"_Brigade Orders_.--Officers desirous of leading the forlorn-hope are
requested to send in their names, without delay, to Brigade-Major
Gascoigne."
After turning over this invitation in my mind for some time, and
weighing the chances of promotion against those of escape, I resolved
not to send in my card to Gascoigne; notwithstanding that longing for
fame and distinction--a secret craving to be the first man among the
multitude, which, in fact, is the true sentiment that makes us buckle on
the sword at first: but to lead a forlorn-hope is to throw away one's
life.
Just when the troops were getting silently under arms in a sheltered
place, near an old, gloomy, and empty convent, I went to the rallying
post. The spirited Cavaliere di Castelermo earnestly requested the
general to allow him the honour of heading the dangerous enterprise; but
his services, his high courage and birth, and his commander's cross,
availed him nothing in the present instance. Sir John politely thanked
him; and hinted, as delicately as he could, that a British officer alone
could lead where British soldiers were to follow.
"Signor Count," replied the Italian bitterly, "there was a time when the
cross of St. John was valued more highly--when its wearers _followed_
none; but alone led the way. It has pleased Fate to try us sorely, like
the Templars of other days: we have been deprived of our ships, our
castles, and our possessions, of all but our name and glory; yet I trust
there is a time to come when once more the banner of Malta will be what
it was--what it has been ever since the accursed Mussulmans captured
Rhodez: the shield of the Christian mariner, and the terror of the
African barbarian!"
The restoration of his order to all its chivalric glory and military
power, was one of Castelermo's darling themes; and one about which he
bored me for many a long hour. Poor Marco! he was doomed never to
behold the realization of those gay visions of his bold and heroic
fancy.
"Yet, signor," he continued, "if I cannot lead in the assault, I will
endeavour to be the second man within the breach."
"Young Morley, of the 20th, has sent in his name," said Gascoigne; who
at that moment approached, with a number of notes in his hand. "The
little fool!" muttered the general; "poor boy--he has seen little enough
of life yet to be in such a hurry to quit it. Does he lead the
stormers?"
"No--Dundas, of ours," replied Gascoigne, who was a 62nd man. "So you
mean to lead 'the lost children' to-night," he added to me.
"No, faith! a company is not got every day, and----"
"Your name is on my list as a volunteer, though!"
"The deuce it is!" I exclaimed, gravely; "I never sent it to you."
"Amazing!" said he, handing me a note, written in a hand and signed with
a signature so like my own--having every blot, turn, and dash--that I
was confounded and nonplussed.
"I never penned this note, gentlemen! Never! I pledge my honour: it is
a forgery, to lead me into unnecessary danger."
"Singular!" said the brigade-major, puzzled.
"'T is the roguery of Navarro," whispered Marco: "I will wager a hundred
crowns to a carlino, this is a piece of his revenge."
"Dundas, there is no time for inquiry or exposure just now," said
Colonel Oswald. "What do you propose--to withdraw your name?"
"No, I will lead the assault; and tomorrow, if I survive, shall expose
this cowardly Sicilian forger, who is a disgrace to the uniform he
wears;" said I, exasperated to find myself compelled, in honour, to
undertake this most perilous and deadly duty, where the chances of
escape with life were as one to a hundred, without the glorious credit
of being a willing volunteer.
"Fall in--the stormers," cried Gascoigne.
"Gentlemen--to your posts," cried Sir John; and I was left almost alone.
The time of attack was so close at hand, that luckily I had little time
for reflection: yet, for a few minutes, I became grave and melancholy
enough. Life, death, home, Bianca, wounds and agony, all floated in
confusion before me: but these misgivings were stifled, and a chivalric
recklessness--a desperate hope--a glow of courage that would make one
face the devil, took possession of my breast, when the stormers, two
hundred in number, selected from volunteers of the 20th, threw off their
knapsacks, blankets, and canteens, and were handed over to me by their
adjutant. For my heavy cocked-hat, with its long staff plumes, I
substituted a light foraging cap; for my tasselled hessians, a pair of
large jack-boots. I buckled my waist-belt tighter, examined the blade
and hilt of my sword, threw away my cigar, and gave the word--
"Attention! Mr. Morley you will inspect the rear-rank."
