THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 FROM THE LIBRARY OF 
 ERNEST CARROLL MOORE
 
 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 THE SPERONARA
 
 The Ruins of the Greek Theatre. Taormina 
 
 M -lint stitirj ni tbc Distance
 
 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 THE SPERONARA 
 
 FROM THE FRENCH OF 
 
 ALEXANDRE DUMAS 
 
 BY 
 
 KATHARINE PRESCOTT WORMELEY 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 
 1902
 
 Copyright, 1909, 
 BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. 
 
 All riglUt reserved 
 
 Published October, 1909 
 
 JOHN WILSON 
 AMD SON CAM BK1UOB, U. I. A.
 
 College 
 Library 
 
 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 TRANSLATORS NOTE 
 
 7~ > \UMAS > men "Explanation" of his " Impres- 
 /--^ sions de voyage " is as follows : 
 
 " I know not, dear readers, if you will remember 
 tliat one day it will soon be twenty-four years ago 
 / said, ( I will make the tour of the Mediterranean ; 
 I will accomplish its periplus; I will write the history 
 of t/ie ancient world, which is nothing else than the 
 history of civilization.' 
 
 " People laughed ; they made great fun of me ; a 
 man ichom I had enabled to win a million, avenged 
 himself by saying a witty thing. 
 
 " ' Do you know,' he said, * that Dumas has dis- 
 covered the Mediterranean ! ' 
 
 " This journey, or rather this series of journeys that 
 I planned was difficult to accomplish without the aid 
 of the government and with the limited resources of a 
 man of letters ; but after all, God helping me, it did 
 not seem impossible. 
 
 " I started in 1834. On this frst journey I saw the 
 whole of the South of France, from Cette to Toulon : 
 Aigues-Mortes, Aries, Tarascon, Beaucaire, Ntmes, 
 Marseille, Avignon, Vaucluse.
 
 vi JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 " That icas a beginning. 
 
 " I started again the following year ; this time my 
 journey lasted two years. I saw Hyeres, Cannes, the 
 ff"lf f Frejus, Grasse, Draguignan, Nice, the Cor- 
 niche, Genoa, Florence, Pisa, Livorno, Turin, Milan, 
 Pistoia, Perugia, Rome, Naples, Messina, Palermo, 
 Girgenti, Marsala, Syracuse, Catania; I climbed 
 JEtna and the Stromboli; I visited the Lipari islands ; 
 I puslied on as far as Lampedusa; I returned to 
 Reggio ; I went up Calabria, afoot, to PcRstum. I 
 was arrested once at Naples by his Majesty King 
 Ferdinand ; I was about to return by ivay of Venice, 
 when I was arrested a second time, at Foligno, by his 
 Holiness Gregory XVI. , brought back by the carbi- 
 neers to Thrasymene, and left on the shore of the 
 lake ivith injunction to return to France as fast as 
 possible. 
 
 " / returned to France. 
 
 "In 184^, still jirm in my determination, I took a 
 boat in the port of Livorno, and icith that boat, which 
 ought to have foundered a dozen times and never 
 foundered at all, I visited the island of Elba, Pia- 
 nosa, Gorgone, Monte-Cristo, and Corsica* 
 
 " In 18 4G I started for Madrid. I visited Barce- 
 lona, Malaga, Granada, Cordova, Seville, Cadiz. 
 I straddled the straits; I went to Tangier, from 
 Tangier to Tetuan, from Tetuan to Gibraltar, from 
 Gibraltar to Melilla, Djemma-Ghazaouat, Oran, 
 and Algiers. 
 
 "At Algiers I made a pause ; I wanted to see, in the 
 interior, BlUlah, the pass of Mouzaia, and Milianah. 
 
 " Tlien I started again, and stopped successively at
 
 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE vii 
 
 Djuljelli, Golio, Stora, and Philippeville ; I went to 
 Constantine, I returned to Stora ; I embarked for 
 Tunis and the Kerkennah islands ; I visited the 
 Roman amphitheatre of Djemdjem. 
 
 "During my first journey, in France, I spent six 
 thousand francs ; during my second journey, in Italy, 
 eighteen thousand ; during my third journey, four 
 thousand; and finally, during tJie last journey, 
 thirty-three thousand, from which must be deducted 
 ten thousand allowed me by the minister of Public 
 Instruction. Total : fifty-one thousand francs. 
 
 " But half my project was accomplished ; and what 
 matters the cost of accomplishment ? 
 
 " The works which resulted from these different 
 journeys were the ' Impressions de Voyage,' in the 
 tiouth of France, a Year in Florence, the Villa 
 Palmieri the Speronara, The Isles of JEolus, 
 the Corricolo, from Paris to Cadiz, the 
 Ve'loce. 
 
 " Well, now, there still remains to achieve the whole 
 of what I undertook ; I must see Venice, Illyria, the 
 Ionian islands, Greece, Constantinople, the shores of 
 Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, the Cyrenian 
 coast, Tripoli 
 
 " And first, I begin, before going farther, with 
 thanks to MM. the managers of the imperial Mt>s- 
 sag cries [public conveyances], who, as soon as they 
 kncio my project, offered me gracefully and without 
 remuneration, a passage on their boats for myself 
 and my secretary. 
 
 " That ivas much, but it was not all that I desired. 
 
 " To travel by the boats of the Mcssageries means
 
 viii JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 touching at Malta, Syra, Alexandria, Bey rout, 
 Smyrna, and Constantinople; seeing what every- 
 body sees ; telling it better or less well than ot/iers, 
 but at any rate telling it after others. Now the 
 journey that I want to make, I myself, is a journey 
 such as no one hits made before me. 
 
 " / must make it with a boat of my own ; a boat that 
 can stand the sea without much danger and yet not 
 draw more than jive feet of water, in order that it 
 may enter all the ports of the Greek archipelago and 
 run close in to all the creeks on the coast of Asia. 
 This boat I shall have some day; and before long, 
 I hope. 
 
 " Meantime I have accepted the invitation of a 
 friend to go to St. Petersburg and be the best man at 
 the wedding of his sister-in-law, and, at the same 
 time, to be present at this coming grand operation of 
 freeing forty-five millions of serfs. 
 
 "I do not expect to stay long in St. Petersburg. 
 After marrying my friend's sitter, seeing the city, 
 and crossing the Neva on one of those beautiful trans- 
 lucent nights when we can read the writing of the 
 woman we love, however fine it be, I shall start 
 for Moscow the sacred city, still full of the memory 
 of our disaster, grand as a victory. There, I shall 
 mount tlie citadel of the tzars to see not only the 
 cupolas, gilded or painted green, of its palaces, the 
 steeples of its churches, its sections called the earth- 
 city, the white-city, the Chinese-city, not only the 
 Kremlin, the tmcer of Iran the Great (tlie tallest in 
 the city, formerly inclosing a bell that weit/hed three 
 hundred and thirty thousand pounds) its angular
 
 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE ix 
 
 palaces, the arsenal, the theatre, the cathedral; not 
 these things only, but the traces of that terrible fire 
 which consumed a city of three hundred and fifty 
 thousand inhabitants, and froze an army of five 
 hundred thousand men. I shall follow down the 
 course of the river and find on the plain of the Mos- 
 cova the remains of the great redoubt where fell Cau- 
 laincourt and where Ney received the title of prince. 
 
 " Then I shall return to Moscow to visit its bazaars 
 (where already we find the Orient) its Krasnoi square, 
 its gate of Saint- Vladimir ; and there I will relate 
 the marvellous legends of Mentchikof, the seller of 
 little patties, and of Catherine, the Lithuanian ser- 
 vant-girl. 
 
 " After that I shall start for Novgorod the little, 
 Nigi-Novgorod, for that will be the period of the 
 splendid fair which attracts the merchants of Persia, 
 India, and China ; where I shall find the weapons of 
 the Caucasus, the silver-ware of Toula, the coats-of- 
 mail of Tifiis ; where malachite and lapis-lazuli are 
 sold in blocks ; where turquoises are measured by the 
 bushel; where we may buy in bales the stuffs of 
 Smyrna and Ispahan; and where is brought that 
 famous tea of the Caravan, for which Russia pays 
 its weight in silver, and France and England its 
 weight in gold. 
 
 " Curiosity quenched, I shall embark upon the Volga, 
 tfiat king of the rivers of Europe, as the Amazon is 
 queen of the rivers of America, which falls after a 
 course of eighteen hundred miles, through seventy 
 mouths, into the Caspian sea. On its way I shall 
 find Astrakhan, with its three bazaars, for Russians,
 
 x JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 Hindoos, and Asiatics Astrakhan, which touches 
 with its right hand the Cossacks of the Don, and with 
 its left hand the Cossacks of the Oural, and, turning 
 its head, sees, till sight is lost, the vast steppes of the 
 Kirghis Tartars, their billows of verdure hearing 
 with, the same regular motion as the waves of the 
 Caspian sea. 
 
 " Here I must pause a few days to see once more 
 those men of the long beard, the pointed cap, the wide 
 red breeches, whose lance, bow, and quiver were the 
 terror of my childhood. Then, after hunting bus- 
 tards on their little horses, and visiting the fisheries 
 that supply those sturgeons one of which will feed a 
 village, and those sterlets the price of one of which 
 will make the fortune of a family, I take a steam- 
 boat to Kara'ia, wliere a tarantasse is waiting to take 
 me on to Tiflis. 
 
 " I breatlie for an instant in that l hot town,' so- 
 called from its sulphur baths. There I shall sit at 
 the window of the charming Princess Marie Gralitzin 
 and watch India entering Europe and Europe going 
 to India. This is their passage-way, the capital of 
 Georgia, the palace of tlie kings of Karihti. I am 
 now at the foot of the Caucasus, and about to pax* 
 before the rock to which Prometheus was nailed, on 
 my way to visit the camp of Schamyl, that other 
 Titan who, just as Job the excommunicated struggled 
 in his village against the Emperors of Germany, is 
 struggling on his mountain against the Tzars of 
 Russia. 
 
 " Will Schamyl know my name, and icill he permit 
 me to sleep a night in his tent ?
 
 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE xi 
 
 " Why not ? The bandits of the Sierra knew it well 
 and allowed me to sleep three nights in their huts. 
 
 " That visit paid, I shall descend to the plains of 
 Stavropol; leaving on the right the Kalmuck Tar- 
 tars, on the left the Cossacks of the Black Sea. 
 Reaching the sea of Azof I take a boat and visit 
 Taganrog, where Alexander died of regret perhaps 
 of remorse and Kertch, where Mithridates, pur- 
 sued by the Romans, killed himself; thence a steam- 
 boat will take me in two days to Sevastopol, next to 
 Odessa, and land me finally at Galafz, where I shall 
 see if Semi in and Belgrade are still at war, and so 
 pass on to Vienna ; at Vienna I shall visit Schoen- 
 briin, the palace-tomb ; Wagram, the plain of ter- 
 rible memories; and the island Lobau, where 
 Napoleon received from the river which he meant, 
 like Xerxes, to chain, the first warning of fate. 
 
 " Vienna is Paris ; three days, and I shall be 
 among you again, saying to you, dear readers: 'I 
 have done nine thousand miles in six months ; do 
 you recognize me ? Here I am ! ' ' 
 
 \\lien these words were written there was no " trav- 
 elling public," ami even the reading public knew com- 
 paratively little of countries that were foreign to 
 their own. All is changed since then. The pages 
 of Murray, Baedeker, ami the German guide-books 
 teem with the lore, historical and legendary, that 
 Dumas gathered, and which is too well known to 
 myriads of travellers to be other than dull reading 
 now. But the narrative, the talcs, the anecdotes re- 
 main as perennially fresh as the best novels of the de-
 
 xii JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 light/id old writer. Those are the parts translated 
 here. 
 
 Passing his year of travel in the South of France 
 a region sacred now to the immortal Tartarin 
 and his progenitor, sons of its soil, and to the manner 
 born we take him first in his Speronaraand his 
 Corricolo, and then well, then as circumstances, in- 
 terest, circulation, and courage may provide.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. THE SANTA-MARIA m PIE DI GROTTA . . 1 
 
 II. CAPRI. LA BURRASCA 26 
 
 III. MESSINA IL NOBILE. TAORMINA LA BELLA . 56 
 
 IV. CATANIA. SAN NICOLA IL VECCHIO ... 83 
 V. ^ETNA 118 
 
 VI. SlRACUSA 147 
 
 VII. DEATH IN LIFE. A LIVING TOMB . . . 176 
 
 VIII. A SHARK. PANTELLARIA 248 
 
 IX. GlRGENTI THE MAGNIFICENT 278 
 
 X. COLONEL SANTA-CROCE 308 
 
 XI. THE INTERIOR OF SICILY 32<) 
 
 XII. PALERMO FELICE. SEGESTA 349
 
 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 THE SPERONARA 
 I 
 
 THE SANTA-MARIA DI PIE DI GROTTA 
 
 WE started from Paris on the 15th of Octo- 
 ber, 1834, intending to visit the South of 
 France, Corsica, Italy, Calabria, and Sicily. 
 
 The journey we were undertaking was neither a 
 trip of people of fashion nor an expedition of 
 learned men, but a pilgrimage of artists. We in- 
 tended to neither rush along the main roads in a 
 post-chaise nor bury ourselves in libraries, but to go 
 wherever a picturesque view, an historical memory, 
 or a popular tradition might call us. Consequently, 
 we started forth without a fixed itinerary, leaving to 
 chance and our good luck the care of leading us 
 whithersoever there was something to gain ; little 
 concerned for the harvests already reaped by our 
 predecessors ; certain that men can never gather into 
 their granaries all the blades that God has sown, 
 and convinced that there is never a land so well 
 raked that no last sheaf is left for history, poesy, or 
 imagination to glean. 
 
 The convoy was composed of GeoffVoy Jadin, 
 whom the last two Exhibitions had placed in the
 
 2 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 front rank of our landscape painters ; Amaury 
 Duval, who was to join us later in Florence, where 
 he was completing, by the study of the great mas- 
 ters, his Raffaellesque education begun in the studios 
 of M. Ingres ; myself, who directed the expedition ; 
 and Milord, who followed it. 
 
 As the first three personages whom I have just 
 named are already more or less known to the public 
 by their works, I shall not discourse upon their 
 qualities, physical or moral ; but I ask permission 
 to dwell upon the last of the four, who will play, in 
 the course of this narrative, too important a part to 
 let me neglect to make him known at the outset to 
 my readers, to whom I suspect him of being totally 
 unknown. 
 
 Milord was born in London, in 1828, in the 
 kennel of the house of Lord Arthur G . . . , which 
 stands in Regent Street. His father was a terrier, 
 and his mother a bull-dog ; both of pure and ancient 
 ancestry ; so that their son united in his person all 
 the characteristic qualities of the two races : that 
 is to say, physically, a head as big in itself as the 
 rest of his body, adorned with two large eyes that 
 grew bloody at the slightest emotion, also a nose 
 half split, revealing part of the upper teeth of jaws 
 that opened from ear to ear and closed like a vise ; 
 and morally, with an ardour for combat which, when 
 excited, spent itself indifferently on every species of 
 animal or thing, from a rat to a bull, from the fuse 
 of a sky-rocket exploding in fireworks to the lava 
 that gushed from a volcano. 
 
 We started from Paris, as I have said, with the
 
 THE SPERONARA 3 
 
 intention of roaming over the South of France, Italy, 
 Sicily, and Calabria, and part of this scheme had 
 already been accomplished when, after a stay of 
 three weeks in Rome, I had the honour to meet at 
 the house of the Marquis de T . . . , French charge 
 (TqffuireS) the Comte de Ludorf, our ambassador to 
 Naples. As I was about to start in a few days for 
 that city, the Marquis de T. . . . thought it desir- 
 able to introduce me to his honourable associate, in 
 order to facilitate the diplomatic methods which 
 were to open to me the barriers to Terracina. M. de 
 Ludorf received me with the cold and vacant smile 
 that promises nothing, though it did not deter me, 
 two days later, from taking to him our passports 
 myself for his official visa. M. de Ludorf had the 
 goodness to tell me to deposit our passports in his 
 office and to return in two days to obtain them. As 
 we were not in any degree hurried, I took leave of 
 M. de Ludorf, inwardly resolving not to allow my- 
 self to be presented to any ambassador without pre- 
 viously obtaining the most circumstantial information 
 as to him and his manners. 
 
 Two days later I presented myself at the passport 
 office, where an employe, with the best civility in 
 the world, informed me that difficulties had arisen 
 concerning my r/.wz, and that it would be well if I 
 saw the ambassador myself. Thus I was obliged, 
 in spite of mv resolution, to call again upon M. de 
 Ludorf. I found him colder and stiller than l>efore ; 
 but as I thought it would probably lx) the last time 
 I should ever have the honour of seeing him, I was- 
 patient. He made me a sign to sit down ; I took a
 
 4 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 chair. That was better than the first time, when he 
 left me standing. 
 
 " Monsieur, 1 ' 1 he said with a certain embarrassment, 
 fingering the pleats of his shirt-frill, " I regret to 
 tell you that you cannot go to Naples." 
 
 "Why not? 11 ! asked, quite determined to give 
 our dialogue the tone I chose ; " is it because the 
 roads are bad ? " 
 
 " No, monsieur, the roads, on the contrary, are 
 superb ; but you have the misfortune to be upon 
 the list of those who cannot enter the Neapolitan 
 kingdom. 11 
 
 " However honourable that distinction may be, 
 your Excellency, 11 I replied, suiting the tone to the 
 words, " as it will break up one half of my proposed 
 journey, you will, I hope, permit me to insist on 
 knowing the cause of this prohibition. If it is one 
 of those slight causes one meets everywhere in Italy, 
 I have friends in social life who have power, I think, 
 to remove it. 11 
 
 "The causes are very serious, monsieur; and I 
 doubt if your friends, however high their position 
 may be, have enough influence to remove them.' 1 
 
 "Hut surely without indiscretion, monsieur, I may 
 be allowed to know them. 11 
 
 " Oh ! mon Dieu, yes," replied M. de Ludorf, care- 
 lessly, " I see no objection to telling you. In the 
 first place, you are the son of General Mathieu 
 Dumas, who was minister of war in Naples, during 
 the usurpation of Joseph Bonaparte. 11 
 
 " I am sorry, your Excellency, to refuse relation- 
 ship with the illustrious general you name; but you
 
 THE SPERONAIIA 5 
 
 are mistaken ; there is not even a family connection 
 between us. My father is General Alexarulre 
 Dumas." 
 
