servants and tradesmen he must seek to punish in some other way; and they also had their appeal to his commanding officer.  So went the decision of the military tribunal, until the Styrian, having contrived to make Beppo understand, by the agency of a single Italian verb, that he wanted a blow, Beppo spun about and delivered a stinging smack on the Styrian’s cheek; which altered the view of the case, for, under peculiar circumstances—­supposing that he did not choose to cut him down—­a soldier might condescend to challenge his civilian inferiors:  “in our regiment,” said the sergeants, meaning that they had relaxed the stringency of their laws.

Beppo met his Styrian outside the city walls, and laid him flat.  He declined to fight a second; but it was represented to him, by the aid of an interpreter, that the officers of the garrison were subjected to successive challenges, and that the first trial of his skill might have been nothing finer than luck; and besides, his adversary had a right to call a champion.  “We all do it,” the soldiers assured him.  “Now your blood’s up you’re ready for a dozen of us;” which was less true of a constitution that was quicker in expending its heat.  He stood out against a young fellow almost as limber as himself, much taller, and longer in the reach, by whom he was quickly disabled with cuts on thigh and head.  Seeing this easy victory over him, the soldiers, previously quite civil, cursed him for having got the better of their fallen comrade, and went off discussing how be had done the trick, leaving him to lie there.  A peasant carried him to a small suburban inn, where he remained several days oppressed horribly by a sense that he had forgotten something.  When he recollected what it was, he entrusted the captain’s letter to his landlady;—­a good woman, but she chanced to have a scamp of a husband, who snatched it from her and took it to his market.  Beppo supposed the letter to be on its Way to Pallauza, when it was in General Schoneck’s official desk; and soon after the breath of a scandalous rumour began to circulate.

Captain Weisspriess had gone down to Camerlata, accompanied by a Colonel Volpo, of an Austro-Italian regiment, and by Lieutenant Jenna.  At Camerlata a spectacled officer, Major Nagen, joined them.  Weisspriess was the less pleased with his company on hearing that he had come to witness the meeting, in obedience to an express command of a person who was interested in it.  Jenna was the captain’s friend:  Volpo was seconding him for the purpose of getting Count Ammiani to listen to reason from the mouth of a countryman.  There could be no doubt in the captain’s mind that this Major Nagen was Countess Anna’s spy as well as his rival, and he tried to be rid of him; but in addition to the shortness of sight which was Nagen’s plea for pushing his thin transparent nose into every corner, he enjoyed at will an intermittent deafness, and could hear anything without knowing of it.  Brother officers said of Major Nagen that