ladly complied with the eccentric request, and at his command every cock
in or near the place was accordingly slaughtered, with the solitary
exception of one old rooster, who, being very dear to the heart of his
aged mistress, was kept concealed beneath a tub and thus escaped the
general holocaust. Throughout the livelong night Bajalardo was busily
engaged in superintending the work of building the harbour, whilst the
fiends who carried out his behest were actively conveying huge blocks of
broken cliff from the Cape of Minerva to place in the waters of Salerno.
But at daybreak the cock imprisoned beneath the tub, the sole survivor of
his race, according to natural custom announced the dawn, to the despair
of Bajalardo and the terror of his attendant fiends, who in their
precipitate flight dropped into the sea near the Punta Sant' Elia the huge
masses of stone they were then carrying; and these rocks are called by men
I Galli in consequence to this day.

But, to be strictly impartial, it was not the Sirens alone who were
responsible for all the victims who perished on these arid rocks. _Homo
homini lupus_; man is always ready to prey upon man, and many of the dark
tales concerning the Galli go to prove the truth of the terrible old
adage. At what period the Sirens abandoned their ancient retreat and swam
or flew away to more congenial haunts is unknown to history; but certain
it is that the rulers of proud Amalfi committed many a cruel deed of
murder or torture upon their deserted islets. For here, many a hapless
political prisoner languished for years in abject misery, a prey to the
heat and glare of summer and to the fierce gales of bitter winter nights.
Rock-cut steps and ruined towers still remain as mementoes of those dark
days, when callous human gaolers worthily filled the places of the absent
Sirens. It was in a chamber of yonder turret, still standing, that the
Doge Mansone II., blinded by a brother's vengeance, dragged out years of
utter misery in pain and darkness, until the Emperor of the East, suzerain
of Amalfi, at last took compassion upon the prisoner's wretched plight and
allowed him to be removed into honourable confinement at Byzantium. For
many hundreds of years the Isles of the Sirens have lain untenanted, nor
are they visited nowadays save by a few inquisitive travellers or by the
fishermen of the Scaricotojo, who find safe shelter under their lee during
the sudden squalls of the Mediterranean. For, s