 " General Alexandra Dumas ? " said M. de Luclorf, 
 as if he were searching his mind as to where he could 
 have heard that name. 
 
 " Yes," I continued, " the man who after he was 
 made prisoner at Tarento, in defiance of the laws of 
 hospitality, was poisoned at Brindisi with Mauscourt 
 and Dolomieu in defiance of the law of nations. This 
 happened at the time they were hanging Caracciolo 
 in the Bay of Naples. You see I do all I can, mon- 
 sieur, I help your memory." 
 
 M. de Ludorf pursed his lips. 
 
 "Well! monsieur," he said, after a moment's si- 
 lence, "there is a second reason vour political 
 opinions. You are designated to us a republican, 
 and you have left Paris, we are told, on political 
 business." 
 
 " As to that, I reply, monsieur, bv showing you 
 my letters of introduction ; nearly all bear the seals 
 of our ministries and the signatures of our ministers. 
 See, here is one from Admiral Jacob, and one from 
 Marechal Soult, and this is from the minister of 
 Public Instruction, M. Villemain ; they all request 
 for me the help and protection of French ambas- 
 sadors in just such circumstances as those I am 
 now in." 
 
 "Well!" replied M. de Ludorf, "as you have 
 foreseen and provided for the position in which vou 
 are, you must face it, monsieur, bv the means in 
 your power. As for me, I declare that I shall not
 
 6 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 Z'ixe your passport. Here are those of your com- 
 panions, which are duly signed, for I see no impro- 
 priety in their going where they choose ; but I am 
 forced to say again, they will go without you."" 
 
 " Has your Excellency any commissions for 
 Naples ? " I said, rising. 
 
 " Why do you ask, monsieur ? " 
 
 " Because I will execute them with great pleasure." 
 
 *' But I have told you that you cannot go there." 
 
 " I shall be there within three days." 
 
 I bowed to M. de Ludorf and went out leaving 
 him stupefied by my assurance. 
 
 There was no time to lose if I meant to do as I 
 said ; I rushed to an old friend of mine, a pupil in 
 the Ecole de Rome, whom I had known in the studio 
 of M. Ix'thierre. 
 
 " My dear Guichard, you must do me a service." 
 
 " What is it ? " 
 
 " Go, immediately, and ask M. Ingres for permis- 
 sion to travel in Sicily and Calabria." 
 
 "But, my very dear fellow, I am not going to 
 travel there." 
 
 " No, but I am, and as they wont let me go with 
 my name, I must go with yours." 
 
 "Oh! that ""s another thing. I understand.* 1 
 
 " Armed with M. Ingres 1 permission, you must go 
 and get a passport from our chargt d'affaires. Fol- 
 low the sequence. With that passport, go to the 
 ambassador to Naples and have it v\ycd\ then with 
 that vive I start for Naples." 
 
 " Famous ! When do you want it '( n 
 
 " Immediately."
 
 THE SPERONARA 7 
 
 " The time to change my blouse and run up to the 
 Academy." 
 
 " 1 11 go and pack my things."" 
 
 " Where shall I find you ? " 
 
 " At Pastrini's, Piazza di Spagna." 
 
 " 1 11 be there in two hours." 
 
 True enough, in two hours Guichard was at the 
 hotel with the passport all in good order. That 
 same evening I took the coach for Angrisani, and 
 reached Naples the next day but one. Obviously, I 
 had so far nothing to complain of. But it was not 
 enough to be in Naples, I might be discovered at any 
 moment. I had known in Paris a very illustrious 
 personage, who passed there for a marquis ; he was 
 now in Naples, where he passed for a spy. If I met 
 him I was lost. It was urgent, therefore, to get over 
 to Palermo or Messina. So, on the very day of our 
 arrival we rushed, Jadin and I, to the port in search of 
 a boat, steam or sails, which would take us to Sicily. 
 
 In all the countries of the world the arrival and 
 departure of steamboats goes by rule ; it is known 
 what day they depart, what day they will arrive. 
 Not so at Naples. The captain is the sole judge of 
 the proper time for starting. When he has his full 
 contingent of passengers he lights his fires and rings 
 his bell. Until then he reposes, he and his boat. 
 Unluckily for us it was now the 20th of August, 
 and as no one was anxious to go and roast in Sicily 
 with the glass at 90, passengers did not turn up. 
 The mate, who happened to be aboard the regular 
 steamer, told us the vessel might not start fora week, 
 and even then he could not warrant its departure.
 
 8 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 We were standing on the Mole in despair at this 
 check, and Milord was hunting a cat, when a sailor 
 came up to us, cap in hand, and addressed us in the 
 Sicilian patois. Little familiar as we were with that 
 idiom, it was not so far away from Italian but that I 
 managed to make out he was offering to take us wher- 
 ever we wished. We then asked him on what he 
 proposed to take us, inclined as we were to start on 
 anything, no matter what it was. He immediately 
 walked along the Mole before us, and stopping be- 
 side the lighthouse, he showed us, fifty feet distant 
 and sleeping at her anchor, a charming little vessel 
 of the usual tonnage of a coasting schooner, and so 
 coquettishly painted in green and red that we were 
 sei/ed at once with a sympathy which showed itself 
 no doubt in our faces, for without waiting for an 
 answer, the sailor signed to a boat to come for us, 
 sprang into it, and held out his hand to help us 
 down. 
 
 Our speronara that is the name they give in the 
 Mediterranean to this class of little vessels had 
 nothing to lose on examination, and the nearer we 
 came to her the better we could see, developing by 
 degrees, the elegance of her shape and the brilliancy 
 of her colouring. The result was that lx>fore we set 
 foot on board we were half-resolved to take her. 
 
 We found the captain on board, a handsome 
 young man alxnit twenty-eight to thirty years of age, 
 with a frank and decided face. lie spoke rather 
 lx;tter Italian than his sailor. We were able to 
 understand each other, or nearly so. A quarter of 
 an hour later v.e had made a bargain at eight ducats
 
 THE SPERONARA 9 
 
 a day, for which sum the vessel and crew belonged to 
 us, body and soul, planks and sails. We could keep 
 her as long as we chose, take her where we chose, 
 leave her when and where we chose ; we were free ; 
 only, so long kept, so long paid. That was just. 
 
 I went down into the hold ; the boat was in 
 ballast. I required the captain to bind himself 
 positively to take neither merchandise nor passen- 
 gers ; he gave me his word. His look was so honest 
 that I asked him for no guarantee. 
 
 We returned to the deck and I inspected our 
 cabin. It was simply a species of circular wooden 
 tent set up at the stern and lashed to the timbers 
 of the vessel with sufficient firmness to leave no 
 reason to fear a squall or the shipping of a sea. 
 Ik-hind this tent was an open space left free for the 
 handling of the tiller. This was the region of the 
 pilot. The tent was entirely empty. It was our 
 business to procure the necessary furniture; the 
 captain of the Santa-Maria di Pie di Grotta not 
 providing furnished quarters. But after all, in view 
 of the limited space, these furnishings had to confine 
 themselves to two mattresses, two pillows, and four 
 pairs of sheets. The deck served as bedstead. As 
 for the sailors, including the captain, they slept as 
 usual between decks. We agreed to send our neces- 
 saries that evening, and the hour for departure was 
 fixed for the next day at eight in the morning. 
 
 We had gone about a hundred steps, congratulat- 
 ing ourselves, Jadin and I, on our decision, when the 
 captain ran after us to advise us, above all, not to 
 forget to bring a cook. The advice seemed so singu-
 
 10 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 lar that I asked an explanation. I then learned that 
 in the interior of Sicily, a wild and desolate region 
 where the inns, when there are any, are only halting- 
 places, a cook is a thing of prime necessity. We 
 promised the captain to send one aboard with our 
 belongings. 
 
 My first care on returning to the Hotel Vittoria 
 was to inquire of the landlord, Monsieur Martin 
 Zir, where the required cordon-bleu could be found. 
 Monsieur Martin Zir replied that by marvellous luck 
 he had the very thing on hand. At first his answer 
 satisfied me so completely that I went to my room 
 without inquiring further; but once there, I thought 
 there would be no harm in making a few preliminary 
 inquiries as to the moral qualities of our future fel- 
 low-traveller. Consequently, I questioned one of the 
 servants of the hotel, who assured me I might feel 
 quite easy, for Monsieur Martin was giving me his 
 own cook. This self-sacrifice, far from reassuring 
 me, only increased my fears. If Monsieur Martin 
 was satisfied with his cook why did he yield him to 
 the first stranger who came along ? If he was not 
 satisfied with him I, however easy-going I may be, 
 would prefer another. I therefore went in search 
 of Monsieur Martin, to ask him whether I could 
 really rely on the honesty and culinary science of his 
 protege. Monsieur Martin replied with a pompous 
 eulogy on the merits of Giovanni Cama. lie was 
 honesty personified, also he was perfectly skilled for 
 the duties I was about to confide to him. As for 
 that, indeed, he had the reputation of being the best 
 fnttatore not only in the capital, but in the kingdom.
 
 THE SPERONARA 11 
 
 But the more Monsieur Martin descanted on his 
 virtues, the more my uneasiness increased, until at 
 last I risked asking him why, possessing such a 
 treasure, he consented to part with it. 
 
 "Alas,"" he answered, sighing, "he has, unfortu- 
 nately for me who live in Naples, a defect which will 
 he of no importance to you who are going to Sicily." 
 
 " What is it ? " I asked anxiously. 
 
 " lie is appassionato" replied Monsieur Martin. 
 
 I burst out laughing ; for I must tell you that, in 
 passing before the kitchen, Monsieur Martin had 
 shown me Cama among his ovens, and Cama, 
 throughout his person, from the top of his big head 
 to the toes of his long feet, was certainly the man in 
 the world to whom that epithet was least applicable. 
 Besides which, an impassioned cook seemed to me to 
 the last degree mythological. Nevertheless, observing 
 that my landlord spoke with the utmost seriousness, 
 I continued my questions. 
 
 " Impassioned with what ? " I asked. 
 
 " With Rolando." 
 
 " With Rolando ? " I repeated, thinking I heard ill. 
 
 "With Rolando," replied Monsieur Martin, with 
 bated breath. 
 
 "Ah ca!"I said, beginning to think mine host 
 was making fun of me, " it seems to me, my dear 
 Monsieur Martin, that we are talking nonsense. 
 Cama appassionato for Rolando, what does that 
 mean ? " 
 
 *' Have you ever been on the Mole ? "" 
 
 "I have just come from there, from the light- 
 house.""
 
 12 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 " Oh ! but this is not the hour." 
 
 "Not the hour?" 
 
 " No. In order to understand what I shall now 
 tell you, you ought to have been there in the 
 evening, at the hour when the improvimtores sing. 
 Have you been there in the evening ?" 
 
 " How do you suppose I have been there in the 
 evening? I arrived in Naples this morning and it is 
 only two in the afternoon now." 
 
 "True. But you must have heard, among the 
 traditional sayings about Naples, that when a la/- 
 zarone has earned two sous his day's work is done ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Do you know how he divides his two sous ? " 
 
 " No. Is it indiscreet to inquire how ?" 
 
 " Not the least in the world : one sou goes for 
 macaroni, one farthing for watermelon, one farthing 
 for the old folks, and one farthing for tha improvis- 
 atore. The improvisatore is, after the food he eats, 
 the water he drinks, the air he breathes, the most 
 necessary thing to the lazzarone. Now, what does 
 the improvisatore sing usually? He sings the poem 
 of the divine Ariosto, the 'Orlando Furioso/ Ib 
 results that for this primitive population, with excit- 
 able passions and ardent heads, fiction becomes re- 
 ality; the tilts of paladins, the felonies of giants, the 
 misfortunes of great ladies are not poesv, but history 
 a poor people who do not know their own history 
 are in need of one! Hence they become infatuated 
 with this that the improvisatore relates to them. 
 Each selects his hero and becomes impassioned for 
 him ; some take Kinaldo, those are the young heads;
 
 THE SPEUOXARA 13 
 
 so:ne prefer Rolando, those are the lovers ; others 
 are for Charlemagne, they are the reasonable people. 
 There is none of these beings, down to the wi/ard 
 Merlin, who has not his proselyte. Now you under- 
 stand, don't you ? how that animal of a Catna is im- 
 passioned for. Rolando." 
 
 " Well, but what harm does that do you ?" 
 
 " Harm, indeed ! Why, when the hour for the im- 
 provisatore comes there is no way to keep him in the 
 kitchen; which, you must allow is very embarrassing 
 in a house like mine, to which travellers are coming 
 at all hours of the day and night. Even that is not 
 the worst of it. I have a waiter who is a Rinaldist, 
 and if I am so thoughtless as to send him into the 
 kitchen at the dinner-hour, all is ruined ; an argu- 
 ment begins about one or other of those brave pala- 
 dins ; high words ensue ; each exalts his hero and 
 depreciates that of his adversary ; nothing is heard 
 but the clashing of sword -i, the slaying of giants, 
 the deliverance of the castle lady. As to the cook- 
 ing, not a thought! the soup boils away, the spits 
 stop, the roast burns, the sauces sour, the dinner is 
 bad, the guests complain, the hotel empties, and all 
 because that rascal of a cook has taken it into his 
 head to be faiKit'ico for Rolando ! Now you under- 
 stand, don't you ? " 
 
 " YV/j.y/ it is funny/' 1 
 
 " No, it is not funny at all, especially not for me. 
 But as for you, it won't matter a bit. Once in Sic- 
 ily, where his damned improvisatore and that cra/y 
 waiter can't turn his head, he will ro:ist and fricassee 
 wonderfully, and what is more, he will do anything
 
 14 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 for you if you tell him now and then that Angelica 
 was a good-for-nothing, and Medoro a rapscallion." 
 
 " I '11 tell him." 
 
 " Then you take him ? " 
 
 " Of course, as you answer for him." 
 
 Cama was brought up. He made some objections 
 as to the short time he had in which to prepare for 
 such a journey, and the dangers he might be running ; 
 but I managed to slip in a graceful word about Ro- 
 lando, and instantly his big eyes opened wide, his 
 mouth stretched from ear to ear, he began to laugh 
 inanelv, and then, seduced by our communion of feel- 
 ing as to the nephew of Charlemagne, he put himself 
 entirely at my service. It resulted in my sending him 
 on board that very night, as I had promised the cap- 
 tain, with the mattresses, pillows, sheets, and trunks. 
 We ourselves followed him the next morning at the 
 hour agreed upon. 
 
 All our sailors were on deck awaiting us. No 
 doubt they were as impatient to know us as we to 
 see them. The question of knowing whether our 
 natures would be in sympathy with theirs was no 
 less important to them than to us; for us, nearly all 
 the pleasure we expected from our trip depended on 
 it ; for them, all their comfort and tranquillity for 
 the next three months. 
 
 The crew consisted of nine men, a cabin-boy, and 
 a child ; all born or domiciled in the village Delia 
 Pace, near Messina. They were true Sicilians in the 
 fullest meaning of the term ; short of stature, robu.st 
 of limb, swarthy i complexion, with Arab eyes ; 
 detesting the Calabrese, their neighbours, and exe-
 
 THE SPERONARA 15 
 
 crating the Neapolitans, their masters ; speaking the 
 soft patois of Meli, which sounds like a song, scarcely 
 comprehending the proud Florentine language; al- 
 ways complying, never servile ; calling us " Eccel- 
 lenza"" and kissing our hands, because that formula 
 and that action, which with us in France would seem 
 degrading, with them in Sicily is simply the expres- 
 sion of politeness and devotion. Uy the end of the 
 journey they had come to love us like brothel's, all 
 the while continuing to respect us as superiors; a 
 subtile distinction in which affection and duty kept 
 their own places ; and they returned to us exactly 
 that which we had a right to expect in exchange for 
 our money and our kind treatment of them. 
 
 Their names were: Giuseppe Arena, captain, Nun- 
 /io, first pilot ; Vicenzo, second pilot ; Pietro, brother 
 to Nun/io ; Giovanni, Filippo, Antonio, Sieni, Gae- 
 tano. The cabin-boy and the captain's son, a. gamin 
 six or seven years old, completed the ship's company. 
 Now, if my readers permit, having cast a general eve 
 over the speronara and her crew, we will take a 
 more particular look at those of the brave fellows 
 who distinguished themselves by their natures or by 
 some speciality. We are about to make n rather 
 long voyage in their company, and the reader, if dis- 
 posed to take an interest in the tale, ought to know 
 our companions by the way. I shall therefore make 
 them visible at once to his eyes just as they appeared 
 successively to ours. 
 
 Captain Giuseppe Arena was, as I have said, a 
 handsome man, some twenty-eight or thirty years of 
 age, with a frank and open face under ordinary cir-
 
 16 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 cunistanccs, and a calm, impassible face in moments 
 of danger. He had very little knowledge of naviga- 
 tion, but as he possessed some money, he had bought 
 the vessel, and the purchase secured to him, naturally, 
 the title of captain. As to any right or power which 
 that title gave him over his men, we never once saw 
 him make use of it. Aside from a slight tinge of re- 
 spect which they showed him without his claiming it, 
 the crew lived with him on a footing of equality that 
 was truly patriarchal. 
 
 Nun/io the pilot was, after the captain, the most 
 important person on board. lie was a man of fifty, 
 short and robust, with a swarthy skin, gray hair, and 
 a rugged face, who h ul navigated from childhood. 
 He was clothed in blue linen trousers and a woollen 
 shirt; to these strict necessaries he added on cold or 
 rainy days a species of hooded cloak which combined, 
 in a way, the overcoat of the West with the burnous 
 of the desert. This cloak, which was brown in colour 
 and embroidered on the pocket-holes and openings 
 for the arms with red and blue thread, fell straight 
 and stiff', giving an admirable character to his general 
 appearance. Nun/io was the essential, or rather, 
 the indispensable man : he was the eye that kept 
 watch for rocks, the ear that listened for the wind, 
 the hand that guided the vessel. In heavy weather 
 the captain Ixx-ame a simple sailor and made over to 
 Nun/io the whole power. Then from the tiller, 
 which, no matter what the weather was, he never 
 quitted except for evening prayer, he gave his orders 
 with such firmness and precision that the crew obeyed 
 him as one man. 1 1 is authority lasted as long as the
 
 THE SPERONARA 17 
 
 tempest. Then, when he had saved the vessel and 
 the lives of those on board of her, he sat down, 
 simple and calm, in the stern of the boat and became 
 once more Nun/io the pilot. Hut, although he relin- 
 quished his authority, he kept his influence; for 
 Nun/io, religious, like all true sailors, was considered 
 the equal of the prophets. His predictions with 
 reference to the weather, which he foresaw by signs 
 imperceptible to other eyes, had never been contra- 
 dicted by events; so that the affection which the 
 crew bore to him was mingled with a certain religious 
 respect, which at first surprised us, but which we 
 ended by sharing, so great is the influence upon all 
 men, no matter what their condition, of superiority, 
 be it what it may. 
 
