“Help, Numa! help, Bonaroux!  Death to the ruffians!  They want to murder me.”

“You lie, Prince of Brancaleone!” cried Gabriel, and with one blow of the axe he cleft his skull.

The two bravoes who were coming to their master’s assistance, when they saw him fall, took flight; Solomon and his son went up to Nisida’s room.  The young girl had just shaken off her heavy slumber; a slight perspiration moistened her brow, and she opened her eyes slowly to the dawning day.

“Why are you looking at me in that way, father?” she said, her mind still wandering a littler and she passed her hand over her forehead.

The old man embraced her tenderly.

“You have just passed through a great danger, my poor Nisida,” said he; “arise, and let us give thanks to the Madonna.”

Then all three, kneeling before the sacred image of the Virgin, began to recite litanies.  But at that very instant a noise of arms sounded in the enclosure, the house was surrounded by soldiers, and a lieutenant of gendarmes, seizing Gabriel, said in a loud voice, “In the name of the law, I arrest you for the murder that you have just committed upon the person of his excellency and illustrious lordship, the Prince of Brancaleone.”

Nisida, struck by these words, remained pale and motionless like a marble statue kneeling on a tomb; Gabriel was already preparing to make an unreasoning resistance, when a gesture from his father stopped him.

“Signor tenente,” said the old man, addressing himself to the officer, “my son killed the prince in lawful defence, for the latter had scaled our house and made his way in at night and with arms in his hand.  The proofs are before your eyes.  Here is a ladder set up against the window; and here,” he proceeded, picking up the two pieces of the broken blade, “is a dagger with the Brancaleone arms.  However, we do not refuse to follow you.”

The last words of the fisherman were drowned by cries of “Down with the sbirri! down with the gendarmes!” which were repeated in every direction.  The whole island was up in arms, and the fisher-folk would have suffered themselves to be cut up to the last man before allowing a single hair of Solomon or of his son to be touched; but the old man appeared upon his threshold, and, stretching out his arm with a calm and grave movement that quieted the anger of the crowd, he said, “Thanks, my children; the law must be respected.  I shall be able, alone, to defend the innocence of my son before the judges.”

Hardly three months have elapsed since the day upon which we first beheld the old fisherman of Nisida sitting before the door of his dwelling, irradiated by all the happiness that he had succeeded in creating around him, reigning like a king, on his throne of rock, and blessing his two children, the most beautiful creatures in the island.  Now the whole existence of this man, who was once so happy and so much envied,