The pouches were opened, the flints and ammunition examined by the light
of the diamond-like stars; the orders to fix bayonets, and load with
ball-cartridge, followed. The ramrods went home on the charges with a
sullen, muffled sound; the muskets rattled, and then the ranks became
motionless and still. The bell of some distant campanile tolled the
eleventh hour, and as the sound floated away, I could hear my own heart
beating, through all its thickening pulses.
My subaltern, poor lad, looked very pale: I could perceive it by the
starlight.
"Morley!" I whispered, in a tart tone of surprise.
"I am thinking of my mother--she is far away, at home;" he faltered, and
colouring deeply, added, "I cannot help these thoughts."
"Few of us will hear twelve strike," thought I, whilst closing the
ranks, and lowering the point of my sabre to the general, to intimate
that we were ready.
"Success to you, Dundas," said he. "Move on by sections: you know the
breach--at the top, the main street. The fellows begin to scent our
purpose already. You will be ably supported: Oswald, with the 58th;
Ross, with the 20th; de Watteville's corps is the reserve. Forward!"
We moved off, and at the same moment the French guns again opened on the
town, worked with renewed energy and rapidity. The rock of Scylla was
shaken to its sea-worn foundations; and the lights, flashing from
battlement and embrasure, revealed the parapets lined with stern faces
and bristling bayonets, the lofty keep crowded with men, and its giant
outline towering over the whirling smoke which issued from the guns of
the lower works.
The windings of the shore, the peak of Monte Jaci, and the caverns below
us, rang with continual discharges of the artillery; and the intervals
were filled by the roar of the seething surf, and its booming in the
yawning depths of Dragara, where
"Scylla bellows from her dire abodes!
Tremendous pest! abhorred by men and gods!
Hideous her voice, and with less terror roar
The whelps of lions in the midnight hour."
_Odyssey_, Book xii.
The night was close and still; the frequent flashes of the fire-arms
reddened the gathered clouds, and lightened the bosom of the ocean: the
scene was grand and impressive. But we had very little poetry in our
hearts as we stumbled up the rough dark street, over which the
thirty-twos and long nines whistled incessantly; one moment dealing
death and mutilation amongst us, and the next bringing some ruined gable
or ponderous balcony thundering down on our perilous line of march.
With the utmost speed we pressed forward, while Oswald followed with his
corps, and without much loss we passed the houses, and debouched upon
the ridge, when the whole outline of the fortress burst at once upon our
view. We rushed forward to the breach under a tremendous fire, which
rained from every parapet, point, and loophole. Magnificent and
terrible was the aspect of the castle at that moment: once more,
innumerable blue lights shed their livid and sepulchral glare on town
and fortress, land and sea; enabling the defenders to direct their fire
steadily upon us. The musketry rolled in one voluminous blaze over
breastwork and palisade, while the batteries played with incessant
rapidity, loading the air with the sound of thunder; for the echoes,
thrown back by the hills, were redoubled by the resounding caverns of
the rock. From the summit of the keep to the lower walls, every point
seemed to swarm with men; and was either blazing with light or shadowed
by smoke, and bristling with lines of flashing steel.
Before us lay the breach, foredoomed to be the deathbed of many; it was
an immense mass of loose stones, and the ascent to it was most
troublesome, with such obstacles as we had to contend with. Fascines
and chevaux-de-frise were thrown across the gap; and in rear of this
crowded the garrison, who were firing on us with deadly coolness and
precision.
Morley fell dead at my feet! An indescribable sensation--a kind of
frenzy possessed me. I shouted and rushed up, brandishing my sabre and
holding aloft in my left hand the little standard, which I had
undertaken to place on the walls of Scylla or die in the attempt: it was
blown to ribbons by the storm of balls. Navarro was forgotten: I thought
only of glory and Bianca!
"Forward, 20th! Remember Egmont! On, on! Hurrah!"
"Hurrah! hurrah!" cried the wild stormers, as they scrambled up the
breach in a mob, encumbered by the killed and wounded, who were falling
every second under their feet. A shower of hand-grenades, thrown by the
grenadiers of the 20th, who were posted in rear of a low wall close by,
drove the enemy back from the chevaux-de-frise, and shattered it to
pieces. These military engines, which are now most unaccountably laid
aside, were followed by a few round shot from our battery: their
discharge created great confusion among the French; so much so that we
reached the summit of the breach without suffering half the slaughter I
had anticipated.