 Vicen/o, whom I place third, more to follow the 
 hierarchy of rank than because of his real importance, 
 bore the title of second pilot. It was he who took 
 Nun/io's place in the rare and short moments when 
 the latter left the helm. During the calm nights 
 they watched by turns. At other times, even when 
 his help was useless in directing the vessel, Vicenzo 
 continued to sit beside the old prophet, exchanging 
 rare words with him and oftcnest in a whisper. This 
 habit isolated him from the rest of the crew ; also he 
 seldom appeared among us, and never spoke unless we 
 questioned him ; he then accomplished the act of re- 
 plying as a duty and with all the formulas of polite- 
 ness in use among sailors. In other respects an 
 excellent, worthy man, and, after Nun/io who was a 
 prodigy in this respect, enduring in a marvellous 
 manner fatigue and sleeplessness.
 
 18 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 After these three authorities came Pietro ; Pictro 
 was a jovial comrade who filled among the crew the 
 place of wag to a regiment; always gay, constantly 
 singing, dancing, and grimacing ; eternal talker, 
 frantic dancer, fanatical swimmer, agile as a monkey, 
 of which he had the motions, mingling with the work- 
 ing of the ship grotesque capers and comical little 
 cries flung out after the manner of Auriol ; ready 
 for anything, joining in everything, understanding 
 all, full of good-will and friendly familiarity, he was 
 the most intimate with us of all his companions. 
 Pietro allied himself at once with our bull-dog. 
 The latter, of a nature less facile, less sociable, an- 
 swered his advances for a long time with low growls, 
 changing after a while into amicable murmurs, and 
 finally into a solid and lasting friendship; though 
 Pietro, hampered in his pronunciation by the Sicil- 
 ian accent, could never manage to call Milord any- 
 thing but Melor, a change which at first seemed to 
 wound his self-respect, though he ended by answering 
 Pietro's call as if the latter had given him his right 
 name. 
 
 Giovanni, a large, fat fellow, a Southerner, with 
 the white skin and puffy cheeks of a Northerner, 
 constituted himself our cook from the moment friend 
 Cama was sei/ed with sea-sickness, which happened 
 to him ten minutes after the speronara had got under 
 way. Giovanni added to his culinary science a 
 talent which belongs to it or of which it is, strictly 
 speaking, the consequence that of a harpooncr. 
 In fine weather, Giovanni fastened to the poop a bit 
 of twine, four or five feet in length, to the extremity
 
 THE SPERONARA 19 
 
 of which he appended either a chicken-bone or a 
 crust of bread. That twine never floated more than 
 ten minutes in our wake before it was escorted by 
 seven or eight h'sh of all shapes and all colours, most 
 of them unknown in our ports, but among which we 
 nearly always recognized the dory by its gilded scales, 
 and the bass by its voracity. Then Giovanni took his 
 harpoon, lying ready to larboard or starboard near 
 the oars, and called us. We went with him to the 
 stern and selected, according to our appetite or our 
 curiosity, from among the finny tribe that followed 
 us, the one that suited us best. Our choice made, 
 Giovanni raised his harpoon, aimed for an instant at 
 the selected fish, and then the weapon sank hissing 
 into the sea, only to return a second later to the sur- 
 face of the water. Then Giovanni drew it towards 
 him by means of a rope fastened to his arm, and at the 
 opposite extremity we saw, ten times out of twelve, 
 the luckless h'sh pierced through and through. The 
 work of the fisherman was then over and that of the 
 cook began. Now it happened that without being 
 actually sea-sick we were constantly inclined that wav, 
 and it was not always an easy thing to tempt our 
 appetites. A discussion was immediately started as 
 to the mode of cooking and seasoning the dish. No 
 turbot ever gave rise among solemn Roman senators 
 to more learned and profound dissertations than those 
 on which we entered, Jadin and I. As, for greater 
 facility, we discussed the matter in our own language, 
 the crew stood by, motionless and mute, until the 
 decision was made. Giovanni alone, guessing from 
 the expression of our eyes the meaning of our words,
 
 20 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 emitted from time to time an opinion which revealed 
 to us sonic mysterious preparation, and usually carried 
 the day against our own. The sauce thus decided, he 
 seized the handle of the gridiron or that of the frying- 
 pan ; 1'ietro scraped the fish and lighted the fire 
 lx?tween decks; Milord, who was never sea-sick and 
 knew that many fish-bones and skins were coming to 
 him, wagged his tail and moaned amorously. The 
 fish was cooked, and soon Giovanni served it to us on 
 the long plank which answered for a table, our quar- 
 ters being so narrow on the little vessel that there 
 was no room for an actual table. Its appeti/ing 
 appearance gave us the highest hopes ; then, at the 
 third or fourth mouthful, sea-sickness obstinately 
 claimed its rights, and the crew fell heirs to the fish, 
 which went from aft to forward instantly, followed by 
 Milord, \vho never lost sight of it from the moment 
 it lay upon the gridiron or the frying-pan till its 
 last morsel was swallowed by the cabin-bov. 
 
 Next comes Filippo: grave as a quaker, serious as 
 a doctor, silent as a fakir. We never heard him 
 laugh but twice during the whole course of our voy- 
 age : the first time when our friend Caina fell into 
 the sea in the gulf of Agrigentum ; the second time 
 when the captain's back took fire, he having, by 
 my advice and to cure his rheumatism, rubbed his 
 loins with camphorated brandy. As for Filippo\s 
 words, I think we did not have a single opportunity 
 to know their sound or their style. The good or 
 Iwul condition of his mind was manifested by sad or 
 lively whistling, with which he accompanied the 
 songs of his ship-mates, though he never sang him-
 
 THE SPERONARA 21 
 
 pelf. I thought for a long time that he was dumb, 
 and I did not say a word to him for nearly a month, 
 for fear of giving him pain by reminding him of 
 his infirmity. He was the strongest diver that I 
 have ever seen. Sometimes we amused ourselves by 
 Hinging a bit of money from the poop into the water; 
 in a trice he was stripped as the coin sank and after 
 it into the depths of the sea, where we lost him from 
 sight in spite of the transparency of the water ; then, 
 watch in hand, after forty or fifty seconds we saw 
 him reappear, perfectly calm and without apparent 
 effort, as if lie inhabited his native element and had 
 merely done the most natural thing in the world. 
 Needless to say that he brought up the coin, and that 
 the coin was henceforth his. 
 
 Antonio was the minstrel of the crew. He san<; 
 
 O 
 
 the tarantella with a perfection and a dash that 
 never missed their effect. At times we were seated, 
 some on deck, others between decks ; conversation 
 languished and silence fell; suddenly Antonio would 
 begin that electric tune which is to the Neapolitan 
 and Sicilian what the muz (h'x wiche.v is to the Swit/er. 
 On which Filippo would raise gravely one half of his 
 body through the hatchway and whistle an accom- 
 paniment. Then Pietro would begin to beat time, 
 wagging his head from left to right and clacking 
 his thumbs like castanets. But at the fifth or sixth 
 bar a visible agitation sei/inl him ; his whole body put 
 itself in motion; he rose on one knee, next on both, 
 then he was up altogether. For a few seconds longer 
 he stood, swaying from right to left, but not quitting 
 his place ; then, as if the planks of the vessel were
 
 22 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 heating gradually, he lifted one foot, then the other, 
 until, flinging out one of the little cries I mentioned 
 expressive of his joy, lie began the famous national 
 dance ; at first with a slow and uniform movement, 
 which, accelerating ever and hastened by the music, 
 ended at last in a species of frenzied jig. The taran- 
 tella never ended until the dancer fell exhausted after 
 a final caper in which the whole of the choregraphic 
 scene was summed up. 
 
 The last is Sieni, of whom I have no recollection, 
 and Gaetano, whom we seldom saw, because he was 
 kept ashore by an attack of ophthalmia, which 
 appeared on the day after our arrival in the Straits 
 of Messina. I do not speak of the cabin-boy ; he 
 was, quite naturally, what that estimable class of 
 society is in all parts of the world the drudge of 
 the whole ship's company. The only difference 
 between him and the other individuals of his species 
 lay in the good nature of his comrades, which caused 
 him to be more than half less beaten than he would 
 have been on a Breton or a Genoese schooner. 
 
 And now mv readers know the crew of the Santa- 
 Maria di Pie di Grotta as well as I do myself. 
 
 As I have said, they were all awaiting us on the 
 deck of the little vessel, and she, taut at her anchor, 
 was ready to depart. I made a last turn between 
 decks and through the cabin to convince myself 
 that our provisions and property were all aboard. 
 I found Cama between decks joyfully established 
 among the chickens and ducks intended for our table, 
 and setting in order his kitchen utensils. In the 
 cabin I found our beds all covered, and Milord already
 
 THE SPERONARA 23 
 
 installed on that of his master. Everything was in 
 its place and all were at their posts. The captain 
 then came to me and asked my orders. I told him 
 to wait five minutes. Those five minutes were con- 
 secrated to giving news of me to the Comte de 
 Ludorf. I took from my portfolio a sheet of my 
 finest paper and wrote to him the following letter : 
 
 MONSIEUR LE COMTE, I am extremely sorry that 
 your Excellency did not see fit to charge me with your 
 commissions for Naples. I should certainly have ex- 
 ecuted them with a fidelity which would have proved 
 to you my gratitude for your kind proceedings towards 
 me. 
 
 Be pleased to accept, Monsieur le comte, an assur- 
 ance of the very lively sentiments that I feel for you, 
 of which I trust I may some day offer you the proof. 1 
 
 ALEX. DUMAS. 
 NAPLES, August 23, 1835. 
 
 While I was writing, the anchor was raised and the 
 rowers ranged themselves to starboard and larboard, 
 oars in hand, all ready to start. I asked the captain 
 for a safe man to carry my letter to the post; he 
 directed me to one of the spectators assembled to see 
 us off', who, he said, was an acquaintance of his. 
 I passed him the letter, accompanied by two carlini, 
 
 1 That proof was delayed until 18 II, the period at which I pub- 
 lished the first edition of this book. But, as the reader will 
 have seen, I have made up in it for time lost, and I hope that 
 M. le Comte de Ludorf, who may have accused me of forget- 
 fulness, will correct that error in relation to me, if by 
 chance these pages should have the honour to come before 
 his eyes. A. D.
 
 24 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 by means of a long fishing-rod, and I had the satis- 
 faction of seeing my messenger scamper at top speed 
 in the direction of the post-office. 
 
 I then gave the signal for departure. The eight 
 oars which the men held erect in the air, fell together 
 and struck the water at the same instant. Ten 
 minutes later we were out of the harbour, and a 
 quarter of an hour later we were shaking out our 
 lesser sails to an excellent wind oft' shore, which 
 promised to put me rapidly out of reach of the 
 Neapolitan agents whom the Cointe de Ludorf would 
 probably set upon my traces. 
 
 The good wind accompanied us for some twenty or 
 thirty miles, but just beyond Sorrento it slackened, 
 and presently fell altogether, so that we were forced 
 to have recourse to the oars. This gave us time to 
 perceive that the sea-breeze had given us an appetite. 
 Consequently, being well disposed to appreciate the 
 good qualities of M. Martin Zir's protege*, we called, 
 in our finest bass voice, for Cama. No one an- 
 swered. Uneasy at his silence, we sent Pietro and 
 Giovanni in search of him, and five minutes later 
 we saw him appear at the orifice of the hatchway, 
 pale as a ghost, supported under each arm bv the 
 men we had sent to fetch him, who h-id found him 
 stretched motionless among his ducks and chickens. 
 It was evidently impossible for the poor devil to 
 attend to our orders. He could n't stand upon his 
 legs, and he turned his eyes in a lamentable manner. 
 Thinking that the air would do him good, we had 
 a mattress brought on deck and laid him upon it 
 at the foot of the mast. We were looking at each
 
 THE SPERONARA 25 
 
 other, Jadin and I, with a disconcerted air, when 
 Giovanni put himself at our orders, offering to take 
 the place, for a time at least, of our poor appux- 
 slonato. 
 
 We promptly accepted the proposal. The cap- 
 tain, who was not proud, at once took the oar that 
 Giovanni abandoned. Five minutes had not elapsed 
 before we heard the moans of a strangling fowl ; 
 presently we saw smoke escaping up the hatchway; 
 next came the sound of oil siz/ling over the (ire ; and 
 a quarter of an hour later we each had our share of 
 a poulet a la Pnrccn^nle^ which, thanks to the above- 
 named appetite, we found excellent. 
 
 Towards two o'clock we were off the island of 
 Capri. As in losing our time we lost but little, in- 
 asmuch as the unceasing toil of our rowers could 
 make us do no more than half a league an hour, I 
 proposed to Jadin to land, and visit the island of 
 Tiberius and the ruins of his palace, which we could 
 see from below about one third up the path to Monte 
 Solaro. Jadin accepted heartily, thinking there 
 would surely be some fine view to sketch. The 
 captain, informed of our intentions, headed the 
 speronura for the island, and an hour later we en- 
 tered the port.
 
 II 
 
 CAPRI. LA BURRASCA 
 
 THERE are few places in the world that offer 
 so manv historical memories as Capri, It 
 was onlv an island like other islands, more smil- 
 ing, perhaps, and that was all, when Augustus 
 resolved one day to make a trip to it. At the mo- 
 ment of his landing, an old oak, the sap of which 
 seemed shrivelled forever, lifted its withered branches 
 alreadv pendent to the soil and burst incontinent! v 
 into buds and leafage, Augustus was a man of 
 omens ; he was so enchanted with this particular one 
 that he proposed to the Neapolitans to give them 
 the island of CEnaria if the v would cede him that of 
 Capri. The offer was accepted. Augustus made 
 Capri a region of delight, lived there four rears, and 
 when he died bequeathed the island to Tiberius, 
 
 Tiberius, in his turn, retired there, much as an old 
 tiger slinks into his lair when he feels he is dying. 
 There alone, surrounded by vessels that guarded 
 him day and night, did he feel himself safe from 
 daggers and poison. On those rocks where to-day 
 there are but ruins, rose then a dozen imperial villas, 
 bearing the names of the twelve great gods of Olym- 
 pus, Each of them, supported on marble columns the 
 gilded capitals of which bore up the agate friezes,
 
 TIIK 8PERONAHA 27 
 
 nerved the emperor for a fortre** residence for one 
 month of the year; in all were burin* of porphyry, 
 where the nil very h'she* of the (jangex hparklf-d ; 
 pavements of mosaic, the design* of which were 
 former! by opals, emerald*, anrl ruble*; deep anrl 
 w-cret bath* where laMcivioil* picture* excited terrible 
 de#ire*, recalling unheard-of exceweft. Around these 
 villas, on the Hanks of the mountain, bare to-day, 
 rose then two cedar fore*!,* anrl grove* of orange - 
 trce*, where handsome youth* and beautiful young 
 girl*, di*gui*ed a* faun* and dryad*, wttyr*, and 
 bacchante*, wirif^ hymn* tx> V'enu*, while invisible 
 iiwtrument accompanied their arnorou* voir-f^. Anrl 
 when the night, one of tho*e transparent, *t-irry 
 night* Kuch a* the Ka*t alone <^tn make for love, 
 came down upon the sleeping >*ea; when the balmv 
 bree/e blowing from Sr^rrento or Pompeii mingled 
 with the perfume* that children, clothed an Cupid.*, 
 burner! on golden tripod.* ; when crie* voluptuous, 
 harmonies mvNteriouw, *igh* half-*tiflerl quivererl v;tgue 
 anrl confuted, as though the amorou* i*le wTe 
 thrilling with delight in the arm* of her briny god ; 
 a mighty pharos flan-rl forth like a nocturnal nun. 
 Soon, bv its gleam could be *eeri, i**uing from */rtne 
 grotto and walking along the *hore U.-twerti 'i"bra- 
 Kvllu.% the astrologer, and Chariciex, the physician, 
 an old man clothed in purple, with bent and *tiffened 
 neck arid silent, glrxuriy vivige, shaking from time to 
 time a rna** of HiKery hair th/t fell undulating, like 
 the mane of a lion, on his heavy *hrnjirlrr*. A few 
 *low, drawling word.* dropped from his lifw, while 
 his li/trid, with effeminate gesture, caro-i^l the h^^*/l
 
 28 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 of a snake that slept on his bosom. Those words, 
 they were Greek verses he was then composing ; they 
 were orders for secret debauchery in the villa of 
 Jupiter or of Ceres; they were sentences to death, 
 which, on the morrow, would fly with lateen sails to 
 Ostia and terrify Rome ; for this old man was the 
 third C;csar, the divine Tiberius, the emperor with 
 savage eyes, like those of a cat, a wolf, an hyena, 
 eyes that saw clear in darkness. 
 
 To-dav, of all these magnificences nothing remains 
 
 * *J ~ 
 
 but wreck and ruin ; but, more indestructible than 
 stone or marble, the memory of that old emperor 
 is left entire. One might fancy, so much his name 
 is still on every tongue, that it was but yesterday 
 they laid him in the parricidal grave Caligula pre- 
 pared for him and into which Marconius pushed him. 
 One might even say that in default of his body, men 
 tremble still before his shade; for the inhabitants of 
 Capri and Anacapri, the towns of the isle, show the 
 remains of his palaces with as much awe as that with 
 which they point to the slumbering volcano which, 
 on any day, at any hour, at every minute may awake, 
 more deadly, more devouring than ever. 
 
