a Spanish patrol approached the spot, and the robber bethought himself of a recent and sanguinary law:—to put a stop to the immoralities and intrigues carried to a shameful excess by the lawless young nobles of that day, the Viceroy had decreed that any individual found entering another's house, or even detected carrying a rope ladder by night, should be instantly punished with death ;* and the Spartan-severity of this law, as the robber well knew, had been really put in practice. Now, therefore, fearful of being apprehended himself-fearful that his rival might escape the vengeance of his armblinded and mastered by the jealousy of the momenthe rushed to the guard, and informed them of what he had so unwillingly witnessed. The captain of the Spaniards instantly roused the house, and while he entered with part of the men the gate the porter opened, the rest remained stationary under the window, or went to the rear of the mansion to intercept the retreat of the offending lover. In a few seconds, a young man in the garb of a cavalier, for he had thrown off the large mantle that impeded his flight, appeared at the window where Mangone had seen him enter; and though he perceived but too plainly the Spanish guard in the street, he threw out the cords, and drawing his sword, glided down in the midst of them. However strong and expert his arm, and valiant his

Giannone. Storia Civile del Regno, etc. Vol. IV.

spirit, he could in no respect have offered a successful resistance; but as he reached the ground, he stumbled and fell, and was at once pinioned by the soldiers. He was scarcely secured, when a young lady—a very different person indeed from Nicoletta-for she was the daughter of the noble owner of the mansion, to escape the first fury of her dishonoured father, and perhaps still more, to witness her lover's fate, or to intercede for him, descended into the street by the same giddy, unsafe rope ladder, and calling piteously on the name of Luigi-her dear Luigi-she rushed to the captive youth.

At this sight, which proved to him his jealousy had committed an awkward mistake, Mangone would have gone off and evaded inquiries as to himself, which he felt would be rather difficult to answer. But as he was slinking round the corner of the mansion, some of the Spanish guards stopped him, and told him he must go with them to the guard-house. And away therefore he went, with the weeping lady and the astounded, enraged knight.

They had scarcely entered this strong-hold, whose iron-bound doors and iron gratings somewhat damped the spirit of the imprudent robber, when the lady's infuriated father arrived with the captain of the guard. On perceiving who was the lover,-that he was noble as himself, though estranged by a family feud, and unmarried and free,-the old baron's heart relented, and

as his passion cooled he listened to the cavalier Luigi, who represented, that not only might he be saved from the law's severity, but the honour of all parties preserved, by his immediate marriage with the young lady, whom he had wooed and won in secresy, solely because the existing enmities of their families prevented him from pursuing any other course. The captain of the guard, who now found that in arresting Luigi he had placed a friend's life in jeopardy, joined him in his endeavours to conciliate the old nobleman, and to make up matters at once.

"We must thus avoid further scandal and remark," said he; "none but my faithful men here, and a few of your own domestics, as yet know aught of the unpleasant occurrence, except indeed this fellow, who turned informer."

"And who is he?" cried Luigi.

"Ay, who is he?" echoed the guard, and some of them rushed to bring the robber (who would have sunk in the earth or buried himself in eternal darkness) to the light of a cresset lamp that hung from the high roof of the apartment.

But though thus caught in his own trap-though confused with the sense of his own folly, and pent up, and surrounded by armed men-the bandit's presence of mind did not quite forsake him: approaching the captain, he said, boldly-"I am a peasant of Apulia, poor and houseless, and seeking for work, but a faith

ful subject of his Majesty the King of Spain, to whom I did my duty in obeying the orders of his Excellency the Viceroy!"

One thing, however, he forgot; he did not disguise his natural voice, which was but too well known to one present and most deeply interested.

"By the saints! I have heard the tones of that voice before now, and thou art not what thou sayest," exclaimed Luigi, coming forward to the light, and confronting the robber,-"if thou art not he who once held me captive, until released by a ransom,—if thou art not Benedetto Mangone, hold out thy right hand!"

"Benedetto Mangone! on whose head is a taglio of a thousand golden ducats! is our fate so fortunate?" cried the Spanish soldiers, closing round the robber, who did not hold out his hand, but pale as ashes, gazed with fixed eyes on the cavalier whom he indeed, and too late, recognised as one whom he had robbed and captured not many weeks before.

"The villain is well disguised," continued the cavalier; "but I know that peculiar voice, and I could swear to Mangone, among thousands, by an extraordinary wound under his wrist,-let him hold out his right hand!"

""T is here!" said the robber, gnashing his teeth, and drawing his arm forth from his bosom on which it had been crossed; but he drew a dagger from beneath his vest, with it, and would have stabbed his detector to the

heart, but for one of the guards, who levelled him to the earth with a tremendous blow of his halbert.

In falling, his high conical cap, and a quantity of false red hair, flew from his bleeding head; the soldiers who stooped to remove him, found a breast-plate under his peasant's dress, and Luigi recognised the wounded hand of Mangone.

When the robber came to his senses, he muttered, "Old Pasquale's prediction is verified, and I am lost for woman!" but no other words could be forced from him. On the morrow, when hundreds of the Salernitans attracted by the astounding news, that the long dreaded Mangone was at length taken, thronged to the prison, his person was sworn to by many, and he was sent under a formidable guard to Naples, to meet the death he so richly merited. But the horrid tortures that preceded that death, and the mode in which it was finally inflicted, are such as humanity shudders to think of. He was dragged through the street on a hurdle, executioners tearing his skin as he went, with iron pincers, and after months of captivity, was broken on a wheel by blows of hammers, in the Mercato, or great market-place of Naples. "And of no avail," says the Neapolitan historian, Giannone, "was this dreadful spectacle, and horrid example, for others: almost immediately after Mangone's death, another famous robber, called Marco Sciarra, took the field, and in imitation of King Marcone of Calabria, another bandit styled himself the