A new engine was now brought into operation, the effect of which will
never be forgotten by me, while life and memory remain.
"Push on, for God's sake! O, my brave fellows! trust now to the
bayonet, and the bayonet only!" I cried.
"Viva Ferdinando nostro e la Santa Fede!" shouted Castelermo, springing
to my side; but the Calabrian war-cry was almost lost in the cheers of
the 20th, and the terrific din around us: the ear was stunned with one
continual roar of frightful sounds. But the groan, the stifled gasp,
the agonizing cry were unheard or unheeded: we made the corpses of our
dearest comrades stepping-stones, and through the shot and
shell-splinters, which swept around us like a hail-storm, we rushed on,
to close, to grapple with, and overwhelm the enemy. At their head we
perceived the marquis, a noble-looking fellow, on whose broad breast the
stars and medals of his achievements were shining in the light from the
muskets and bursting bombs.
At that instant I reached the summit of the breach, and laid my hand on
the chevaux-de-frise to vault over, when the earth heaved and yawned
beneath our feet; a tremendous explosion and a dreadful crash ensued: a
hundred of my party were blown to atoms in a moment, and I was thrown
over the barrier, falling headlong in the midst of the enemy.
Unseen by us, after dusk, a caisson des bombes, or tub filled with
loaded shells, had been secretly sunk under the stones of the breach,
and being slightly covered over by fragments of masonry, lay concealed
until the moment we trod upon it; when the French fired it by means of a
saucisson, and produced a frightful catastrophe. There was a pause for a
moment; but a moment only.
The few survivors of the storming party recoiled, and I saw Castelermo
clinging with all the desperation of a dying man to a cope-stone of the
shattered battlement. The stone yielded and gave way; there was a cry
of "Basta!" and the poor knight vanished; but whether into the fosse or
the sea beneath the cliffs, I knew not: in either case, I was sure he
must have perished.
A yell of triumph burst from the French; it was echoed by one of
defiance from our stormers, who once more rushed forward, led on by
Colonel Oswald. His tall and stately figure afforded a prominent mark
for the fire of the besieged; but he miraculously escaped. With all the
courage that desperation could inspire, I used my sabre among the
French, with a strength and energy they were unaccustomed to; but my
efforts to clear the barrier and rejoin our stormers were perfectly
ineffectual. At the very moment that Oswald sprang, sword in hand, over
the now shattered blades of the chevaux-de-frise, followed by the 20th,
thirsting for vengeance, I received a blow from the butt of a musket,
and felt as if crushed beneath the weight of a mountain; the light of a
thousand stars seemed to dance before me; then all was dark, horribly
dark! My God! I faltered, and sank to the earth: the French, supposing
me dead, trod over me as they rushed forward to the conflict.
The fatal breach was now passed, and our soldiers fought like lions to
retain their ground within it. The conflict was maintained, hand to
hand, with resolute valour: swords and ponderous musket-butts were
whirling about like sticks at Donnybrook fair.
My head swam with the effects of the blow; yet I contrived to crawl from
among the legs of the French--whose red breeches and leather leggings I
shall not soon forget--and drew near Oswald. Then starting up, half
blinded with blood, smoke, and confusion, I rushed upon the French
commandant. I had not exchanged half a dozen passes with him, ere a
heavy dizziness came over me: I staggered backwards, and, sinking, clung
to a cannon for support. He had raised his sabre aloft to cleave my
head in two; but, like a gallant soldier as he was, he spared me, and
engaged Oswald, in whom he found no common adversary; for the colonel
was stout of heart and strong of hand as any kail-supper that ever came
out of the famous "kingdom" of Fife.
Short but desperate was the combat that ensued: a stroke across the
temple laid the famous marchese, whose name was so terrible to the
Neapolitans, prostrate before his conqueror; and he was trodden to the
earth among the gory corpses which cumbered the breach; while the whole
58th, with their black standards in front, swept over us.
*CHAPTER XII.*
*A RENCONTRE!*
As all our impetuous troops had now passed through the breach, the
French were driven beyond it; but the conflict raged with undiminished
fury in other parts of the fortress. The place where I had fallen,
benumbed and bruised, was comparatively quiet and still; and whilst I
lay there, I heard a voice close by me exclaim, in pure English, "O, my
God! and here end all my hopes, my joys, and sorrows! My mother--my
home--I shall never see them more! Alas! the one would weep for, the
other scorn me! Aloise--dearest Aloise! we meet no more! Well, I have
ever been faithful to you, and to our emperor. You have ever been
loving, and my sovereign grateful."