 The two towns arc situated, Capri, in an amphi- 
 theatre l)cfore the little harbour, Anacapri at the 
 .summit of Monte Solaro. A stairway of five or six 
 hundred steps, roughly cut into the rock, leads from 
 the first to the second of these towns. The fatigue 
 of this toilsome ascension is largely repaid, I must 
 sav, bv the splendid panorama which the eye takes in 
 when the summit is attained. The traveller, facing 
 Naples, sees I'iestum first on his right, voluptuous
 
 THE SPERONARA 29 
 
 daughter of Greece, whose roses, blooming twice each 
 year in an air that was fatal to virginity, were culled 
 to fade on the brow of Horace and drop their leaves 
 on the bible of Msecenas ; then Sorrento, where each 
 passing bree/e bears away with it the leaves of the 
 orange and the lemon flowers, to scatter them afar 
 upon the sea ; then Pompeii, sleeping in her ashes 
 and waking at times like some old ruin of Egypt, 
 with her ardent pictures, her lachrymal vases, and 
 her mortuary fillets ; and, lastly, Herculaneum, who, 
 overtaken one day by the lava, shrieked, and writhed, 
 and died like Laocoon in the coils of the serpents. 
 Then comes Naples for Torre del Greco, Hesina, 
 and Portici arc, to tell the truth, mere suburbs 
 Naples, the la/y city, lying in the lap of her circling 
 mountains and stretching her little feet to the warm 
 and wanton waves of her gulf. Then, after Naples, 
 the eye turns leftward, to Po/zuoli with its temple 
 of Serapis, half hidden in the water ; to Cumze, most 
 ancient of all the Grecian-Italian cities, with her 
 mysterious, sibylline grotto, where the pious yEneas 
 l.inded ; to the gulf, where Caligula, emulating 
 Xerxes, flung a bridge a league long, still percep- 
 tible among the' ruins ; to IJauli whence sailed that 
 imperial galley prepared by Nero to open beneath 
 the feet of Agrippina ; and finally, to Bai:r, so fatal 
 to chaste lovers, and Misenum, where the trum|)eter 
 of ./Eneas lies buried, and where Pliny the elder 
 went to die, smothered in his library by the ashes of 
 Stabia. 
 
 Imagine the picture now described, illumined by 
 the pharos that is called Vesuvius, and tell me if
 
 30 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 there be in all the world aught that can compare 
 with such a spectacle. 
 
 I took this walk alone. Jadin had found a view 
 to sketch and stopped at a third of the steep way up. 
 Coming down I rejoined him, and we returned to- 
 gether to the little port. There we were surrounded 
 by a score of boatmen, each determined to carry one 
 or other of us off with him. These were the guides 
 to the Blue Grotto. As no one can come to Capri 
 without seeing the Blue Grotto Grotto Azzurra 
 I chose one man and Jadin another, because 
 each traveller must have a boat and a boatman, the 
 entrance being so low and narrow that only the 
 slenderest wherry can enter it. 
 
 The sea was calm, but it always breaks, even in 
 the finest weather, with such force against the 
 girdle of rocks which surrounds the island that our 
 boats bounded as if in a tempest and we were forced 
 to cling tightly to the thwarts for fear of being 
 flung into the sea. At last, after rowing for three- 
 quarters of an hour and doing at least one-sixth of 
 the circumference of the isle, our boatmen told us we 
 had arrived. We looked about ; not the slightest 
 appearance of the smallest of grottoes did we see un- 
 til they showed us a round black speck, scarcelv vis- 
 ible above the foam of the waves ; this, they said, 
 was the orifice of the cave. 
 
 The first sight of that entrance is not reassuring; 
 it seems incomprehensible how to pass through it 
 without crushing one's head. As that question ap- 
 peared to us of sufficient importance to discuss, we laid 
 it before our boatmen. They said we were perfectly
 
 THE SPERONAUA 31 
 
 right if we remained seated, but, by lying flat in the 
 boat we escaped all danger. Jadin and I had not 
 come so far to balk. I set the example; my boat- 
 man advanced, rowing with precautions which showed 
 plainly that however used he might be to the opera- 
 tion he did not consider it exempt from danger. As 
 for me, in my then position, I could see nothing but 
 the sky; presently I felt myself lifted on a wave, the 
 boat gliding rapidly, and I saw a rock above me that 
 seemed about to crush my breast. Then, all of a 
 sudden, I found myself in so wonderful a grotto that 
 I uttered a cry of astonishment and sprang up so 
 hastily to look about me that I nearly upset the 
 wherry. 
 
 Before me, around me, above me, beneath me, be- 
 hind me, were marvels of which no words can give 
 an idea, and before which the artist's brush itself, 
 that great transmitter of human recollections, is 
 powerless. Imagine a vast azure cavern, all a/ure, 
 as if God had pleased himself by making a tent of a 
 bit of the firmament ; water so limpid, so transparent, 
 so pure, that we seemed to l>e floating on a substance 
 of air; stalactites pendent from the roof like pyra- 
 mids reversed ; in the depths a golden sand 
 mingled with many submarine vegetations: along 
 
 V O 
 
 the walls, bathed softly by the water, bunches of 
 coral with capricious glittering branches ; on the 
 sea side a speck, a star, through which came the 
 glimmering light that illumined this fairy palace; 
 and directly opposite, a species of throne for the sump- 
 tuous goddess, whoever she was, who had chosen for 
 her bathroom one of the wonders of the world.
 
 32 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 Suddenly the grotto darkened, like the earth on a 
 splendid day when a cloud flits across the sun. It 
 was Jadin entering the cavern, the orifice of which 
 was closed by his boat. Presently it was floated 
 beside me by the force of the wave that lifted it to 
 the entrance, the grotto resumed its beautiful azure 
 colour, and the boat stopped, trembling, near mine ; 
 for this sea, so noisy and tumultuous without, had 
 the gentle, silent respiration of a lake within. 
 
 According to all probability the Blue Grotto was 
 unknown to the ancients. No poet speaks of it, and 
 certainly the Greeks with their marvellous imagi- 
 nation would never have missed making it the palace 
 of some marine goddess with melodious name, whose 
 history they would surely have left us. Suetonius, 
 who descril>es with such detail the baths and thermae 
 of Tiberius, would not have failed to give a few 
 words to this natural pool, which the old emperor 
 would doubtless have chosen as the scene of some 
 monstrous pleasure. No, the tides were perhaps 
 higher in those days than they are now, and this 
 marvel of the deep was known only to Amphitrite 
 and her court of sirens, naiads, and tritons. 
 
 But sometimes, like Diana overtaken by Acta?on, 
 Amphitrite is angered by the indiscreet travellers 
 who pursue her in this a/ure retreat. Then, in a 
 moment, the sea rises and shuts the orifice, so that 
 those within can no longer get out. In that case, 
 they must wait till the wind, that has veered of a 
 sudden from east to west, comes round to the south- 
 ward. It has sometimes happened that visitors going 
 to the grotto for twenty minutes have stayed there
 
 THE SPERONARA 33 
 
 two, three, and even four days. Consequently the 
 boatmen, providing for such accidents, always carry 
 with them a certain quantity of a species of biscuit 
 to feed the prisoners. As for water, it filters into 
 the grotto at two or three points with sufficient 
 abundance, so that no fear need be felt on the score 
 of thirst. I blamed my boatman a little for having 
 delayed informing me of a fact so disquieting; but 
 he answered with charming naivete : 
 
 " Ma che! eccellenza, if we told it at first half the 
 travellers would not go, and that would be bad for 
 the boatmen." 
 
 I own that this little circumstance gave me a cer- 
 tain uneasiness and made me think the Blue Grotto 
 less charming than it seemed at first. Unluckily, our 
 boatmen had given us these details just as we were 
 taking off our clothes to bathe in that azure water, 
 so beautiful, so transparent that it needs no Undine 
 of Goethe's to entice the fisher. We were not will- 
 ing to abandon the preparations we had made, so we 
 completed those that were still to make in all haste, 
 and each took a header into the water. 
 
 Not until one is five or six feet Inflow the surface 
 can the incredible purity of the water be appreciated. 
 In spite of the veil that wraps the diver not a detail 
 escapes him ; he sees as clearly as through the air 
 the smallest shell on the sand or the slenderest stalac- 
 tite from the roof; only, each thing takes a darker 
 tint. At the end of fifteen minutes we returned to 
 our boats and dressed, without having allured, so far 
 as we could see, any of the invisible nvmphs of that 
 humid palace who, had it been otherwise, would surely
 
 34 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 not have failed to detain us for twenty-four hours 
 at the least. This was humiliating ; but as neither 
 of us assumed to be Telemachus we accepted the sit- 
 uation. Again we lay down in the bottom of our 
 respective boats and left the Azure Grotto with the 
 same precautions and the same good luck with which 
 we had entered it ; except that we were fully six 
 minutes unable to open our eyes; the dazzling 
 brightness of the sun now blinded us. We were 
 scarcely a furlong distant when all that we had just 
 seen became the mere fabric of a dream. 
 
 We returned to the port of Capri. While settling 
 our account with the boatmen, Pietro pointed out to 
 us a man lying in the sunshine with his face in the 
 sand. He was the fisherman who, nine or ten veal's 
 earlier, had discovered the Blue Grotto while search- 
 ing for mussels among the rocks. He went at once 
 to the authorities of the island, told them of his 
 discovery, and asked for the privilege of alone con- 
 ducting travellers into the new world he had found, 
 or else a toll upon the pay of others who might 
 do so. The authorities, seeing in this discovery a 
 means of attracting strangers to their isle, acceded to 
 his second proposition ; so that since that time this 
 second Christopher Columbus lives on his income, 
 which he takes no trouble to acquire, for it comes to 
 him, as we saw, when sleeping. He was the personage 
 uhose fate was most envied throughout the island. 
 
 Having seen all that Capri offered of chief interest 
 we got into our own boat and returned to the spero- 
 nara, which, profiting by a few puff's of the land breeze, 
 hoisted sail and headed gently for Palermo.
 
 THE SPERONARA 35 
 
 But soon the weather changed ; the sky seemed 
 covered by some vast gray texture on which stood 
 out in darker gray and brown a heavy cloud advanc- 
 ing rapidly from the south to meet us. From time 
 to time light puffs of wind filled our sails, which were 
 spread to profit by them, because coining from the 
 eastward, they were favourable for taking us to 
 Palermo. But soon, whether these puffs died away, 
 or because the first breath of a contrary wind coining 
 from Sicily, began to flatten our great sail against the 
 mast, the pilot suddenly gave orders to furl it. When 
 the weather was threatening the captain instantly re- 
 signed, as I think I have already said, his powers to 
 old Nun/io, and became himself the first and most 
 docile of the crew. So when the pilot called out to 
 clear the deck he was the most active of them all in 
 removing our table and in helping Jadin to bring 
 into the cabin his stool and his drawing-boards. 
 
 During this time the sky grew darker still and the 
 atmosphere gave every sign of a coming storm. Our 
 sailors, without being warned in any way of danger, 
 this being their hour for sleeping, awoke as if by 
 instinct and came on deck, one after another, through 
 the forward hatch, their noses in the air snuffing the 
 wind ; then they lined up on deck, winked at one 
 another with a nod that surely meant to say, " It is 
 coming hot!" Still silent, some of them rolled 
 up their sleeves, others threw off' their shirts. Filippo 
 alone sat still on the edge of the hatch, his legs 
 dangling down into the hold, his chin resting on his 
 hand as he ga/ed at the sky with his impassible face 
 and whistled from habit the tarantella. But this
 
 36 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 time Pietro was deaf to that provocative air, and even 
 old Nunzio seemed to think its monotonous melody 
 untimely, for mounting the bulwark without letting 
 go of the helm, he raised his head above the cabin 
 roof and said, addressing the crew as though he did 
 not see the musician : " With permission of the 
 signore, who is that whistling now ? "" 
 
 " I think it is me, old man," replied Filippo, " but, 
 God's truth, I was if t thinking what I did." 
 
 " Very good," said Nunzio, disappearing behind 
 the cabin. Filippo did not whistle again. 
 
 The sea, though still calm, was visibly changing in 
 colour. From the azure blue it had l)cen all dav, it 
 was now becoming an ashen gray. On its tarnished 
 mirror great air-bubbles were bursting that seemed 
 to rise, like sighs, from the depths of its bosom to 
 its surface. From time to time the passing squalls, 
 that sailors call " eats-paws," scratched the sombre 
 water and left upon it lines of gleaming foam, as if 
 some invisible hand had beaten it with rods. Our 
 speronara, having no wind, and Ix-ing no longer 
 rowed bv the sailors, was, if not motionless, at any 
 rate stationary, swaying in the swell which was just 
 beginning to make itself felt. There was now one 
 
 o o 
 
 quarter of an hour of total silence ; all the more 
 solemn because the mist that gathered round us had, 
 little by little, hidden the shore, and we knew that 
 we were about to face the tempest thus solemnly an- 
 nouncing itself, not in a ship, but in a mere little 
 fishing-boat. I looked at our men ; they were all on 
 deck, ready for action and calm, but their calmness 
 was that of resolution not of security.
 
 THE SPERONARA 37 
 
 "Captain," I said, going up to him, "do not for- 
 get that we are men ; if the danger becomes real, let 
 us know it." 
 
 " Be sure of that," replied the captain. 
 
 " Well, poor Milord ! " said Jadin, giving his bull- 
 dog a pat that might have killed an ordinary dog, " we 
 are to SL>C a little tempest ; does that please you, 
 hey?" 
 
 Milord responded with a low, prolonged howl, which 
 proved that he was not indifferent to the passing 
 scene, and that instinctively he, toj, smelt danger. 
 
 " The mistral ! " shouted the pilot, raising his 
 head above the cabin roof. 
 
 Instantly every eye was fixed on the wake. We 
 saw, if I may say so, the coming of the wind ; a line 
 of foam ran before it, and behind that line we saw 
 the sea beginning to rise in billows. The sailors 
 sprang, some to the bowsprit, some to the little 
 mizzen-mast, to set the jib and also a triangular 
 sail, the name of which I did not know, but it 
 seemed to correspond to the mainsail of larger ships. 
 During this time the mistral was coming down upon 
 us like a race-horse, preceded by a hissing that was 
 not without some majesty. We felt it pass; then 
 instantly our little vessel shuddered, her sails swelled 
 as if to burst, she plunged her prow into the sea, 
 cleaving it like a ploughshare, and we felt ourselves 
 borne along as a feather in the wind. 
 
 "But," I said to the captain, " I thought that in 
 such heavy weather, instead of giving chances to the 
 gale, as we are doing, it was usu.d to lower the sails. 
 How is it we are not doiii" as uuial?"
 
 38 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 " Oh ! " he replied, " we have not got to that point 
 yet ; the wind now blowing is fair, and if it will only 
 hold for twelve hours, at the thirteenth we shall not 
 be far I will not say from Palermo, but from 
 Messina. Are you very anxious to go to Palermo 
 before you go to Messina ? " 
 
 " No ; I am anxious to go to Sicily, and that 's 
 all. So you say that the wind we are now having 
 is good?" 
 
 " Excellent ; but the misfortune is it has a mortal 
 enemy the sirocco ; and as the sirocco comes from 
 the southeast and the mistral from the northwest, 
 if they happen to meet before long there'll be a 
 pretty battle. Meantime, we must profit by that 
 which God has sent us to make as much way as 
 possible." 
 
 And in truth our speronara was going like an 
 arrow, making great flocks of foam fly from her 
 flanks. The weather grew worse and worse ; clouds 
 seemed to leave the sky and lower upon the sea ; 
 great drops of rain began to fall. 
 
 We made thus, in less than an hour, about nine 
 or ten miles ; but the rain became so violent that 
 much as we wished to stay on deck, we were forced 
 to take refuge in our cabin. As we passed near the 
 after-hatchway we saw our cook rolling among a 
 dozen casks or barrels as perfectly unconscious as if 
 he were dead. From the moment he set foot on 
 board, sea-sickness caught him, and at the hour 
 of meals we had so far obtained nothing from him 
 but heart-rending groans about the folly of ever 
 embarking.
 
 THE SPERONARA 39 
 
 We returned to the cabin and flung ourselves on 
 our mattresses. Milord, now meek as a lamb, fol- 
 lowed his master with his head and his tail between 
 his legs. But hardly had we entered before we heard 
 a great uproar on deck, and the words, " Burrasca ! 
 burrasca!" shouted by the pilot, attracted our atten- 
 tion. At the same instant our little vessel began 
 to dance in so singular a manner that I knew the 
 sirocco and the mistral had met, and that those two 
 old enemies were fighting on our back. Thunder 
 now took part in the fray, and we heard its rumble 
 above the infernal uproar of the winds, the waves, 
 and our sailors. Suddenly, commanding this clamour 
 of men and sea and wind and thunder, the voice of 
 the pilot was heard shouting, in those tones that 
 mean instantaneous obedience : " Tutto a basso ! " 
 " Down with all ! " 
 
 The deck resounded with the steps of our sailors 
 and with their shouto to excite one another ; but, 
 in spite of the good-will they gave to their work, the 
 speronara leaned over so much to larboard that, 
 unable to keep my balance at an angle of forty-five 
 degrees, I rolled upon Jadin. We then compre- 
 hended that something unusual was happening, and 
 we sprang to the door of the cabin ; a wave which 
 rushed to enter as we were leaving it confirmed this 
 opinion ; but we clung to the door and maintained 
 our position in spite of the shock. Though it was 
 only five or six o'clock in the afternoon, absolutely 
 nothing could be seen, the darkness was so black, the 
 rain so heavy. We called to the captain to know 
 what was happening; the answer came only in be-
 
 40 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 wildering shouts. A peal of awful thunder was 
 heard, the heavens appeared to burst into flame 
 and open, and we saw our men, from the captain 
 to the cabin boy, struggling to lower the large sail, 
 while the wet ropes, refusing to run through the 
 blocks, defeated them. During this time the 
 schooner heeled over more and more until she was 
 literally running on her flank and the tip of her 
 boom was in the water. 
 
 "Down! down!" shouted the pilot in a voice 
 that showed there was no time to lose: "In God's 
 name ! down all ! " 
 
 " Cut ! cut ! " cried the captain. " There ""s canvas 
 in Messina, pardieu!"" 
 
 At that instant we saw a man fly, as it were, 
 above our heads ; that man, or rather that shadow 
 sprang from the roof of the cabin to the bulwark, 
 from the bulwark to the spar, and we heard the little 
 shriek of a parting rope. The sail, taut and swell- 
 ing as it had been, now flew loose, tearing itself 
 from the bonds that held it to the spar. Checked 
 for an instant by the last link, it floated like an im- 
 mense banner from the end of the boom, and then, 
 that last obstacle yielding like the rest, the sail dis- 
 appeared, like a white cloud driven by the wind, in 
 the depths of the murky heavens. The speronura 
 righted, and all the crew gave a shout of joy. 
 
