At the time that the estafette made this sudden appearance, almost in cuerpo, the audacity of the robbers had risen to an unparalleled height.  They had their spies and emissaries in every town, village, and osteria, to give them notice of the quality and movements of travellers.  They did not scruple to send messages into the country towns and villas, demanding certain sums of money, or articles of dress and luxury; with menaces of vengeance in case of refusal.  They had plundered carriages; carried people of rank and fortune into the mountains and obliged them to write for heavy ransoms; and had committed outrages on females who had fallen in their power.

The police exerted its rigor in vain.  The brigands were too numerous And powerful for a weak police.  They were countenanced and cherished by several of the villages; and though now and then the limbs of malefactors hung blackening in the trees near which they had committed some atrocity; or their heads stuck upon posts in iron cages made some dreary part of the road still more dreary, still they seemed to strike dismay into no bosom but that of the traveller.

The dark, handsome young man; and the Venetian lady, whom I have mentioned, had arrived early that afternoon in a private carriage, drawn by mules and attended by a single servant.  They had been recently married, were spending the honeymoon in travelling through these delicious countries, and were on their way to visit a rich aunt of the young lady’s at Naples.

The lady was young, and tender and timid.  The stories she had heard along the road had filled her with apprehension, not more for herself than for her husband; for though she had been married almost a month, she still loved him almost to idolatry.  When she reached Terracina the rumors of the road had increased to an alarming magnitude; and the sight of two robbers’ skulls grinning in iron cages on each side of the old gateway of the town brought her to a pause.  Her husband had tried in vain to reassure her.  They had lingered all the afternoon at the inn, until it was too late to think of starting that evening, and the parting words of the estafette completed her affright.

“Let us return to Rome,” said she, putting her arm within her husband’s, and drawing towards him as if for protection—­“let us return to Rome and give up this visit to Naples.”

“And give up the visit to your aunt, too,” said the husband.

“Nay—­what is my aunt in comparison with your safety,” said she, looking up tenderly in his face.

There was something in her tone and manner that showed she really was Thinking more of her husband’s safety at that moment than of her own; and being recently married, and a match of pure affection, too, it is very possible that she was.  At least her husband thought so.  Indeed, any one who has heard the sweet, musical tone of a Venetian voice, and the melting tenderness of a Venetian phrase, and felt the soft witchery of a Venetian eye, would not wonder at the husband’s believing whatever they professed.