Turning with surprise, I found it was the French commandant who was thus
soliloquizing; whilst he bled profusely from a wound, which disfigured
him very much.
"Here is a stout Briton who has been fighting under the tricolor, or
some wild spirit that has fled from Ireland after the last rising," I
thought, whilst approaching him on my hands and knees. I tied up his
head with my handkerchief to stanch the blood--though I myself needed
the same attention--and on dividing the contents of my pocket-flask
between us, the commandant recovered wonderfully.
"Sir, you have betrayed yourself to be British!" said I, in a low stern
voice. "With me your secret is safe: I respect you as a brave man, and
should have done so still more had you been a Frenchman; but beware how
you become known to Sir John Stuart: he is a stern soldier of the old
school, who will assuredly order a drum-head court-martial, and have you
shot as a traitor!"
The eyes of the marquis flashed fire.
"I am now a soldier of fortune," he replied, "free to serve where and
whom I please. Stuart, if he knew all--if he remembered. But there is
a secret spirit whispering at this moment within me, that I have met you
before: you are the officer who led the forlorn hope?" His voice
faltered.
"Yes."
"And whom I encountered in the breach, before that tall officer cut me
down?"
"The same."
"O, fate! if it should be so," he exclaimed, passing his hand across his
blood-stained brow; and then grasping me with energy, "your name, sir?"
"Dundas," said I; "Claude Dundas."
"Of the 62nd Foot?" His eyes were now starting in his head, so
intensely he gazed on me.
"Yes, sir," I replied sharply; "_I_ am not ashamed to acknowledge
myself."
"Taunt me not--taunt me not!" he exclaimed, wildly; "God! I am your
brother--I am Frank, who was dismissed from the Corsicans so unjustly.
This hour--this agony--my wound--O say, in ten years have you quite
forgotten my features?"
For a moment I regarded, with wonder, his bronzed and bearded visage,
now covered with blood; then, appalled by his words, I endeavoured to
trace in his features those of the fair-haired and light-hearted boy who
used to carry me on his back to school, and was my champion and
protector in many a fisticuff battle and bicker: who was so often
flogged by the grim old janitor for taking my faults and blunders on
himself, and for whom I wept like a girl through many a long weary
night, when, as a stripling ensign, he joined the army under the good
Duke of York, and first fired my boyish ardour by being gazetted for his
valour at Valenciennes.
For a time, memory carried me back to the pleasant days of our
childhood, and my heart, which a moment before had been strung for
stirring deeds of carnage and death, relaxed and melted within me: in
that terrible hour, in the gory breach of Scylla, surrounded by the
dying and dead, with the uproar of the assault yet sounding above and
around me, I threw away my sabre, and weeping, as I had done in my
boyish days, embraced that brother over whom all believed the grave had
closed, and whom I had never expected to meet again on earth.
"Happy as I am to meet you, Frank, I would rather that we had never met,
than that I should meet you thus. The French uniform----"
"Is that of as brave an army as the sun shines on!" he replied,
enthusiastically. "Insulted pride, necessity, and revenge, forced me
into its ranks, where I have served faithfully and honourably; as the
high civil and military rank I have attained, together with these
badges, received some of them from Napoleon's hand on the Champ de Mars,
and some on the battle-fields of Holland and Italy, can amply testify.
Our mother," he added, in a broken voice, "tell me, our mother----"
"Lives still; but old and sorrowing."
"And Kranz--my evil genius?"
"Dead--shot at St. Eufemio."
"There ends our enmity," he replied, through his set teeth. "I have
gained a rank infinitely above that from which he degraded me. Heaven
knows how my heart bled when first I found myself opposed to the ranks
of your army at Maida: the well-known colours and red-coats--ay, even my
own old regiment, the gallant Rangers; whose officers and men, all save
one, had been my comrades through many a perilous day. O, it was an
hour of acute and indescribable agony when I saw them marching by the
Amato in close column, with their band in front, playing the same merry
quickstep to which I had often marched in happier days. I have found
the French as honourable as they are brave, and could I have forgotten
home, should have been supremely happy in their service. My marriage
with Aloise Milette, daughter of the general of division--you must have
heard of him--would have given me additional ties to France. Aloise--ah!
if you knew her, Claude;" he paused, as if to collect his scattered
thoughts, and then, although his senses were wandering, continued:--
"This last stronghold of the emperor in the Calabrias, I have defended
to the last--yes, with all my power and courage; and in this moment of
extremity I must not desert my brave fellows, while a chance remains of
driving Oswald's brigade through the breach or into the sea. Farewell!
