inclination where they were due—­ towards the loving bosom and welcoming arms of my Virginia—­this new shame had come upon me?  Alas, what malign influence drew thee, lady, to Siena, to rekindle my flame, to melt my conjugal desires, to betray me into the old passion, to draw me into the old despair?  Thus I bitterly questioned myself as, guarded on either hand by mounted men, I descended the silent street on the way to what I must needs consider perpetual imprisonment.

Going out of the Porta Romana, where we were obliged to wait in the cold drizzle of a cheerless dawn for the porter to open the gate, a deeply veiled, respectably dressed young woman asked the favour of our escort from the corporal, and received it, probably on account of her good looks, which should be extraordinary.  She was going, she said, to join her husband at Volterra, and feared the brigands who were notoriously rife in that country.  The corporal offered to take her pillion behind him.  “Willingly, sir,” she said, and was lifted up by the troopers.  As we went out of the gate she raised her veil to use her handkerchief and to look at me.  In a moment I saw that it was my brave and affectionate Belviso, and was no little comforted by the thought that here, at any rate, was one heart in Siena generously inclined to mine.

We baited at Colle, and rested there two or three hours; from thence we mounted a very steep hill and reached a country of abounding desolation and misery, where bare grey hills alternated with dense thickets, and were told that there was not a human habitation for the rest of the journey to Volterra.  Our guards saw to the priming of their muskets before they started from Colle, and kept a sharp lookout on all sides of the way.  We met nothing, however, threatening or otherwise, for nearly half our journey, but somewhere about four o’clock of the afternoon, when we were traversing a barren moor, the corporal gave a sharp cry and reined up his horse.  Before I knew what he was about a pistol had been placed in my hands, and he said, “Every man for himself now.  You are free, sir.”

“How—­free?” I asked him.

His reply was to point ahead of us.  “Brigands,” he said, “and the Kingdom of Heaven in view.”

The troopers got off their horses, lashed them by the bridles, head to head, and stood behind them with their muskets pointed the way the enemy was coming.  They were upon us almost before I had seen anything but a cloud of whirling dust.  They came on at a furious pace, yelling and discharging their arms, and made short work of our defenses.  The three soldiers were killed and rifled.  I and Belviso had our hands tied, were strapped on to horses, put in the midst of the band, who were all masked, and carried off at a terrible rate across the open country.  We went down a mountain side, crossed a torrent and crashed into a thick belt of woodland which lay beyond it.  In the midst of this a ruined chapel or hermitage