life and did not like it, had by constant hourly practice become with me almost second nature—­indeed, I should have had some difficulty in returning to the easy and thoughtless abandon of my former self.  I had studied the art of being churlish till I really was churlish; I had to act the chief character in a drama, and I knew my part thoroughly well.  I sat quietly puffing at my cigar and thinking of nothing in particular—­for, as far as my plans went, I had done with thought, and all my energies were strung up to action—­when I was startled by a loud and increasing clamor, as of the shouting of a large crowd coming onward like an overflowing tide.  I leaned out of the window, but could see nothing, and I was wondering what the noise could mean, when an excited waiter threw open the door of the smoking-room and cried, breathlessly: 

“Carmelo Neri, signor!  Carmelo Neri!  They have him, poverino! they have him at last!”

Though almost as strongly interested in this news as the waiter himself, I did not permit my interest to become manifest.  I never forgot for a second the character I had assumed, and drawing the cigar slowly from my lips I merely said: 

“Then they have caught a great rascal.  I congratulate the Government!  Where is the fellow?”

“In the great square,” returned the garcon, eagerly.  “If the signor would walk round the corner he would see Carmelo, bound and fettered.  The saints have mercy upon him!  The crowds there are thick as flies round a honeycomb!  I must go thither myself—­I would not miss the sight for a thousand francs!”

And he ran off, as full of the anticipated delight of looking at a brigand as a child going to its first fair.  I put on my hat and strolled leisurely round to the scene of excitement.  It was a picturesque sight enough; the square was black with a sea of eager heads, and restless, gesticulating figures, and the center of this swaying, muttering crowd was occupied by a compact band of mounted gendarmes with drawn swords flashing in the pale evening light—­both horses and men nearly as motionless as though castin bronze.  They were stationed opposite the head-quarters of the Carabinieri, where the chief officer of the party had dismounted to make his formal report respecting the details of the capture before proceeding further.  Between these armed and watchful guards, with his legs strapped to a sturdy mule, his arms tied fast behind him, and his hands heavily manacled, was the notorious Neri, as dark and fierce as a mountain thunder-storm.  His head was uncovered—­his thick hair, long and unkempt, hung in matted locks upon his shoulders—­his heavy mustachios and beard were so black and bushy that they almost concealed his coarse and forbidding features—­though I could see the tiger-like glitter of his sharp white teeth as he bit and gnawed his under lip in impotent fury and despair—­and his eyes, like leaping flames, blazed with a wrathful