510 Ten Days' Quarantine : an Anecdote. [[MAY, 



been so interesting, or at the balustrade, to witness the domestic pro- 

 ceedings of our fellow-prisoners. Carmela's father might have been at 

 either time in his vessel, which lay immediately below the window, or 

 amongst the troop of idlers in the court-yard; and in that case my com- 

 panion must have been discovered. 



Having confided to me so much of his history, I was of necessity 

 compelled to become the receptacle of all this idle garrulity for the next 

 ten hours. Amongst other things, he informed me that he was about to 

 venture on a very bold experiment. He meant to sink down into the 

 court-yard, and meet his lady-love face to face ! My prudent insinuations 

 were but lost labour to me, for he was bent on this fool-hardy project, 

 the more especially as he had observed, during his expedition of the night 

 before, that our nearest guardian or sentinel stripped himself of his coat 

 during his nap, and deposited the robe of office on a chair by his side. 

 In this stolen livery, my friend purposed to pass current; and sure 

 enough, on that evening, when the universal silence acknowledged the 

 sovereignty of Morpheus, off glides he towards the sentinel's post, and, 

 having purloined the cast-off garment, invests himself with the same, and 

 therein proceeds, as on the previous night, to the opposite part of the 

 gallery. Presently I could distinguish him arranging something to a 

 transverse beam, and having suspended himself by it, I saw him gra- 

 dually let down, without the least noise or obstacle, until he reached the 

 ground. The same challenge as on the former occasion was accepted 

 with the same or readier acquiescence. The maiden came forth, and 

 they were locked in each other's arms ! So desperate a feat neither love, 

 hate, ambition, nor any other of the most violent of human impulses ever 

 before accomplished in a lazaretto. 



But this was not destined to be all- successful. Despite his garb as of 

 an orthodox servant of the police ; despite his former caution and his 

 maidenly fears, some hazard was sure to be encountered ; and that hazard 

 occurred in the shape of an extravagant reverberation along the empty 

 court- walls, consequent upon a natural movement of two pairs of lips 

 in the sweet interchange of kisses. " Carmela !" cried a gruff voice from 

 within the nearest apartment. " Saints preserve us ! where is the girl, 

 to venture in the air so late at night ? a mad thing as she always was." 



" My coat, there ! Who 's got my coat ?" echoed another and shriller 

 voice from above. " Filippo ! Giuseppe ! Capitano Muscat ! Who the 

 devil has borrowed my second best coatee?" 



" I see her ! by heavens, she 11 catch cold," grumbled the merchant, 

 slowly disengaging himself from his bedclothes, as he caught a glimpse 

 of the female figure through the half-opened doorway, and dreaded a 

 thousand fevers as the natural result of such imprudence. 



" 'Gad zooks ! I see something like the yellow collar and stamped 

 button!" shouted the ecstatic guardiano, peering along in the moonlight, 

 and right joyous with half a hope of reclaiming his official glory. They 

 advanced part passu towards the common object of their scrutiny, and 

 the father confronted his child, as the guard detected his prisoner. Here 

 ends a dilemma. 



The old gentleman perceiving one of the male creatures in the police- 

 coat, and the other destitute of any garment at all, naturally enough 

 concluded that the latter was the stranger, and the former his friend. 

 Advancing, therefore, full of suspicion and paternal rage, he was about 

 to lay violent hands on all there : on his child, to secure her return to 