God bless you, Claude! Speak kindly of me to those at home--to my poor
mother--she will never see me more."
He strained me for a moment to his breast, and snatching up his notched
sabre, staggered towards that part of the works where an unequal contest
was maintained by a section of Frenchmen; whom our soldiers were
endeavouring in vain to dislodge from a bomb-proof vault, by firing in
through the same loop-holes from which the enemy dealt death so
securely.
"Vive l'Empereur!" he exclaimed, rushing towards them with his
brandished sabre.
"Frank!" I cried; "Frank, by the memory of all that has passed!--for the
love of God--hear me!" But he heard me not. He had scarcely advanced a
dozen paces, when a shot--whether aimed or fired at random, I know
not--passed through his head and flattened on a gun-breech beside me.
He fell dead across a heap of his own men, and never moved again. A cry
of horror rose to my lips; but expired upon them unuttered. Stupified
with the events of the night, my brain whirled, and I sank down on the
slippery and bloody pavement of the inner bastion: my mind was a fearful
chaos, and I experienced a sensation like that of a horrible nightmare.
Weak as a child, and quite unmanned, bitter tears rolled over my cheeks.
A dead man lay across me: I was half-stifled, but could not move. I
thought of home; and the splashing of the waves far below me sounded
like the murmur of my native Esk: again I heard, in imagination, the
ripple of its waters tinkling in Roslin's lonely glen; the woods of
Dalkeith rustled over me. Frank's last words yet rang in my ears: but
it seemed the familiar voice of a boy; then came that of my mother, low
and sad--she was weeping for her son.
Again I was a child, and her kiss was on my cheek. Salt and hot were
the tears I shed, and bitter the agony I endured, ere blessed
unconsciousness possessed me, and sinking back against the gun-slide, I
swooned among the bodies of the dead.
* * * * *
Long ere this, the place had been taken. Infuriated by the protracted
assault, our men burst over the fortress like a torrent. De
Watteville's soldiers were like madmen. Woe to the officer who dared to
check their plundering, or curb their fury!--and woe to the unhappy
women who fell into their power! Innumerable episodes of horror
followed the conclusion of the storm. The French, who had been
disarmed, were marched instantly to the beach, and embarked on board Sir
Sidney's squadron; which had come close in shore on hearing the noise of
the attack.
No time was to be lost in making Scylla again defensible; therefore,
before daybreak, the dead were all interred in a common grave, in a
hollow near Monte Jaci. For one amongst the hundreds thus buried, I
desired a separate and more secluded sepulchre; but, stripped of his
epaulettes and orders, his body, without being recognised, had been
hurried away, and entombed with the common herd in that dreadful grave,
over which two hundred soldiers hurled the earth for concealment of the
ghastly heaps within it. I remember the place: an orange tree, of
gigantic size, shadowed it; and a ruined Grecian column may yet point it
out to the tourist: it was lying near, and our soldiers placed it over
the grave.
*CHAPTER XIII.*
*REGGIO.--AN IMPROVISATORE.*
Whilst I was still lying where I had sunk down exhausted--stunned by my
wound, appalled by the recent discovery, weak with pain and loss of
blood, and utterly prostrated in spirit--the fortress became still, or
comparatively so, and the objects all around were veiled in darkness:
the blue lights had burned out, and the lurid gleam of the cannon and
musketry no longer flashed through the gloom. Cries and piteous
exclamations of agony resounded from every quarter; and the living were
dragged from beneath heaps of dead, to be sent to the hospital--an old,
half-ruined convent, which was appropriated to receive the wounded; but
which was soon found to be inadequate to contain them.
Three soldiers employed in searching for those who needed relief
approached me; one of them bore a lantern, and its light glared on the
once gay, but now tattered, uniform of Castelermo, who accompanied them,
and whose fate I had altogether forgotten.
"Basta! and here he is!" he exclaimed; "only stunned, I hope.--How now,
Signor Capitano?--nothing more than a few inches of the skin ripped up?"