 As for the pilot, he had already returned to his 
 post and was seated by his tiller. 
 
 "Faith!" said the captain, coming up to me, 
 " We've made a fine escape. I thought for a minute 
 we were going to turn heels over head, and without
 
 THE SPERONARA 41 
 
 the old man, who was there in the nick of time, I 
 don't know what would have happened. 11 
 
 " Tell me, captain," I said. " I think he well 
 deserves a bottle of Bordeaux wine ; can I send it 
 to him? 11 
 
 " To-morrow, not to-night ; to-night not n single 
 glass; we want his whole head, don't you see ; it is 
 God who sends us, but it is he who pilots us, and we 
 are not at Messina yet. 11 
 
 " It seems to me, 11 said Jadin, " that the storm is 
 over." 
 
 In fact, at that moment there was truce between 
 the mistral and the sirocco, so that the vessel was 
 decidedly more tranquil, though she still had the 
 quivering air of a frightened horse. The captain 
 mounted a bench and exchanged a few words over 
 the roof of the cabin with the pilot. 
 
 " Yes, yes," said the latter, " no harm in that, 
 though we shall not be quiet very long. Yes, that 
 will help us to gain a mile or two." 
 
 " What are you going to do ? " I asked. 
 
 " Profit by a lucky moment to make a little way 
 by rowing. Ohe ! children," he continued, " the 
 oars ! to the oars ! " 
 
 The sailors sprang to them, pushing them over the 
 gunwale like the paws of some gigantic animal, and 
 beginning to boat the sea. At the first dip the usual 
 song of our sailors l>egan, but this time, after the 
 danger we had just run, it seemed to me gentler, 
 more melancholy than before. One must have heard 
 that melody under like circumstances and on such a 
 night to form an idea of the effect it produced upon
 
 42 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 us. These men who sang thus between a passed 
 danger and a coining one were a sacred and living 
 image of Faith. 
 
 The truce lasted half an hour, or nearly that. 
 Then the rain began to fall more heavily than 
 ever, the thunder growled, the heavens opened and 
 flamed, and the cry already heard, " Burrasca ! la 
 burrasca !"" echoed once more from behind the cabin. 
 The sailors at once drew in their oars, laid them 
 along the deck, and prepared to work the ship. 
 
 We then had a repetition of the scene I have just 
 related, minus the incident of the sail, but plus an 
 event that took its place with a certain degree of 
 success. We were just at the height of the tempest, 
 bounding, veering, turning about at the h'tful will of 
 winds and waves, when suddenly a huge, fantastic, 
 mvsterious head appeared through the aperture of 
 the after-hatchway, absolutely after the manner in 
 which the devil comes up through a trap-door at the 
 Opera, and after crying out three times, "Aqua! 
 aqua ! aqua ! " sank again into the depths of the 
 hold below. I fancied I recognized Giovanni. 
 
 This apparition was seen not by me only, but by 
 the whole crew. The captain said two words to 
 Pietro, who disappeared in his turn through the 
 hatchway. A second later he returned with visible 
 emotion and going to the captain murmured, " It 
 is true!" 
 
 The captain came to us at once. 
 
 " Listen, "" he said, " it seems that there is a leak in 
 the hold ; if it is a large leak, as we have no pumps, 
 we are in danger. Do not keep anything on you but
 
 THE SPERONARA 43 
 
 your trousers, so as to be free in case you are obliged 
 to jump overboard. In that case sei/e a plank, a 
 barrel, an oar, the first thing that comes to hand. 
 We are in the main track from Naples to Palermo ; 
 some vessel will pass, and we shall escape, I hope, 
 with a bath of some hours." 
 
 And the captain, thinking that these words needed 
 no comments and that the danger needed his 
 presence, disappeared down the hatchway himself, 
 while Jadin and I retired to the cabin, where, after 
 providing for each of us a belt containing all the 
 gold we had on board, we proceeded to take oft' hats, 
 coats, boots, and shirts. 
 
 When we reappeared on deck in our swimming 
 garb, we found the sailors awaiting silently the re- 
 turn of the captain, and saw the pilot's head lifted 
 above the roof of the cabin, proving that he attached 
 no less importance than the crew to what the captain 
 might report. 
 
 The latter came up laughing. The leak was 
 occasioned by a cask of ice which we had brought 
 from Naples to cool our wine ; the rolling of the 
 schooner upset it, the ice melted, and it was this 
 fro/en water, invading the mattress of poor Cama 
 the cook, which had terrified him for a moment out 
 of his torpor and brought him up to give the warn- 
 ing cry that terrified the crew. 
 
 This burrasca passed oft' like the first, and Jadin 
 and I, worn out with fatigue and excitement, retired 
 to our cabin and flung ourselves on the mattresses. 
 I don't know what happened to Jadin, but I myself 
 was asleep in ten minutes.
 
 44 JOURNFA'S WITH DUMAS 
 
 I was awakened by the most infernal tumult I had 
 ever heard in my life. All our sailors were shouting 
 at once, and running like madmen from the fore- 
 castle aft, passing over the roof of the cabin, which 
 cracked under their feet as if it were coming down. 
 I tried to get out, but the motion of the schooner 
 was so violent that I could not keep my legs, and 
 I rolled rather than walked to the door, where I 
 clung so tightly that I managed to keep myself 
 standing. 
 
 "What the devil is it now?"" I asked Jadin, who 
 was tranquilly looking at the scene with his hands in 
 his pockets and smoking his pipe. 
 
 " Oh ! good heavens ! " he said, " nothing at all, or 
 next to nothing; only a three-decker trying to ride 
 us down under pretence he does n't see us." 
 
 "Where is he?" 
 
 "There," replied Jadin, moving his hands towards 
 the stern, " there, don^t you see him ?" 
 
 At the same instant I saw, looming up out of the 
 sea where he seemed to plunge, the giant triton who 
 was chasing us. He rose on the breast of a wave so 
 that he commanded the speronara as an old castle 
 commands a plain from its mountain. Nearly at the 
 same instant, by the play, as it were, of a monstrous 
 see-saw, we went up and he went down, so that we 
 came upon the level of his topgallant-sails. Then, 
 for the first time no doubt, he saw us, and he made a 
 movement bearing to the right while we made ours 
 to the left. He passed us like a phantom and we 
 heard the words : " Bon voyage ! " flung to us 
 through a trumpet from his poop. Then the great
 
 THE SPERONARA 45 
 
 ship rushed on like a race-horse into the darkness 
 and disappeared. 
 
 " That is Admiral Mollo, " said the captain, " who 
 is no doubt going to Palermo with The Ferdinand. 
 It was high time he saw us, faith ! Otherwise 
 'twould have been a bad lookout for us." 
 
 " Where are we now, captain ? " 
 
 " Oh ! we have made good wav, I can tell you ; we 
 are among the Islands. Look out on this side and 
 in ten minutes you'll see the flames of Stromboli." 
 
 I turned in the direction to which he pointed, and 
 there, before the time he fixed had expired, I saw 
 the whole hori/on take on a ruddy glow, and I heard 
 a noise something like that of a battery of a do/en 
 cannon fired successivelv, one after another. It was 
 Stromboli, to us a beacon, for it showed the 
 rapidity with which we were moving. When I 
 first heard the sound it was forward of the vessel, 
 soon jt was on our right, and presently behind us. 
 Meanwhile it was almost three in the morning, and 
 day began to dawn. 
 
 Never in my life did I see so splendid a sight. 
 Little by little the storm had ceased, though the 
 mistral continued to let us feel it. The sea was once 
 more of an a/ure blue, presenting an image of moving 
 Alps, with sombre valleys and crests of mountains 
 crowned with a snow-white foam. Our speronara, 
 light as a leaf, was swept along this surface, rising, 
 descending, rising again to descend again with terri- 
 fying rapidity, and yet with supreme intelligence. 
 And this was because old Nun/io never left the 
 tiller; at the instant when one of the liquid moun-
 
 46 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 tains swelled up astern, rushing onward as if to 
 engulf us, with a slight motion he would throw the 
 speronara to one side and we felt the huge billow, 
 sinking momentarily and seething beneath us, take 
 us gently on its sturdy shoulders and lift us to its 
 highest crest ; so that for two or three leagues around 
 we were able to look down upon all the peaks and all 
 the valleys of that watery landscape. Then, sud- 
 denly, the mountain sank moaning beneath our keel, 
 we ourselves descended, almost vertically, to the 
 bottom of a gorge where we could see nothing but 
 more waves ready to engulf us, although, quite the 
 contrary, as if they were at the orders of our old 
 pilot, they only took us again on their quivering 
 shoulders and bore us up to heaven. 
 
 Two or three hours were passed in contemplating 
 this magnificence ; searching always for the shores of 
 Sicily, which we knew we must be approaching since 
 we were leaving behind us Lipari, the ancient Meli- 
 gunis, and Stromboli, the ancient Strongyle. But 
 before us lay a vast veil of mist, as if all the vapour 
 driven by the mistral had solidified there to hide 
 from us the coasts of the ancient Trinacria. We 
 asked the pilot if he was navigating us toward the 
 shores of an invisible island, and if there was no 
 hojxj that soon the veil which hid the goddess would 
 fall. Nun/.io turned to the west, extended his hand 
 above his head, and turned back to us, saying : 
 
 " Are you hungry ?" 
 
 " Yes, indeed, 1 " 1 we answered with one voice. 
 
 " Well, then ! breakfast ; and I Ml promise you 
 Sicily for your dessert."
 
 THE SPERONARA 47 
 
 " Wind of Sardinia ?" asked Arena. 
 
 " Yes, captain," replied Nunzio. " We shall be off 
 Messina two hours after the Ave Maria." 
 
 " Is that certain ?" I asked. 
 
 " As sure as the Gospel," said Pietro, who was 
 laying the table; "the old man has said it." 
 
 On that day there was no chance of fishing. So 
 they wrung the necks of two or three chickens, served 
 us a do/en eggs, brought up two bottles of Bordeaux 
 wine, and we invited the captain to take breakfast 
 with us. When I say that Pietro laid the table I 
 speak metaphorically. The table was scarcely set 
 up before it was knocked down, and we were forced 
 to eat standing, braced against some support, while 
 Pietro and Giovanni held the dishes. The rest of 
 the crew, inspired by our example, began to do like- 
 wise ; excepting old Nunzio, who, forever at his tiller, 
 seemed insensible to hunger, thirst, or weariness. 
 
 " Tell me, captain," I asked, " is there any danger 
 now in sending a bottle of wine to the pilot ?" 
 
 "Hum!" said the captain looking about him, 
 " the sea is still heavy, a wave is easily shipped." 
 
 " But a glass, at least." 
 
 " Oli ! a glass ; there is no harm in that. Here ! " 
 he called to Peppino, his little son, who appeared just 
 then, "here, take this glass and carry it up to the 
 old man ; and don't spill it, mind you." 
 
 Peppino disappeared and a moment later above 
 the roof of the cabin we beheld the head of the old 
 pilot who was wiping his mouth with his sleeve, while 
 the child brought back the empty glass. 
 
 "Thank you, Ecccllenza," said Nun/io. "Hum!
 
 48 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 hum ! thank you. Docs no harm that, does it, 
 Yicenzo ? " 
 
 A second head appeared. "Twas good," said 
 Vicen/o, plucking off' his cap, and he disappeared. 
 
 " What ! " said I, " are there two ?" 
 
 " Oh ! in heavy weather they are never apart ; they 
 are old friends." 
 
 " Then a second glass ? " 
 
 "A second glass, so be it; but that is the last." 
 
 Peppino carried up our second offering, and I 
 presently saw a hand holding out to Nun/io the 
 glass, scrupulously emptied to precisely half. Nun/io 
 pulled off his cap, bowed to me, and drank. 
 
 " Now, Eccellenza," he said, " I think that if you 
 will please to turn to the Sicily side it will not be 
 long before you see something." 
 
 Sure enough, we began to feel puffs of wind com- 
 ing from the direction of Sardinia, by which we 
 profited, shaking out our little lateen sail upon the 
 foremast. At the very first breath of that wind, the 
 mists that lay upon the sea rose like smoke from 
 a hearth disclosing gradually the coasts of Sicily 
 and the mountains of Calabria, which at first sight 
 seemed, from Cape Blanco to the Pi//o point, to be 
 but one continent, surmounted by the mighty head 
 of .Etna. The fabled land of Ovid, of Theocritus, of 
 Virgil was at last before our eyes, and our ship, like 
 that of ./Eneas, was pressing toward it under all sail, 
 no longer protected by Poseidon, ancient god of the 
 sea, but under the auspices of the Madonna, the 
 modern Star of Sicilian sailors. 
 
 We ran in rapidly, devouring with our eyes the
 
 THE SPERONARA 49 
 
 circular horizon that opened before us like a vast 
 amphitheatre. By midday we were off Pelomm, the 
 cape so named by Hannibal after his pilot. The 
 African general, fleeing in Asia from the Romans 
 who pursued him in Africa, when he reached this 
 point where we now were, whence it is impossible 
 to see the straits, believed he was treacherously 
 cornered in a cove where his enemies could blockade 
 and capture him. Hannibal was a man of rapid 
 and extreme determinations. He looked at his hand ; 
 the ring that held the poison that he always carried 
 was on his finger. Sure of thus escaping the shame 
 of slavery, he resolved that the pilot who had betrayed 
 him should announce his coming to Pluto, and with- 
 out granting him the two hours the man asked in 
 which to justify his pilotage, he had him cast into 
 the sea. Two hours later he perceived his error and 
 named with the name of his victim the promontory 
 which, stretching far towards the hither coast, had 
 hidden from his eyes the straits of safety, a tardy 
 expiation consecrated by historians, and kept in re- 
 membrance to this day. 
 
 And now, from one moment to another, all the 
 features of the coast grew visible ; villages stood out 
 in white relief upon the verdant shores ; to our left 
 we began to see ancient Scvlla, that monster with the 
 breast of a woman surrounded from the waist down 
 by savage dogs, so dreaded by Greek sailors, which 
 yEneas was entreated by Ilelenus to flee. I asked 
 the captain if he could not check the rapidity of our 
 course so as to give me time to recognize, map in 
 hand, those towns and localities with sonorous and 
 
 4
 
 50 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 poetic names. My demand chimed in with his de- 
 sires. Our speronara, too proud and too coquettish 
 to enter the harbour of Messina all buffeted as she 
 was by the storm, needed herself to pause for a time 
 while her broken antennae were adjusted and new 
 sails were bent. So we lay-to for awhile that the 
 sailors might do the work more easily. I took my 
 book and made notes ; Jadin took his block and made 
 sketches of the coast. Two or three rapid and busy 
 hours were thus passed. Then, all having finished 
 their work, we steered for Messina, and the little ves- 
 sel flew through the sea with the rapidity of a bird 
 seeking her nest. 
 
 As we approached Messina I remembered the 
 pilot's prophecy that two hours after the Ave Maria 
 we should reach our destination. That reminded me 
 that since our departure I had never seen any of our 
 sailors performing openly the duties of religion which 
 these children of the sea consider so sacred. More 
 than that: a little cross of olive-wood inlaid with 
 mother-of-pearl, like those that are made by the 
 monks of the Holy Sepulchre, which pilgrims bring 
 back from Jerusalem, had disappeared from our cabin, 
 and I found it on the prow of the schooner, above a 
 figure of the Madonna di Pie di Grotta, under whose 
 invocation our little vessel was placed. After inquir- 
 ing whether there was any particular reason for this 
 change of place and being told there was none, I took 
 the cross back to the cabin, and we have seen how 
 the Madonna, grateful no doubt, protected us in the 
 hour of danger. 
 
 "Captain, 1 " I said, as Arena stood near me, "I
 
 THE SPERONARA 51 
 
 think on all Neapolitan, Genoese, and Sicilian ves- 
 sels the sailors make common prayer at the hour of 
 the Ave Maria ; is it not your custom on board the 
 speronara ? " 
 
 " It is, Eccellenza, it is," replied the captain eagerly, 
 " and if I must tell the truth, it troubles us greatly 
 not to do it.' 1 
 
 " What the devil hinders you ? " 
 
 " Excuse me," said the captain, " but, as we often 
 take Englishmen who are Protestants, Greeks who are 
 schismatics, and Frenchmen who are nothing at all, 
 we are afraid of wounding the belief or exciting the 
 unbelief of our passengers by the sight of religious 
 practices that are not their own. But if passengers 
 authorize us to act in a Christian manner we are very 
 grateful to them; so that if you will permit 
 
 "Permit! why, I request it of you, captain; and 
 if you wjsh to begin at once, it seems to me, as it is 
 nearly eight o'clock 
 
 The captain looked at his watch and, seeing that 
 there was no time to spare, he said in a loud voice: 
 
 " The Ave Maria." 
 
 At those words every man came up through the 
 hatchways and sprang upon deck. More than one 
 had, doubtless, already begun mentally the angelic 
 salutation, but each interrupted it to take his part 
 in the general prayer. From one end of Italy to the 
 other that prayer, offered at a solemn hour, closes the 
 day and opens the night. That twilight moment, 
 full of poesy everywhere, becomes at sea of infinite 
 sanctity. The mysterious immensity of the air and 
 the waves, the deepened sense of human weakness
 
 52 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 compared to the omnipotent power of God, the com- 
 ing darkness, during which danger, present always, 
 will increase, all this predisposes the heart to relig- 
 ious emotions and to that holy confidence that lifts 
 the soul on the wings of faith. This evening espe- 
 cially, the danger we had just escaped, recalled to us 
 now and again by a swelling wave or a distant roar, 
 inspired both the crew and ourselves to deep medita- 
 tion. At the moment when we assembled thus upon 
 the deck, night was beginning to close in from the 
 eastward; the mountains of Calabria and the point 
 of Cape Pelorum were losing their beautiful azure 
 colour and melting into grayish tones that seemed to 
 fall from the sky like a fine rain of ashes ; while to 
 the west, a little to the right of the archipelago of 
 Lipari, where isles of fantastic shape stood out in 
 vigorous relief on a fiery hori/on, the sun, enlarged 
 and barred with violet bands, was beginning to dip 
 the edge of her disk in the Tyrrhenian Sea, making 
 those sparkling and mobile waters into waves of mol- 
 ten gold. At this moment the pilot stood up behind 
 the cabin, bearing in his arms the captain's son ; he 
 placed the child on his knees upon the roof and, aban- 
 doning the tiller as if the little craft were protected 
 by the prayer, he steadied the lx>y where he knelt 
 that the roll of the sea might not cause him to lose 
 his balance. This little separate group was relieved 
 against a golden background, like some painting of 
 Fra Angelica or Bcnox/o Gozzoli ; and the child, in a 
 voice that scarcely reached us, though it rose to God, 
 Ix'gan to recite the virginal prayer, to which the sailors 
 listened on their knees and we with bowed heads.
 
