od, said, with much greater
courtesy than I had hitherto received,--

"Be good enough to step this way, Signor Englishman, if you please."

I followed him into the tent from which he had just emerged, and found
myself in the presence of an individual whose appearance differed so
entirely from that of the rest of the band, that I could not help
wondering what could possibly have induced her to associate herself with
them.

Start not, reader, at the word _her_--it is no misprint; I actually
found myself in the presence of a _woman_. Not such an one, either, as
might be expected to be found--if indeed one would expect to find a
woman at all--amid such surroundings; not an old, withered, vindictive-
looking hag, repulsive alike in appearance and manner, but a woman,
youthful, handsome, and to all appearance gentle, though her demeanour
was somewhat cold and distant.

I set her down at about three or four and twenty years of age. She was
reclining on a pile of rugs when I entered the tent, so I could not just
then judge of her stature, but before the interview terminated she had
risen to her feet, and I then saw that she was rather above medium
height. Her skin was dazzling fair, hair and eyes black as night; the
beauty of the latter being rather marred, according to my taste, by a
curious glitter, which, but for the calmness of their owner's demeanour,
I should have regarded as slightly suggestive of incipient insanity.
Her figure, clothed in a picturesque, if somewhat theatrical, adaptation
of the costume of her comrades, was somewhat slight, but eminently
graceful, while her hands and feet would have delighted a sculptor with
their symmetry. Her voice was especially beautiful, being a full, rich,
and powerful contralto.

The midshipmen of the British navy have not as yet rendered themselves
especially remarkable by their bashfulness, and I was neither much
better nor much worse than my neighbours in that respect; but I was so
taken aback when I entered the tent and my eyes met those of its
occupant, that I could only bow somewhat awkwardly, blushing like a
simpleton the while.

"This, signora, is the prisoner of whom I told you," said my conductor
by way of introduction.

"Why, he is a mere boy, Benedetto; and wounded, too! What is the nature
of your wound, child?"

"A broken arm, signora," I replied unsteadily; the unexpected accents of
pity in her voice, or the excruciating pain I had been suffering for t