302 The Man of Ill-Omen. [Sept. 



ment, when she was to be the wife of the handsomest man in his majes- 

 ty's guards, and a hero. 



" The night was as dark as Hymen could desire ; and I was leading 

 my lady and my love to the door of the San Januario chapel, where a 

 ■well-fed monk was in waiting. As I lifted her from the caleche, I found 

 my arms pinioned, and a cloak thrown over my head. Resistance was 

 useless, for I was already half-strangled. The cloak was taken off my 

 eyes in the guard-room ; and I was left to repentance in the barrack- 

 dungeon. The lady, disappointed of one husband, made up her mind with- 

 out delay ; she took an old gouty adorer ; and, within the next" twelve 

 hours, was the fllarchesa di San Caracolo. Happiness be to them both ! 



" But the truth always comes out at some time or other, even in 

 Naples, and I discovered that my betrayer on this memorable night, was 

 the serjeant-major of my own corps ; he having been an accepted lover of 

 the lady, but distanced by my superior charms, and taking his revenge in 

 the shape of revealing my plan to the lady's family. I reproached him 

 with Iris baseness ; he laughed in my face, ordered me to drill, and super- 

 intended its performance in person. I was sullen, and he grew insolent ;^ 

 I made no improvement, and he raised his cane. This was an indignity 

 forbidden in the service ; and calmly ordering my musket, I defied him to 

 strike, telling him at the same time, that no one was ever the better for 

 my iU-will. He was enough in the wrong to fly into a passion, and down 

 came the cane, and a sncre together. He was a tall showy Frenchman, the 

 best dancer, foto-player, and small-swordsman in the guards. If he had 

 spared himself one blow the more, he had effrontery enough to have risen to 

 be commander-in-chief. But it was the last blow, and the last saere that 

 the serjeant-major ever threw away. We fought that night under one of 

 the lamps in the Strada di San Geronimo, and the serjeant-major never 

 drew rapier nor ration again. 



" Naples was now no residence for me. I quitted his IMajesty's guards 

 before day-break, and without waiting for a furlough, had soon made a to- 

 lerable progress towards the States of his Holiness. But I quitted Naples 

 with a heavy heart. The fllahometan waits for his paradise till his throat 

 is cut. But we had the glorious certainty in Naples under king Joachim. 

 Never was king so fitted for a people, nor people so fitted for a king. He 

 was a thorough lazzarone : as idle, as gay, as bold, as profligate, and as 

 useless, as if he had been born on the sands of the bay, and lain naked 

 on them from the time he was born. Contractors and commissaries, 

 duchesses and opera dancers, managed all as they liked ; the palace was a 

 French guinguette, the city a French theatre, the kingdom a French faux- 

 bourg, and the whole reign a long French holiday of plunder and pleasure. 



'^ But, as ten yeai"s in the gallies, or a discharge of a dozen muskets 

 into me on parade, would have been my penalty for remaining, I bade adieu 

 to the joys of Naples, and pushed across the dreary frontier of the 

 dreariest corner of Europe — the territory of the Pope. Of all countries, 

 however, give me that teiTitory for an escape. For as nine men out of 

 every ten are actual robbers, and the tenth looks as like one as possible, 

 the less resemblance you have to an honest man the better. I took up 

 my quarters in a convent, by giving a touching detail of my escape from 

 captivity among the ]\Ioors, and by giving the promise of becoming an 

 eminent saint in good time. Here I lived pleasantly enough for a while. 

 But I felt the loss of Naples. The eternal clamour, guitaring, rioting, 

 rattling of equipages, and masquerading, rose upon my mind, and I 