 THE SPERONARA 53 
 
 Those are memories for which art is unskilful, and 
 a pen insufficient; those are scenes that no narrative 
 can convey, no picture reproduce, because their 
 grandeur lies wholly in the inward feeling of those 
 who take part in them. For the reader of travels, 
 the amateur of sea-pictures, they will be no more 
 than a child praying, men responding, a vessel 
 floating; but to him who has been present at such a 
 scene it will ever be one of the grandest spectacles 
 he ever saw, one of the most precious memories he 
 ever garnered that of weakness praying, immensity 
 looking on, and God the Father listening. 
 
 The prayer ended, each man returned to his work. 
 We were Hearing the straits ; after facing Scylla we 
 were now to confront Charybdis. Its beacon was 
 lighted as the sun went down, and we saw, minute 
 by minute, the other beacons of Solano, Scylla, and 
 San Giovanni break out like stars. The wind, as 
 mariners are wont to say, had followed the sun and 
 was now as favourable as possible, so that by nine 
 o'clock we were doubling the lighthouse and enter- 
 ing the straits. Half an hour later, just as old 
 Nun/io had predicted, we were safely past Charybdis 
 and the little speronara was casting anchor before 
 the village of Delia 1'aee. 
 
 It was too late then to get pratique, and we could 
 not land without fulfilling that formality. Fear of 
 cholera had made the coast inspection very active; 
 there was risk of nothing less than being hanged in 
 case of infraction, so that, lying not fifty feet from 
 their families, nearly all of whom lived at Delia Pace, 
 our sailors were unable, after t\vo months' absence,
 
 54 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 to even kiss their wives and children. Nevertheless, 
 the sight of their native shore, our safe arrival in 
 spite of the burrasca, the pleasure promised for the 
 morrow chased off vexation and soon the na'ive 
 hearts of those brave fellows opened wide to all the 
 joyous emotions of their return. Hardly was our 
 little ship at anchor and her sails clewed up before 
 the captain, who had stopped her just opposite to 
 his own house and as near as possible to the shore, 
 gave a call of inquiry. Instantly a window opened ; 
 a woman appeared ; two words alone were exchanged 
 between sea and land : " Giuseppe ! " " Maria ! " 
 
 Within five minutes the village was in a state of 
 revolution. The rumour ran that the speronara had 
 returned, and the mothers, the daughters, the wives, 
 and the brides came flocking to the shore armed 
 with torches. The crew were on deck ; each called, 
 all answered ; questions, answers, requests flew across 
 and across with such rapidity that I could not under- 
 stand how any one was able to distinguish what 
 belonged to him or her from what was meant for a 
 neighbour. Yet all was disentangled with wonderful 
 facilitv, each word found the heart to which it was 
 addressed ; and as no mishap had saddened absence, 
 the joy was universal and found expression in Pietro, 
 who began, accompanied by Filippo's whistling, to 
 dance the tarantella, while the girl he loved, ashore, 
 following his example, began to frisk in answer. It 
 was surely the most original thing in the world, this 
 dance, performed partly on board, partly on shore, 
 the people of the village joining in, and the whole 
 crew, not to be left behind, dancing too, so that
 
 THE SPERONARA 55 
 
 (excepting Jadin and myself) the ballet became 
 
 " A Veil, Pietro," I said, as he dropped exhausted on 
 the deck, " here we are at last." 
 
 " Si, signore, and at the very hour the old man 
 said ; he was not mistaken by ten minutes." 
 
 " And we are glad ? " 
 
 " A trifle. We shall see the little wife."
 
 Ill 
 
 MESSINA. TAORMINA LA BELLA 
 
 ON the morrow we awoke with the dawn ; its 
 first gleams showed us the queen of the straits, 
 the second capital of Sicily, Messina the Noble, whose 
 marvellous situation, with its seven gates, five squares, 
 six fountains, twenty-eight palaces, four libraries, 
 two theatres, harbour, and commerce, have made 
 her, in spite of the plague of 174-2 and the terrible 
 earthquake of 1783, one of the most flourishing and 
 graceful cities in the world. Nevertheless, from the 
 spot whence we first saw her, that is to say twenty- 
 five or thirty feet from the shore, opposite to the 
 village of Delia Pace, we had only n most imperfect 
 idea of her ; but as soon as we weighed anchor and 
 approached the city from the straits, Messina in all 
 her majesty appeared to us. 
 
 Few situations equal that of Messina, all-powerful 
 gate of two seas through which there is no passing 
 from one to the other without her royal good 
 pleasure. Leaning against hill-slopes of marvellously 
 varied shapes clothed with pomegranates, oleanders, 
 and the prickly pear, she faces Calabria. Behind 
 t!ie city rises the sun, and as he mounts the hori/.on 
 ho colours the panorama he illumines with the most
 
 THE SPERONAHA 57 
 
 capricious tints. To the right of the city stretches 
 the Ionian sea, to her left the Mediterranean. 
 
 We cast anchor directly opposite to a fountain of 
 magnificent rococo representing Neptune charming 
 Scylla and Charybdis. In Sicily everything is still 
 mythological ; Ovid and Theocritus are regarded as 
 new men. No sooner was the anchor down and the 
 sails furled than we received an invitation to go at 
 once to the custom-house, that is to say, to the 
 police-office. My foot was on the gangway prepar- 
 ing to get into the boat when a lamentable cry 
 arrested me; it was Cama the cook, whom I had 
 completely lost sight of after his apparition in the 
 midst of the storm ; he was now beginning to come 
 out of his torpor like a marmot in the spring. The 
 poor lad, although he had neither eaten nor drunk 
 since the day of our departure, was terribly bloated : 
 his eyes had swollen to the si/e of eggs, and his lips 
 to that of sausages. But in spite of the deplorable 
 state to which he was reduced, the stillness of the 
 vessel was bringing him, little by little, to himself, 
 so that he could stand, or nearly so, when the boat, 
 was ready to take us ashore. Seeing that I was 
 going without him he felt he was forgotten, and 
 gathering all his strength he uttered the lamentable 
 cry that made me look back. I had too much pity 
 in my heart to abandon poor Cama in such distress, 
 and I signed to the boatmen to take him. 
 
 Arrived at the custom-house and about to appear 
 before the Messinian authorities, another trial iv\aited 
 the poor fellow. In his hurry to leave Naples and 
 cook for an appreciator of Rolando he had forgotten
 
 58 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 one thing to provide himself with a passport. I 
 thought at first that this could easily be arranged, for 
 when Guichard obtained from the French ambassador 
 the passport under which I was travelling, knowing 
 that I expected to take a servant with me, he had 
 the passport made out for " Monsieur Guichard and 
 servant ;"" then he took the paper to the Neapolitan 
 authorities for their visa. There, as a measure of 
 governmental safety, they asked the name of the said 
 servant, and he gave the first that came into his head, 
 so that the passport now read, " Monsieur Guichard 
 and servant named Bajocco." I therefore proposed 
 to Cama to become momentarily Bajocco, which 
 seemed to me a name that was quite as respectable 
 as his own. To my great astonishment he refused it 
 with indignation ; never, he said, had he blushed to 
 be called by his father's name, and nothing would 
 induce him to affront his family by travelling under 
 a fictitious patronymic, especially one so eccentric 
 as Bajocco. I insisted ; he was firm. Unhappily, on 
 touching terra firma his strength had come back to 
 him, as it did to Antaeus, and with his strength his 
 native obstinacy. We were still in the midst of the 
 discussion when they came to tell me that we were 
 'wanted in the visa office. Not very sure of the 
 validity of my own passport I had no desire to com- 
 plicate my situation with that of Cama; so, sending 
 him to all the devils, I went in alone. 
 
 Contrary to my expectation, the scrutiny so far 
 as I was concerned passed without hindrance; they 
 merely observed that my passport gave no personal 
 description of me, a precaution taken by Guichard,
 
 THE SPERONARA 59 
 
 whose bodily appearance agreed but little with mine. 
 I replied to the official very courteously that he was 
 quite at liberty to supply that deficiency, which he 
 did at once. When this formality, which made my 
 passport unimpeachable, was completed to the satis- 
 faction of both parties, he gave permission in a loud 
 voice, to Jadin and me, to go ashore. I should have 
 liked to wait a moment for Cama and know how 
 he got himself out of his scrape, but as every- 
 thing, haste or delay, is suspicious in the eyes of the 
 amiable government with which we now had to do, I 
 contented myself with commending him to the cap- 
 tarn before I jumped with Jadin into the boat that 
 took us at last to the quay. 
 
 We entered the town through the port gate 
 and launched ourselves hap-haxard into the streets. 
 Modern as the buildings are and inadequate the 
 architects, nothing can take from the situation of 
 Messina what it possesses of grandiose and dis- 
 tinctive. Two things struck me among others in 
 the town itself: first, a gigantic stairway leading 
 from one street to another, which seemed to me like a 
 fragment of the ancient Babel ; secondly, the strange 
 appearance given to all the houses by iron balconies 
 of uniform rounded shape, filled with climbing plants 
 that hide the bars and drape the walls in long fes- 
 toons that sway as the breexe floats them. Pardon 
 me, I am forgetting a third : at the door of a guard- 
 house I saw a corporal of gendarmerie making a dress 
 of rose-coloured tulle with flounces. I stopped a mo- 
 ment before him, and so ama/ed was I by the skill 
 with which he used the needle that I made inquiries
 
 GO JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 about the gallant soldier. I was told that in Messina 
 the trade of dressmaking was, as a general thing, 
 carried on by men ; my hero was a pluralist, gen- 
 darme and women's tailor in one. 
 
 In Messina there is neither royal park nor public 
 garden ; so that every one goes in the evening to the 
 quay of the Palazzata, commonly called the Marina, 
 to breathe the sea-air. The port is therefore the 
 rendezvous of the Messinian aristocracy, who drive 
 or ride on horseback up and down from one gate to 
 the other, a distance of about three-quarters of a 
 mile. Perhaps if one could cross the Mediterranean 
 at a bound and spring from the Boulevard des 
 Italiens to the Marina of Messina one might see 
 some marked difference in the personages who people 
 the two promenades; but coming from Naples the 
 transition is too slight to be felt. The only thing 
 that gives the Marina a special air is the presence of 
 charming abbes, gallant, coquettish, elegantly dressed, 
 wearing gold chains like knights, and mounted on 
 magnificent asses from Pantellaria, with genealogies 
 like those of racers, and trappings that vied in 
 elegance with those of the finest horses. 
 
 Reaching the hotel, we found our captain awaiting 
 us. I asked him for news of Cama ; the poor devil 
 was in prison and clamouring for me. Unluckily, it 
 was too late to do anything that night ; the Nea- 
 politan authorities being of all known authorities the 
 ones it is most imprudent to disturb out of the hours 
 that they deign to employ on the vexing of travel- 
 lers. We were forced, therefore, to postpone the 
 matter till the morrow. Besides which, I had at
 
 THE SPERONARA 61 
 
 the moment a more serious anxiety. Jadin, who 
 had felt unwell all day and had left me in the middle 
 of my ramblings through the town to find the hotel, 
 was now really ill. I sent for the landlord and 
 asked him for the address of the best doctor in 
 Messina, and the captain hurried off to find him. 
 
 A quarter of an hour later, Arena returned with 
 a worthy doctor of a sort I supposed existed no 
 longer except in the comedies of Dorat and Mari- 
 vaux, in a wig of corkscrew curls and carrying a 
 gold-headed cane. ^Esculapius at once perceived the 
 symptoms of a cerebral fever in due form, and ordered 
 a bleeding. I sent for linen and a basin, and seeing 
 that he rose to withdraw, I asked him to perform the 
 operation himself; but he answered, with an air of 
 great majesty, that he was a physician, not a barber, 
 and that I must send for a bleeder to carry out 
 his prescription. Happy land, where there still are 
 Figaros off the stage ! 
 
 I was not long in finding what I wanted. In 
 addition to the two shaving-dishes hung outside 
 their doors and the connilio mtimujue intended for 
 the guidance of Count Almaviva, the Messinese fra- 
 ternity had a special sign of their own, representing 
 a man bleeding from all four limbs, the blood gush- 
 ing symmetrically into a huge basin, the man himself 
 fainting into a chair behind him. This prospectus 
 was not attractive; and if Jadin himself had been in 
 search of the honourable skilled workman his con- 
 dition needed, I doubt whether he would have given 
 preference to this one ; but as I was resolved to let 
 him be bled from one limb onlv, I believed he would
 
 62 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 escape with one quarter of the syncope. All went 
 well ; the bleeding did good, although Jadin during 
 the night began to wander and by morning was 
 delirious. The doctor returned at the hour agreed 
 upon ; said the patient was doing well, ordered a 
 second bleeding and an application of iced towels to 
 the head. The day passed without my seeing clearly 
 which of the two, patient or fever, would win the 
 fight. I was horribly anxious. Besides my real 
 affection for Jadin, I should have to reproach myself, 
 if harm happened to him, for having enticed him 
 into this journey. I awaited the morrow with great 
 impatience. 
 
 The doctor had ordered that the patient be ex- 
 posed to all the winds that blew ; doors and windows 
 were to be opened and I was to keep him as much as 
 possible in currents of air. Strange as this prescrip- 
 tion seemed, I olreyed it day and night religiously. 
 But to my great astonishment the darkness, instead 
 of bringing a gentle breeze, soft breathing of the 
 night, cooler near the .sea than it is elsewhere, blew 
 in upon us a parching, burning wind that seemed 
 like the vapour of an oven. I counted on the 
 morrow ; the morrow brought no change in the 
 state of the atmosphere. 
 
 The night had cruelly tired my poor patient; but 
 the cerebral excitement seemed to me to have les- 
 sened somewhat and given place to increasing weak- 
 ness. I rang for more lemonade, the only drink the 
 doctor ordered ; no one answered. I rang a second, 
 then a third time; at last, seeing that the mountain 
 would not come to me, I resolved to go to the moun-
 
 THE SPERONARA 63 
 
 tain. I went through all the corridors and the 
 apartments without finding a person to speak to. 
 The master and mistress of the house had not left 
 their chamber, although it was nine o'clock in the 
 morning. Not a servant was at his post. It was 
 wholly incomprehensible. 
 
 I went down to the porter and found him lying on 
 a tattered old divan, the principal ornament of his 
 lodge, and asked him why the house was deserted. 
 
 " Ah, signore ! " he said, " don't you feel it is 
 sirocco ? " 
 
 " But suppose it is sirocco," I said, " that is no 
 reason why no one should come when I ring." 
 
 " Oh, signore ! when it is sirocco no one does 
 anything. 1 " 
 
 " What ! no one docs anything ? Who waits upon 
 the travellers?" 
 
 " Ah ! those days they wait upon themselves." 
 
 "That's another thing. Pardon me for disturb- 
 ing you, my worthy man." The porter heaved a 
 sigh that told me it needed great Christian charity 
 to grant the pardon I asked. 
 
 Then I went in search of the necessary articles for 
 the making of lemonade ; I found lemons, water, and 
 sugar as a sporting dog finds game. No one guided 
 me or hindered me in my quest. The house seemed 
 literally abandoned, and I reflected that a band of 
 robbers who could rise superior to sirocco might do 
 an excellent business in Messina 
 
 The hour for the doctor's visit arrived, and the 
 doctor came not. I presumed that he, too, had 
 sirocco, but as Judin's condition was far from being
 
 64 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 visibly reassuring I resolved to go and rouse my 
 vEsculapius in his home and bring him, willv nillv, 
 to his patient. I remembered the address given to 
 the captain ; and taking my hat I set forth bravely. 
 In passing along the corridor, I noticed a thermome- 
 ter; it marked 30 degrees [Reaumur] in the shade. 
 
 Messina wore the appearance of a dead city ; not 
 an inhabitant moved in the streets, not a head ap- 
 peared at the windows. Her beggars (and whoso 
 has not seen a Sicilian beggar knows nothing of 
 poverty), her beggars themselves were lying in the 
 street corners, panting, without strength to raise 
 their hand, without voice to a.sk for alms. Pompeii, 
 which I visited three months later, was not more 
 silent, more solitary, more lifeless. 
 
 I reached the doctor's house. I rang; I knocked ; 
 no one answered. I applied my hand to the door ; 
 it was ajar. I entered, and began my search for the 
 doctor. I passed through several rooms ; women 
 were lying on the sofas, children lay extended on 
 the floor. No one raised a head to look at me. At 
 last I came to a room with its door half open. I 
 entered and saw my man at full length upon his 
 bed. 
 
 I went to him, took his hand, felt his pulse. 
 
 "Ah!* 1 he said, sadly, turning his head with dif- 
 ficulty towards me : " You here what do you 
 want ? ** 
 
 " Pardieu ! what do I want ? I want you to come 
 and see my friend, who seems to me no better." 
 
 " Go and see your friend ! "" replied the doctor, 
 with a gesture of horror, " but that is impossible." 1
 
 THE SPERONARA 63 
 
 " Impossible ! " 
 
 He made a desperate movement, took his cane in 
 his left hand, and slid it through his right hand from 
 the golden knob at one end to the pointed ferrule at 
 the other. " See," he said, " my cane sweats." 
 
 And drops of water did actually fall from it, so 
 terrible is the action of this wind, even on inanimate 
 things. 
 
 " Well ! what does that prove ? " I asked. 
 
 "It proves that in weather like this there are no 
 longer doctors, nothing but patients." 
 
 I saw that I could never induce him to come to 
 the hotel ; and that if I asked too much I should 
 get nothing. I therefore reduced myself to a report 
 of the case ; I explained the changes in the patient's 
 condition, and told how the fever had departed, 
 giving place to exhaustion. As I went on explain- 
 ing the symptoms the doctor merely said now and 
 then: " He is doing well he is doing well he is 
 doing very well lemonade a great deal of lem- 
 onade lemonade as much as he likes I will 
 answer for him." Then, exhausted bv this effort, 
 yKsculapius made me a sign that it was useless to 
 torment him any longer, and turned his nose to the 
 wall. 
 
