon as it was
taken. Accidents of this sort happen in all attacks, but with this pair
of friends they were customary. Supporting each other, they made their
way bravely through a labyrinth of narrow and gloomy little streets in
quest of their personal objects; one seeking for painted madonnas, the
other for madonnas of flesh and blood.

In what part of Tarragona it happened I cannot say, but Diard presently
recognized by its architecture the portal of a convent, the gate of
which was already battered in. Springing into the cloister to put a
stop to the fury of the soldiers, he arrived just in time to prevent two
Parisians from shooting a Virgin by Albano. In spite of the moustache
with which in their military fanaticism they had decorated her face, he
bought the picture. Montefiore, left alone during this episode, noticed,
nearly opposite the convent, the house and shop of a draper, from which
a shot was fired at him at the moment when his eyes caught a flaming
glance from those of an inquisitive young girl, whose head was advanced
under the shelter of a blind. Tarragona taken by assault, Tarragona
furious, firing from every window, Tarragona violated, with dishevelled
hair, and half-naked, was indeed an object of curiosity,--the curiosity
of a daring Spanish woman. It was a magnified bull-fight.

Montefiore forgot the pillage, and heard, for the moment, neither the
cries, nor the musketry, nor the growling of the artillery. The profile
of that Spanish girl was the most divinely delicious thing which he,
an Italian libertine, weary of Italian beauty, and dreaming of an
impossible woman because he was tired of all women, had ever seen.
He could still quiver, he, who had wasted his fortune on a thousand
follies, the thousand passions of a young and blase man--the most
abominable monster that society generates. An idea came into his head,
suggested perhaps by the shot of the draper-patriot, namely,--to set
fire to the house. But he was now alone, and without any mean