h, yes, I heard that."

"Well, then, if, like us, your excellency lived at Leghorn, you would
hear, from time to time, that a little merchant vessel, or an English
yacht that was expected at Bastia, at Porto-Ferrajo, or at Civita
Vecchia, has not arrived; no one knows what has become of it, but,
doubtless, it has struck on a rock and foundered. Now this rock it has
met has been a long and narrow boat, manned by six or eight men, who
have surprised and plundered it, some dark and stormy night, near some
desert and gloomy island, as bandits plunder a carriage in the recesses
of a forest."

"But," asked Franz, who lay wrapped in his cloak at the bottom of the
boat, "why do not those who have been plundered complain to the French,
Sardinian, or Tuscan governments?"

"Why?" said Gaetano with a smile.

"Yes, why?"

"Because, in the first place, they transfer from the vessel to their own
boat whatever they think worth taking, then they bind the crew hand and
foot, they attach to every one's neck a four and twenty pound ball, a
large hole is chopped in the vessel's bottom, and then they leave her.
At the end of ten minutes the vessel begins to roll heavily and settle
down. First one gun'l goes under, then the other. Then they lift and
sink again, and both go under at once. All at once there's a noise like
a cannon--that's the air blowing up the deck. Soon the water rushes
out of the scupper-holes like a whale spouting, the vessel gives a last
groan, spins round and round, and disappears, forming a vast whirlpool
in the ocean, and then all is over, so that in five minutes nothing but
the eye of God can see the vessel where she lies at the bottom of the
sea. Do you understand now," said the captain, "why no complaints are
made to the government, and why the vessel never reaches port?"

It is probable that if Gaetano had related this previous to proposing
the expedition, Franz would have hesitated, but now that they had
started, he thought it would be cowardly to draw back. He was one of
those men who do not rashly court danger, but if danger presents itself,
combat it with the most unalterable coolness. Calm and resolute, he
treated any peril as he would an adversary in a duel,--calculated
its probable method of approach; retreated, if at all, as a point of
strategy and not from cowardice; was quick to see an opening for attack,
and won victory at a single thrust. "Bah!" said he, "I have travelled
through Sicily and Calabr