 " Well ?" said Jadin, when I returned, u isn't the 
 doctor coming ? " 
 
 " My dear fellow, he declares that he is more ill 
 than you, and that you had better go and take care 
 of hint." 
 
 " What is the matter with him, the plague ? " 
 
 " Worse than that sirocco." 
 3
 
 66 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 After all, the doctor was right ; I saw myself that 
 the patient was visibly better. As the thing had 
 been prescribed, he spent his whole day in drinking 
 lemonade ; and by night even his headache had dis- 
 appeared. The next day, except for weakness, he 
 was almost well. I left him to settle his account 
 with the doctor, and started on foot to make a little 
 excursion to the village of Delia Pace, the home of 
 our sailors, which stands about four miles north of 
 Palermo. 
 
 I found the road to the village charming ; it skirts 
 on one side the mountain, on the other the sea. It 
 wasyhvta. The relics of Saint Nicholas were to be 
 carried in procession, I don't know why or wherefore, 
 but procession there was to be, to the great joy of 
 the populations. As I passed before the church 
 of the Jesuits, which stands about a mile from Delia 
 Pace, I entered it. Mass was being said. I ap- 
 proached the chapel and there I saw all our sailors 
 on their knees, the captain at their head. It was a 
 mass promised during the storm, and they were 
 keeping their promise with a punctuality that would 
 have been very meritorious in dwellers ashore. I 
 waited in a corner until divine service was over : then, 
 when the priest had said the Ite, mixsa exl, I came 
 out from behind a column and greeted our men. 
 
 There was no mistaking the way in which they 
 received me: each face passed suddenly from an 
 expression of pious meditation to one of joy ; my 
 two hands were instantly seized and kissed and re- 
 kissed, whether I would or no. Then I was presented 
 to their wives and daughters, more especially to the
 
 THE SPERONARA 67 
 
 wife of the captain. They were more or less pretty, 
 hut nearly all of them had hemitiful eyes, those 
 Sicilian eyes, black and velvety, such as I have seen 
 nowhere except at Aries and in Sicily, where they 
 have in all probability both for Aries and for 
 Sicily a common origin : Arabia. 
 
 I arrived at the right moment: the captain was 
 just about to start for Messina to fetch me. He 
 wanted me to come to La Pace and see the fete. 
 We went to his home; he lived in a pretty little 
 house, full of comfort and cleanliness. I noticed, after 
 a while, that he was holding high conference with 
 his wife, and I guessed that its topic related to me. 
 It was, in fact, nothing less than to ask me to break- 
 fast ; but neither the one nor the other ventured to 
 say the word. I relieved their embarrassment by 
 inviting myself. Instantly there was revolution. 
 Master Peppino was sent to bring the pilot, Giovanni, 
 and Pietro. The pilot was to breakfast with us ; 
 it was I who requested this; Giovanni was to cook, 
 and Pietro to wait. Maria ran to the garden for 
 fruit; the captain descended to the village to buy 
 fish ; and I was left sole master and guardian of 
 the house. As I presumed that all these prepara- 
 tions would take, at the least, half an hour or three 
 quarters, and that my presence would only embarrass 
 these worthy people, I resolved to put the time to 
 use by making a little excursion above the village. 
 The captain's house backed on the mountain and a 
 little path led from the back door directly upon it. 
 I took this path, and began to climb the acclivity 
 through cacti, pomegranates, and oleanders.
 
 68 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 In proportion as I went up, the landscape, when I 
 ga/ed back, with Messina to right and Pelorum to 
 left, broadened before me ; while to the eastward lav, 
 like a curtain all mottled with villages, plains, forests, 
 and foothills, that long chain of the Apennines, which 
 rises behind Nice, traverses all Italy, and sinks away 
 at Reggio. Little by little I overlooked Messina, 
 then the Promontory, until at last, beyond the citv, 
 I beheld, like a vast sheet of silver lying in the sun- 
 shine, the Ionian Sea, and bevond Pelorum, rolling 
 out like a vast blue moire ribbon, the tideless Med- 
 iterranean. At my feet .were the Straits, which I 
 now could see from end to end, their current' as vis- 
 ible as a river, and showing to the eye the whirlpools 
 of Charvbdis, so dreaded by the ancients, which Ho- 
 mer, in the Odyssey, places opposite to Scylla, though 
 they are in point of fact at a distance of thirteen 
 miles. 
 
 I seated myself in the shade of a glorious chest- 
 nut tree with the singular sensations of a man who 
 finds himself at last in a land he has long desired to 
 roam and doubts if he is really there ; he asks himself 
 whether the capes, the villages, the mountains which 
 he has before his eyes are truly those of which he has 
 read so much ; can it be that to them belong those 
 poetic, sonorous, harmonious names to which in his 
 childhood he was rocked by Greek and Latin those 
 two nurses of the mind, if not of the soul ? 
 
 Yes, it was really I, and I was in Sicily ; I was see- 
 ing the same places that Ulysses and /Eneas saw, and 
 Homer and Virgil sang. That picturesque little vil- 
 lage over there near to a high rock and crowned by
 
 THE SPERONARA 69 
 
 a fortress is the Scylla that so terrified Anchises. 
 This sea, boiling at my feet, which so many centuries 
 have not quite calmed, is the veil that hid the im- 
 placable Chary bdis. It was here that Frederick the 
 Second, grandson of Barbarossa, flung the golden cup 
 which Colas il Pesce, the hero of Schiller's ballad, 
 plunged three times vainly into the vortex to recover. 
 And behind me I was leaning, as it were, against 
 /Etna, the fabulous and gigantic /Etna, which touches 
 heaven with her head, flings stones of fire to the stars, 
 and makes Trinacria tremble when the giant buried 
 in her bosom tunis on his side. Only, /Etna, like 
 Charybdis, is now very quiet, a slender vapour alone 
 shows that the sleeping giant breathes, and gives 
 warning in time that he is not dead. 
 
 I had reached this point in my reverie when I saw 
 the captain at the window of his cottage making 
 signs to me that all was ready ; and I went down 
 rapidly. My good captain had spent himself on 
 hospitality, and Giovanni had done marvels. Es- 
 pecially was there a dish of fish which seemed to me a 
 masterpiece. I asked the name of his finny excel- 
 lence ; I knew it not, and it seemed to me worthy of 
 public knowledge. I was told I had to do with a 
 pesce spado. I then remembered having read in my 
 youth very interesting accounts of how the swordfish, 
 using the terrible weapon with which Nature has 
 armed the end of its nose, will attack a whale ; leap- 
 ing into the air and letting itself fall head foremost 
 and so transfixing the cetacean with its sword, which is 
 usually four or five feet long. Hut there the infor- 
 mation of the naturalist ceased. I had been satisfied
 
 70 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 to value the swordfish solely for its aptitude in fenc- 
 ing, but I now saw that M. de Buffon had done him 
 injustice. He possesses, as fish, qualities hitherto 
 unknown, but not less estimable than those his his- 
 torian seeks to palliate, and he deserves to obtain in 
 the " Cuisiniere bourgeoise " a necrological article as 
 important as the biographical article he now pos- 
 sesses in Natural History. 
 
 The dessert was not less remarkable than the break- 
 fast. It was composed of pomegranates, magnificent 
 oranges, and a fruit as little known to me as the fish 
 about which I had just gathered such precious infor- 
 mation. It is called the Jigue (Tlnde [the prickly 
 pear], that perpetual manna which Sicily offers so 
 freely to the gluttony of the rich and the poverty of 
 the poor. As soon as one leaves the gates of a city, 
 masses of these enormous cacti, laden with their 
 fruit, rise up on all sides. The Indian fig is about 
 the size of a hen's egg, wrapped in a green pulp, and 
 protected by little bunches of prickles, a wound from 
 which will cause a long and painful sore. Conse- 
 quently, a certain amount of study is required to 
 disembowel the fruit without accident. That opera- 
 tion over, there issues from the gash a globe of yel- 
 lowish flesh, sweet, cool and melting ; we began, at 
 first, by tasting it with a certain reserve, but by 
 the end of a week we had made it a nccessitv. The 
 Sicilians adore this fruit, which is to them what the 
 watermelon is to the Neapolitans, with this difference, 
 that the watermelon needs a certain culture and can- 
 not be had gratuitously ; whereas the Indian fig grows 
 everywhere, in the sand, in gardens, in marshes, among
 
 THE SPERONARA 71 
 
 rocks, and even in the clefts of the walls, and costs 
 nothing except the trouble of gathering it. 
 
 Breakfast over the captain proposed to me to go 
 and see the fc.ftu of the relics of Saint Nicholas. It 
 can well be imagined that I did not refuse the pro- 
 posal. We started by goin& up the road that led to 
 the lighthouse, but presently we turned oft' upon 
 rolling land that hid the sea from sight, and came, 
 after awhile, to the shore of a little, isolated blue, 
 clear lake, brilliant as a mirror, surrounded on the 
 left by a row of houses, on the right by a line of 
 hills which prevent the pretty cup from emptying 
 itself into the straits. This is the lake of Pantana. 
 Its banks now presented the sight of a fete cham- 
 pttre reduced to its most naive simplicity, with games 
 impossible to win, little stalls laden down with fruit, 
 and the tarantella. 
 
 It was there that I was able for the first time to 
 examine that dance in all its details. It is a marvel- 
 lous dance, and the most adaptable that I know of, 
 provided there is a musician, or that the dancers can 
 sing or whistle the air themselves. It is danced 
 alone, or in twos, fours, eights, and so on indefinitely, 
 if desired ; man with man, woman with woman, those 
 who know each other and those who do not ; external 
 circumstances have nothing to do with it, nothing 
 disturbs the dancers. When one of the spectators 
 desires to join he leaves the circle surrounding the 
 space reserved for the dance, jumps alternately first 
 on one foot then on the other until some other jjerson 
 detaches himself or herself from the dance and jumps 
 in like manner in front of him. If this partner delays
 
 72 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 and the monotony of his jump wearies the actor, he 
 approaches some couple who have danced for some 
 time, nudges the elbow of the man or the woman 
 who has danced the longest, sends that person to 
 rest and takes the vacant place, gallantry not causing 
 him to make any selection as to sex. It must be 
 said that the Sicilians fully appreciate the advan- 
 tages of this independent jig; the tarantella is an 
 absolute malady among them. I had hardly arrived 
 at the shores of the lake with the captain, his wife, 
 Nunxio, Giovanni, Pictro, and Peppino, before I 
 found myself absolutely alone, and free to make 
 all the reflections I wanted to make. The whole 
 party were dancing in rivalry with one another, and 
 there was not one of them, down to the captain's son, 
 who was not jigging away in front of a species of 
 giant who showed no other difference from the 
 Cyclops, from whom he seemed to descend in a 
 straight line, than that of possessing a pair of eyes, 
 which, as we know, the other did not. 
 
 As for the music that set the population a -jigging, 
 it was not, as with us, stationary at a certain point, 
 but disseminated around the shores of the lake , this 
 perambulating orchestra consisted generally of two 
 musicians, one played the flute, the other a species of 
 mandolin. The two instruments united created a 
 melody which with us has the exclusive privilege of 
 making bears and puppies dance. I counted sixty-six 
 of these musicians, and they all, more or less, had as 
 much as they could do. 
 
 At the height of the feuta the shrine of Saint 
 Nicholas was brought out of the church where it was
 
 THE SPERONARA 73 
 
 kept. Instantly the dances ceased ; every one ran to 
 take his or her place in the escort, and the procession 
 began to make the tour of the lake, accompanied by 
 the ceaseless explosion of quantities of little pop- 
 guns. This new exercise lasted about an hour and 
 a half; then the shrine re-entered the church with the 
 priests, and the crowd scattered itself again around 
 the lake. As it was late and I had seen as much of 
 the fete as I wished to see, I took leave of the cap- 
 tain, who made a sign to Pietro and Giovanni. 
 Instantly abandoning their partners in the dance 
 without saying a word to excuse themselves, the good 
 fellows flew to take me round by sea in the boat of 
 the speronara in order to spare me the six miles 1 walk 
 to Messina. I tried to refuse, but it was quite impos- 
 sible ; Giovanni made so many entreaties and Pietro 
 so many capers, and both set so high a value on the 
 honour of taking back His Excellency, that His 
 Excellency, who in the depths of his heart was glad 
 enough to lie in a good boat instead of plodding 
 back on legs that were tired with carrying him in 
 a heat of 'i.5 degrees Rcamur from eight in the morn- 
 ing till five at night, ended by accepting, promising 
 himself, it is true, to make up to the friendly pair 
 for the pleasure they lost. So we all three \\'cnt 
 down chattering to Delia Pace ; they hat in hand, 
 and I vainly endeavouring the whole way to make 
 them put their hats on their heads. Reaching the 
 captain's door, they untied the boat, into which I 
 jumped, and the tide serving, we began, without 
 great fatigue to the honest fellows, the row to 
 Messina.
 
 74 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 I found Jadin as well as I could reasonably expect; 
 he had sent away the doctor, giving him three 
 piastres and calling him an old scamp. As the 
 latter did not speak French and could understand 
 only that part of the harangue that was made visible, 
 he took leave of Jadin by kissing his hands. 
 
 I now ordered horses to l)e put to a species of 
 vehicle which the landlord had the audacity to 
 palm off upon me as a caleche, and we started to take 
 a turn on the Marina. In southern climates there is 
 a period of the twenty-four hours that is truly 
 delicious ; it is from six o'clock in the evening till two 
 in the morning. One really lives during those hours 
 only ; contrary to the customs of our northern cli- 
 mate, it is at night that Italians are awake. The 
 doors and windows of the houses are opened, the 
 streets grow lively, the squares are filled with people. 
 A cool breeze drives away the leaden atmosphere that 
 lias weighed all day on Ixxly and mind. Heads are 
 raised, women resume their smiles, flowers give out 
 their perfume, mountains take on their violet tints, 
 the sea casts up its briny odour, and life, that seemed 
 well-nigh extinct, revives, and flows through the 
 veins with a strange increase of sensuous joy. 
 
 We remained two hours doing corno on the 
 Marina ; then we passed another hour at the theatre 
 listening to " Norma. r> That reminded me of my 
 dear and good Bellini, who gave me letters for Naples 
 on my departure from France, and made me promise 
 that if I went to Catania, his native place, I would 
 go and see his old father and carry news of him. I 
 was (juite resolved to keep my promise religiously,
 
 THE SPERONARA 75 
 
 little dreaming that the news I should give the 
 old man would l)e the last he would ever receive of 
 his son. 
 
 The next morning at a quarter to eleven the cap- 
 tain arrived with his accustomed punctuality ; Jadin 
 took charge of settling with the landlord and of 
 provisioning the vessel, by the help of Giovanni and 
 Pietro, with fruits and wine ; and I went off with 
 the captain to pav my visit to the head of the 
 Messinese police. We found him, contrary to cus- 
 tom, an amiable man of good society. He was 
 intimate with the doctor who had treated Jadin, and 
 had spoken of us very favourably. I related to him 
 the story of Cama, how he had forgotten his pass- 
 port in his haste to follow a worthy appreciator of 
 Rolando, and how his refusal to change his name, 
 which was really a proof of the integrity of his soul, 
 had led to his arrest. The head of the police asked 
 the captain if he would give him his word of honour 
 that Cama should stay on board the speronura and 
 not land anywhere during the rest of the voyage. 
 I permitted myself to observe to the great authority 
 that I had brought a cook to cook, and not as an 
 object of luxury. I added that as he was sea-sick 
 from the moment he set foot on the vessel he was 
 perfectly useless to me aboard, and I had therefore 
 counted on his services ashore by way of compensa- 
 tion. But in vain did I argue in my best manner ; 
 the sentence was pronounced and the judge would 
 not rescind it. It is true that he offered me an 
 alternative, namely : to leave Cama in prison during 
 the journey and bike him out on my return, when
 
 76 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 he would give me a certificate, which, by stating that 
 my cook had remained in Messina for a cause inde- 
 pendent of my will and could only be attributed to 
 the cook\s own fault, would release me from the 
 obligation of paying his wages. But I had pity on 
 poor Cama. The captain pledged his word, and the 
 chief of police gave in exchange the order for the 
 release of the prisoner. I left the captain to take 
 him out of prison, and, requesting him to be opposite 
 to the Marina at three o'clock punctually, I returned 
 to the hotel. 
 
 There I found Jadin in high discussion with the inn- 
 keeper, who insisted on charging him for breakfasts 
 lie had never eaten, under pretext that our rooms were 
 each two piastres a day including meals, eaten or not 
 eaten ; consequently he presented an additional reck- 
 oning of eighteen francs for lemonade, barley- water, 
 etc. After a firm threat on our part to complain to 
 the authorities of such robbery, it was agreed that all 
 that Jadin had swallowed, no matter of what nature 
 the absorption might be, should be reckoned as food. 
 So the matter ended in his lemonade and slops being 
 considered in lieu of cutlets and beefsteak; on which 
 the landlord let us oft', and begged us to recommend 
 htm to our friends. 
 
 At three o'clock Pietro and Giovanni, who had 
 constituted themselves our servants, came to fetch 
 our trunks. The wind was fair and the speronani 
 was awaiting us to set sail at once. The first person 
 I saw on Ixwrd was Cama. Prison had done him a 
 world of good; his eyes and lips were their natural 
 si/e, so that he now looked more like a human being.
 
 THE SPERONARA 77 
 
 Moreover, his incarceration had made him trac- 
 table, and he was ready now to take any name I 
 chose to give him. Unfortunately, this patronymical 
 abnegation came too late. 
 
 But with his health Cama laid claim to his culi- 
 nary rights. He had dressed himself in his very 
 best clothes to awe whosoever might attempt to 
 usurp his functions. He wore a blue linen cap, blue 
 jacket, nankeen trousers, a kitchen apron coquet- 
 tishly caught up at one corner, and he rested his 
 left hand proudly on the handle of a knife passed 
 through his Jbelt. Giovanni had neither linen cap, 
 nor blue jacket, nor nankeen trousers, nor a festooned 
 apron, nor a kitchen knife stuck coquettishly into 
 his belt; but he had antecedents, respectable ante- 
 cedents, and among them was the breakfast he had 
 cooked for me the day before at the captain's house. 
 Neither did he seem at all disposed to make the 
 slightest concession. He had, moreover, a powerful 
 auxiliary, in the person of Milord, who until now 
 had recognized him as the rightful distributor of 
 bones and scraps, and was fully prepared to support 
 those rights. I saw that the matter was gradually 
 becoming unpleasant, so, not wishing to vex either 
 of these good fellows, I called up the captain, told 
 him that we would not dine for a couple of hours, 
 and, as the wind was fair, I begged him to sail at 
 once. Immediately all the men were called to work 
 the ship, Giovanni among them. As for C'ama, he 
 descended triumphantly to the culinary regions. 
 