"A cloven head, only," I replied, in a faint voice.
"Only!" he reiterated.
"An old wound broken out again. I was struck by a musket-butt on the
very place where a ball grazed my head at Cefalu. But I am glad to see
you alive and scatheless, after that sad tumble you had when blown out
of the breach."
"I have indeed had an escape which, to my dying day, will never be
forgotten. I fell only into the fosse: but a yard more, on one side,
would have launched me into the deep; and, by this time, I should have
been--Madonna knows where, in the depths of 'devouring Scylla.' Never
shall I forget the storming of this castle, though I should live as long
as father Adam."
The soldiers raised me up, and, on receiving the assistance of
Castelermo's arm, I was able to walk, and was led into the interior of
the castle; where, after guards had been posted, one party of the
conquerors was making merry on the wine, brandy, and viands found in the
French stores. Another party was already bearing away the dead for
interment: they were so numerous that the general deemed it prudent, in
so hot a climate, to have the poor fellows all under the turf by
sunrise. The taking of the place had been attended with considerable
slaughter: but I have forgotten the exact casualties.
For several days after the assault, our troops were occupied in
repairing the old defences, building new ones, remounting cannon,
burying the stray corpses, which were sometimes found in retired nooks
and corners, and in attending to the wounded; whilst I remained inactive
on the list of the convalescents. To me, these were days of
indescribable misery and _ennui_: I endured agony, both of mind and
body; for a wound on the head, dangerous at all times, is doubly so in a
warm climate. I became feverish and restless, and was haunted by gloomy
visions and fancies.
The assault--its dangers, uproar, and excitement--that unexpected and
terrible rencontre--the voice--the face--the words--the figure, which
seemed to come to me from the grave, to appear only and be lost for
ever--all flitted continually before me, like some hideous dream. I
brooded over the secret, which I dared not reveal even to my most
intimate friends in the garrison; and it oppressed and weighed upon me
like some vast incubus. I was restless, unhappy, and careless of all
that was passing around me; or, if I spent a thought on the external
world, it was always accompanied by a wish to be again engaged on some
piece of active service.
Oswald being the officer who fairly led the stormers through the breach,
I did not receive promotion; but, in lieu, a ribbon with a silver clasp,
having the word _Scylla_ inscribed on it, was presented to me. This I
considered no ordinary compliment; rewards for merit being--strange to
say--almost unknown in the British service: if we except those rings
worn on the arms of the privates, and called "good conduct stripes," in
contradistinction to the _bad_, which are bestowed elsewhere.
My name was duly emblazoned in the general orders, and transmitted to
the Horse Guards, whence the reiterated compliments of the
Commander-in-chief were published through all the journals of the day;
and while, in my obscure billet at Scylla, I knew nothing about it, I
was becoming quite a man of note at home.
As soon as the fall of the fortress became known, the inhabitants of the
town, whom the din of war had driven to Reggio and Messina, came
flocking back to their ruined and rifled habitations; and the
picturesque little place soon resumed its wonted appearance of life and
activity, which the presence of Oswald's brigade, and the vicinity of
our fleet, not a little increased.
I had a tolerably comfortable billet with an ancient lady, who did all
in her power to make me happy; for she perceived that something weighed
heavily on my spirits, and that I was gloomy and melancholy. She was a
garrulous old gossip, whose head was then as full of saints and miracles
as it had been of love and lovers thirty years before, and a famous
maker of polenta and choke-priest: with which she often nearly choked
me; but old Signoressa Pia was so kind and motherly in her manner, that
I have ever since remembered her with gratitude.
The little town and its castle were crowded to excess; the latter with
Oswald's brigade, and the former with its returned inhabitants, our own
wounded, and those of the enemy. There was not a closet, garret, or
cellar unoccupied; and Castelermo shared with me the hospitality of
Signora Pia. Our quarters could not be called billets, as each person
housed himself where he could; the seniors generally occupying the best,
by right of rank.
