endeavored
to repress her emotion. Suddenly, about ten paces from them, a man
advanced from behind a tree and aimed at Vampa.--'Not another step,' he
said, 'or you are a dead man.'--'What, then,' said Vampa, raising his
hand with a gesture of disdain, while Teresa, no longer able to restrain
her alarm, clung closely to him, 'do wolves rend each other?'--'Who
are you?' inquired the sentinel.--'I am Luigi Vampa, shepherd of
the San-Felice farm.'--'What do you want?'--'I would speak with your
companions who are in the glade at Rocca Bianca.'--'Follow me, then,'
said the sentinel; 'or, as you know your way, go first.'--Vampa smiled
disdainfully at this precaution on the part of the bandit, went before
Teresa, and continued to advance with the same firm and easy step as
before. At the end of ten minutes the bandit made them a sign to stop.
The two young persons obeyed. Then the bandit thrice imitated the cry of
a crow; a croak answered this signal.--'Good!' said the sentry, 'you may
now go on.'--Luigi and Teresa again set forward; as they went on
Teresa clung tremblingly to her lover at the sight of weapons and the
glistening of carbines through the trees. The retreat of Rocca Bianca
was at the top of a small mountain, which no doubt in former days
had been a volcano--an extinct volcano before the days when Remus and
Romulus had deserted Alba to come and found the city of Rome. Teresa
and Luigi reached the summit, and all at once found themselves in the
presence of twenty bandits. 'Here is a young man who seeks and wishes
to speak to you,' said the sentinel.--'What has he to say?' inquired
the young man who was in command in the chief's absence.--'I wish to
say that I am tired of a shepherd's life,' was Vampa's reply.--'Ah,
I understand,' said the lieutenant; 'and you seek admittance into our
ranks?'--'Welcome!' cried several bandits from Ferrusino, Pampinara,
and Anagni, who had recognized Luigi Vampa.--'Yes, but I came to ask
something more than to be your companion.'--'And what may that be?'
inquired the bandits with astonishment.--'I come to ask to be your
captain,' said the young man. The bandits shouted with laughter.
'And what have you done to aspire to this honor?' demanded the
lieutenant.--'I have killed your chief, Cucumetto, whose dress I now
wear; and I set fire to the villa San-Felice to procure a wedding-dress
for my betrothed.' An hour afterwards Luigi Vampa was chosen captain,
vice Cucumetto deceased."

"Wel