From the windows of my apartment, we had a noble view of the Straits,
studded with vessels, and gleaming in blue and saffron by day, and in
silver and green by night: the white-terraced houses and spires of
Messina, the beautiful mountains, and all the Sicilian shore. In the
evening, I often enjoyed the cool prospect and a fragrant cigar, while
sipping the scanty half-pint of ration wine, to which the medical
officer restricted me, and listening to the dashing of the waves on the
cliffs below. The little library of the signora was placed at my
disposal; but the "Gierusalemme," the "Hundred Ancient Tales," the poems
of Alfieri, and the sayings and doings of many holy personages, were all
turned over listlessly; until, at last, I found one volume which
interested me deeply. It was one of which I had heard Bianca speak most
rapturously, and which all Italians mention with admiration--the Poems
of Ossian, the Bard of Selma, which are so ably translated by the
celebrated poet Cesarotti; whose pen has added an essay on their
authenticity and beauty, which the Italians can appreciate, even through
the medium of a second translation. From Napoleon--who is said never to
have been without a copy of this work, especially when writing bulletins
and general orders--the Abate Cesarotti received a handsome pension.
The book afforded me occupation during the few weeks I remained at
Scylla. I say weeks, because Ossian is not a work to be skimmed, but
rather studied; every line is so replete with power and beauty. But my
quiet mode of life was not fated to last long, as I was sent on duty the
moment my name was off the staff-surgeon's list.
As soon as I could ride, I ordered out Cartouche, and, accompanied by
Castelermo, rode over to Reggio, in faint hope of beholding that famous
phenomenon, the Fata Morgana--the sea fairy, as our padrona called
her--who, according to the Calabrese tradition, is a mermaid dwelling in
the Straits of Messina, above the waves of which she displays her
palaces of shell and coral, to lure young men to destruction: but there
are fairies in all the cities of Italy, whose lures are more dangerous
than those of the poor mermaid in the fable.
Castelermo informed me that he had been hearing mass at a chapel of San
Bartolemmeo, among the hills, where he had solemnly returned thanks to
the great patron of his order, for his narrow escape at Scylla.
"And San Bartolemmeo, who was he?" I asked.
"A most blessed saint, signor. To-day is the anniversary of his
martyrdom: he was flayed alive by order of Astiages, the Armenian. But
my escape--maladetto! 't was a narrow one: when my hold relaxed and I
fell from the broken battlement, I thought myself gone for ever. Yes,
signor, but for St. John of Malta, and the beatified Madonna, I must
have been dashed to pieces on those stone-flags, which received me so
softly: in all my campaigns under the cardinal, in all my fighting under
the winged-horse at Rome, and the Maltese flag, I never encountered an
adventure equal to it!"
"Under the Maltese flag? Against the Turks, I presume?"
"Basta! ay, and Corsairs of Barbary, pirates of Greece, and, lastly,
Frenchmen. You are aware that three months after the soldiers of
Napoleon captured that solitary rock, where the banner of the true faith
had waved so long, the hereditary vassals of the order, irritated by the
tyranny of his general, Vaubois, rose in arms: with a few knights of the
old Italian langue, I hastened to put myself at their head, and assist
in the expulsion of those irreligious invaders. Ha! then we had
something like war. The gates of Valetta, and the other cities of the
isle, were shut, and their blockaded garrison reduced to the utmost
famine and distress. Then ensued that long and bloody siege which
lasted for two years; during which time more than twenty thousand
soldiers perished by the sword or starvation. As the great master
spirit of those military operations, I was in my glory; and was full of
fervour, rapture, and extasy at the prospect of once more establishing
my order. No pilgrim, on first beholding the holy city from afar, ever
experienced the glow of indescribable feeling which possessed me, when
the fleet of Portugal, sent by Lord Nelson to our assistance, burst
joyously on my gaze; as the gallant ships, with their frowning tiers of
artillery, their standards streaming, and white canvass swelling in the
breeze, steered round the promontory, and opened their broadsides
against the castle of St. Elmo. O, hour of joy! I kissed my sword, and
raised my hands to the blue sky above me, in thankfulness. Lastly came
the fleets of Britain and Sicily; after which the fortresses
surrendered, and the soldiers of Vaubois, marching to the sea-shore,
threw down their arms. All the treasured hopes, the glowing thoughts of
years, were about to be accomplished: I stepped forward to receive the
sword of the general; judge of my wrath, when Lord Nelson anticipated
me; bowing low, Vaubois presented his sword by the hilt, and the admiral
immediately handed it to a short squat fellow, a sailor, who stood
behind; and who, with the most provoking indifference and sang froid,
put it under his arm with those of other officers, as he received them
in succession."