 A quarter of an hour later, Giovanni, descending 
 in his turn, found his rival lying at full length among
 
 78 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 his pots and pans. That which I foresaw had hap- 
 pened. Sea-sickness had produced its effect. Caina 
 claimed no more than a mattress and permission to 
 be on deck. The fussiness of the chief of police had 
 provided him with a very easy voyage. Giovanni 
 triumphed without ostentation. Dinner was ready 
 at the hour I had named and proved to be excellent. 
 The captain shared it, and it was agreed, once for 
 all, that he should do so daily. At dessert I noticed 
 that Master Peppino did not appear, and I a^ked for 
 him. I was then told that his mother had kept 
 him at home. Gaetano also, seized with a sort of 
 ophthalmia, had remained ashore. 
 
 During dinner the captain told us about the storm. 
 Not without good reason had his wife been terrified 
 for son and husband; six vessels had been lost during 
 the eighteen hours the tempest lasted. 
 
 Until night we kept to the middle of the Sf raits, 
 at about equal distance from the coast of Sicily and 
 the coast of Calabria. On both sides luxurious vege- 
 tation seemed to bathe its very roots in the sea. 
 We passed thus before Contessi, Reggio, Pistorera, 
 Sanf Agata, until, through the twilight mists we 
 saw the lovely village of La Scaletta. Then night 
 fell, one of those delicious, limpid, fragrant nights, 
 o'f which a man has no conception if he has never 
 left the North. We dragged our mattresses to the 
 deck, threw ourselves upon them and were soon 
 asleep, rocked by the motion of the waves and the 
 song of our mariners. When we opened our eves it 
 was four in the morning and we were lying at anchor 
 off Giardini, the port of the ancient Tauromenium,
 
 THE SPERONARA 79 
 
 where Heracles, holding the horn of his strongest ox, 
 Landed from Rhegium and stabled his herd, in the 
 days of old. 
 
 The aspect of Taormina threw us into ecstasy. 
 To our left, adorning the horixon, rose yEtna, that 
 pillar of heaven, as Pindar calls it, defining its violet 
 masses in a ruddy atmosphere permeated with the 
 rays of the rising sun. Nearer to us, crouching at 
 the feet of the giant, were two tawny foothills look- 
 ing as though they were covered by some huge lion's 
 skin ; while before us, in the curve of the little bay, 
 were a few poor fishing-houses at the edge of the 
 sea that was now like a mirror of burnished steel. 
 Above its port, rose, to the right, the ancient 
 Naxian town of Tauromenium. The town itself is 
 commanded by a mountain, Monte Yen ere, and by 
 a peak on the apex of which stands the Saracenic 
 village of Mola, which can be reached only by a 
 stone ladder-way. 
 
 When we had well considered this scene, so mag- 
 nificent, so splendid that Jadin never once thought 
 of sketching it, we turned towards the east. The sun 
 had risen majestically and was kindling the summits 
 of the Calabrian mountains, while their western 
 slopes still lay in semi-tones and tints in which we 
 could distinguish valleys and ravines by their darker 
 shades, and villages and towns by their whiteness. 
 As the sun rose higher in the heavens all changed 
 colour, houses and mountains; the burnished sea 
 grew dazzling, and when again we turned, that first 
 scene, too, had lost its weird, fantastic tints: .Etna 
 had returned to her puissant and majestic reality.
 
 80 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 We landed, and after a rapid climb of half nn 
 hour by a narrow, stony path, we reached the walls 
 cf the town, built of black lava, yellow stone, and 
 reddish brick. Though the first asj>ect of the town 
 looks Moorish, the pointed arch of the gate is Nor- 
 man. We entered and found ourselves in a narrow, 
 dirty street, leading to a square, in the centre of 
 which was a fountain surmounted by a singular 
 statue the head and shoulders of an angel of the 
 14th century grafted upon the body of an antique 
 bull. The angel is of white marble, the bull of red 
 granite. The angel holds in her left hand a globe 
 to which is affixed a cross, in the other hand a 
 sceptre. A church, standing opposite, has two re- 
 markable decorations ; first, the six marble columns 
 that support it; and next, two Gothic lions, couchant 
 at the foot of the baptismal font, and bearing the 
 arms of the town, namely, a female centaur. This 
 last sculpture seems to explain the one in the square. 
 
 The Greek theatre is the point to which the feet 
 of travellers tend along the sunny street. It was 
 hewn in the rock, semicircular in shape, of a size 
 to hold twenty-five thousand persons. It is now a 
 ruin, a ruin peopled with memories; but the traveller 
 who comes to visit it is wont, when there, to look 
 more at the vast panorama unrolling before him than 
 at the crumbling cunei, or at the well-preserved 
 stage, disfigured on one side by Roman brick. 
 There, to the right, is vEtna, developed in all the 
 immensity of her base, which is well-nigh two hun- 
 dred miles in circumference, and in the majesty of 
 her height, which is 10,600 feet; 2000 less than" Mt.
 
 THE SPERONARA 81 
 
 Blanc, 6000 more than Vesuvius. To the left, the 
 chain of the Apennines trends down behind Rcggio, 
 and, like a kneeling bull, protrudes its head and 
 presents its horns to the sea, which breaks and foams 
 against the Cape Dell 1 Anni. On the horixon, 
 heaven and earth are blending, and far away 
 stretches the shore to the right, all strewn with sites 
 and cities that bear the names of Naxos, Aci-Reale, 
 home of Acis and Galatea, the Cy elope isles, Catania, 
 the Laestrygonian fields, that granary of Sicily, Me- 
 gara Ilyblam, home of bees and honey, and lastlv, 
 before the coast turns southward to Cape Passero, 
 Siracusa, more Greek in living memories than Greece 
 itself. 
 
 Nature's instruction for an artist can no farther go 
 than at Taormina; yet he knows not whether what 
 he feels is exquisite pleasure or unspeakable pain. 
 That which he sees, he can never represent by his 
 art; true, it permeates his soul and thence his art, 
 although no pen, or brush, or voice can portray it. 
 There are two brief moments at Taormina that will 
 never be forgotten by one who has known them : at 
 evening, when the sun is setting behind .'Etna, and 
 the shadow of the great mountain is cast upon the 
 Calabrian hills, the forests and uplands glowing with 
 purples melting into blues and violets into crimsons, 
 on which the slow-rising column from the crater is 
 defined as clearly as it is upon the sky behind it. 
 Seen from the upper prax-inctio of the temple, with 
 one's feet among the acanthus and iris and cyclamen 
 and the rosy Sicilian thrift, there is no wealth of rich 
 colour to compare with it. 
 
 6
 
 82 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 And again : before dawn, watch the calm, white 
 bosom of the mountain, with its tracery of blue 
 veins, until the sun, rising from the waters of the 
 Ionian sea, touches the cone of the crater for one 
 brief instant with a rosy glow and makes you think 
 it is the nipple of the breast of the world. 
 
 These magnificent sights blunted, I must confess, 
 our curiosity for other things. Still, as a matter of 
 conscience, I visited the Naumachia, the piscines, the 
 baths, the temple of Apollo, and the remarkable Ro- 
 man aqueduct still flowing brightly along its mossy 
 way. But early the next morning we were glad to 
 quit the squalid den they called an inn, and descend- 
 ing the precipitous path, half slipping, half rolling, 
 and beckoning to the captain, whom we saw on deck, 
 to send a boat, we were soon on board. 
 
 Decidedly, Giovanni was a great man. He knew 
 that after an excursion into those regions we could 
 not fail to be hungry. In consequence, he set to 
 work, and soon our breakfast was ready for us. 
 
 Travellers who journey in Sicily ! in heaven's name 
 bike a speronara. With a speronara, above all with 
 that, if possible, of my friend Captain Arena, you 
 can cat (if you are not actually sea-sick) ; in the inns 
 you can never eat. And let this be taken literally: 
 in Sicily there is nothing to eat but what you carry 
 with you; it is not the publicans who feed the tra\- 
 eller, but the traveller who feeds the publicans. 1 
 
 1 This is not so now. There is a charming little inn at Taor- 
 uiin.'i, close to the Greek theatre (unless modern improvements 
 have spoilt it) where good food, plenty of fruit, and cleanliness 
 will help to make a stay of weeks unspeakably delightful. TR.
 
 IV 
 
 CATANIA. SAN NICOLA IL VECCHIO 
 
 WHILE the captain was ashore getting his 
 permit to sail we made an excellent break- 
 fast. By midday he returned and at once we weighed 
 anchor. A pretty wind enabled us to make six miles 
 an hour, so that by three o'clock, or thereabouts, 
 we were ofF the heights of Aci-Ileale, where I had 
 told the captain I wished to land. Consequently, he 
 steered for a species of little creek, whence a zigzag 
 path led up to the town, which looks down upon the 
 sea from a height of some three or four hundred feet. 
 
 This meant a new permit to get, and the delay of 
 an hour to endure ; after which we were authorized 
 to enter the town. Jadin followed me with confi- 
 dence, not knowing what I was going to do there. 
 
 Aci appeared to be a rather fine and symmetrically 
 built place. Its walls gave it a formidable little air, 
 of which it seemed to be proud. But I had not 
 come to see walls and houses ; I was in search of 
 something better; I was seeking the son of Poseidon 
 and Thusa. As I felt sure lie would not come to 
 meet me, I determined to address a gentleman who 
 was walking on the opposite side of the street. I went 
 towards him, and seeing that I was a foreigner he 
 stopped, thinking that I wanted information.
 
 84 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 " Monsieur,"" I said, " may I without indiscretion 
 ask you the way to the grotto of Polyphemus ? " 
 
 "The way to the grotto of Polyphemus? Ho! 
 ho ! " said the gentleman, looking at me, " the way 
 to the grotto of Polyphemus ? " 
 
 " Yes, monsieur."" 
 
 " You are mistaken, monsieur, by nearly a mile. 
 It is beyond here, going towards Catania. You will 
 recognize its port by four rocks which advance into 
 the sea and which Virgil calls cyclopea saxa, and Pliny 
 calls scojndi cyclopum. You must land in the port 
 of Ulysses ; then if you advance in a straight line, 
 turning your back to the sea, you will h'nd, between 
 the village of Aci-San-Filippo and that of Nizetti, 
 the grotto of Polyphemus." 
 
 The gentleman bowed to me and continued his 
 way. 
 
 "Well! there's a man who seems to possess his 
 cyclops pretty well," said Jadin ; ** his directions are 
 clear." 
 
 " Therefore, unless you have something particular 
 to do here, we will return on board, if you like." 
 
 " Learn, my dear fellow," said Jadin, " that I never 
 have anything to do in 40 degrees of heat, that I 
 have come solely to follow you, and that, henceforth, 
 when you are not more certain of your friends' ad- 
 dress I will thank you to leave me on board, me and 
 Milord. Is n't that so, Milord ? " 
 
 Milord lolled out a tongue half a foot long and 
 red as fire, a grimace, joined to the active manner 
 in which he began to pant, that showed me he was 
 precisely of his master's opinion.
 
 THE SPERONARA 85 
 
 We returned to the shore and re-embarked. At 
 the end of half an hour I saw, l>eyond a doubt, the 
 four cyclopean rocks, the spot indicated. I asked 
 the captain if the little roadstead that I saw \vas 
 really the Porto Ulissi. He answered yes. We 
 therefore cast anchor precisely where ./Eneas did the 
 same thing. Such is the power of genius that after 
 the lapse of three thousand years, this port hits pre- 
 served the name given to it by Homer, and here, 
 to the peasants, the history of Ulysses and his com- 
 panions, perpetuated as a tradition, not only across 
 the centuries, but also across the many successive 
 rulers of Sicily Siccans, Spaniards, Carthagenians, 
 Romans, Greek emperors, Goths, Saracens, Nor- 
 mans, Angevins, Aragoncse, Austrians, Bourbons 
 of France, and Dues de Savoie seems as living 
 as the most national traditions of the middle ages 
 are to us. 
 
 Thus the first child from whom I asked my way 
 to the grotto of Polyphemus ran l)efore me instantly 
 to show it. As for Jadin, instead of following me, 
 lie threw himself gallantly into the sea, on a pretext 
 of looking for Galatea. Yes, it can all be found ; 
 with proportions less gigantic, perhaps, than in the 
 poesy of Homer, Virgil and Ovid, but the grotto of 
 Polyphemus and of Galatea is still there after thirty 
 centuries ; the rock that crushed Acis is there, covered 
 and protected by a Norman fortress that took his 
 name. Acis was changed, it is true, into a river 
 called to-day the Aqua-grande, for which I searched 
 in vain ; they showed me his Ixnl, which came to the 
 same thing. I supposed he had gone to sleep else-
 
 86 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 where ; with the thermometer at 50 degrees of heat 
 one ought not to be too severe on the morality of 
 rivers. 
 
 I looked also for the forest from which ^Eneas saw 
 the unfortunate Aehemenides, forgotten by Ulvsses, 
 emerging, whom he welcomed himself, although a 
 Greek ; but the forest has disappeared, or nearly so. 
 
 Night was beginning to fall ; the sun that I had seen 
 rising from the Ionian sea was disappearing, little by 
 little, behind yEtna. A gun fired on board the sper- 
 onara was evidently intended to remind me that after 
 a certain hour I could not embark. As I did not 
 care to sleep in a grotto, even that of Galatea for 
 I was too little like her handsome shepherd to deceive 
 her I made my way back to the speronara. I 
 found Jadin furious. The dinner was spoilt ; and 
 he assured me that if I continued to keep such bad 
 company as cyclops, nereids and swains lie would 
 leave me and go his own wav. 
 
 The next morning our awakening was far from 
 picturesque ; the beauties of Taormina were left 
 behind; I fancied I was before a church draped for 
 a funeral. We were in the harbour of Catania, 
 
 Catania stands like an island between two rivers 
 of black lava. The most ancient of these, that on 
 her right, came down in 1381 ; the other, which 
 presses on her left, is of 1669. Checked bv the sea, 
 which at first it drove back two-thirds of a mile, the 
 lava ended by chilling and stiffening into a monstrous 
 cliff full of fantastic and gloomy excavations, like so 
 many gates of hell, which are peopled, in whimsical 
 constrast by white doves and swallows. As for the
 
 THE SPERONARA 87 
 
 port, its bottom is half-filled with the coal-black 
 lava, so that none but small vessels can enter it. 
 
 While the captain had gone for pratique we 
 jumped into a boat, gun in hand, and made an 
 excursion among these caves, which resulted in the 
 death of several pigeons destined to serve as a roast 
 at dinner. The captain returned with permission to 
 land, by which we profited instantly, for I was 
 resolved to employ the next day and the dav after in 
 climbing /Etna, which, in the opinion of the people 
 of the region themselves, is no light matter. Ten 
 minutes later we were at the Corona d 1 Oro, kept 
 by Signer Abbate, whom I name out of gratitude ; 
 because, against all precedents, we found something 
 to eat in his hostelry. 
 
 Catania was founded, so says Thucydides, by the 
 Chalcidians in 729, five years after Naxos ; accord- 
 ing to other authors, by the Phoenicians, at a period 
 when the eruptions of /Etna were not only rare but 
 still unknown, for Homer, in speaking of the moun- 
 tain, makes no mention of its being a volcano. It 
 was here that the Athenians landed when they 
 dreamed of conquering that Sicily which became their 
 tomb. Alcibiades commanded them ; his reputation 
 for beauty, gallantry, and eloquence preceding him. 
 He arrived before Catania and asked to be allowed to 
 enter the city alone and speak with the Catanesc ; 
 if the Catanese had been men only his request might 
 perhaps have been refused, but the women of Catania 
 insisted on receiving him ; Alcibiades was conducted 
 to the circus, and all the city went with him. There 
 the pupil of Socrates made one of his Ionian ha-
 
 88 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 rangucs,so gentle, so flattering, so eloquent, so terrible, 
 so specious, so threatening. Even the guards at the 
 gates abandoned their posts and came to listen to 
 him. This was foreseen by Aleibiadcs, whose sin was 
 not modesty, and Nicias, his lieutenant, took advan- 
 tage of it to bring the Athenian fleet into the harbour, 
 which at that time was not choked with lava, and 
 seize the city without opposition. Then came, sixty 
 years later, Dionysius the elder, fresh from the con- 
 quest of Syracuse, then Mamercus, then, 549 years 
 after the foundation of the citv, came the Romans, 
 those great invaders, who began by pillaging ; they 
 sent their spoils to Rome, which was then poor 
 Rome, the Rome of mud and thatch, so she was 
 keenly alive to such gifts. Conquests went on and 
 soon Rome was enriched, and then Rome began to 
 feel generous. Marcellus determined to make the 
 Sicilians forget the way in which Rome had treated 
 them at first. He had a mania for building ; wher- 
 ever he went he built fountains, aqueducts, theatres ; 
 at Catania he built a gymnasium and prolxibly the 
 baths. Consequently Verres found the city so flour- 
 ishing that he deigned to cast his eyes upon her. 
 They told him of a temple to Demeter that contained 
 a beauteous statue known only to women, for men 
 were not allowed to enter that temple. Verres, by 
 nature ungallant, declared that women had privileges 
 enough without that one; so he entered the temple 
 and took the statue, which went with his other 
 spoils. Not long after, Sextus 1'ompeius pillaged 
 Catania in his turn, on pretence that it had l)een too 
 lukewarm towards his father in his quarrels with
 
 THE SPERONARA 89 
 
 Caesar in short, it was high time Augustus came 
 when he did come. 
 
 He indeed, ah ! he was the rectifier-general, the 
 universal pacificator. In his youth, carried away by 
 force of example, he had, it is true, proscribed a lit- 
 tle, just to keep in line with Lepidus and Antony; 
 but he took on age, called himself tribune of the 
 people, and not impcrator so said the republicans 
 of that day. He loved bucolics, georgics, and idylls, 
 the songs of shepherds, the rivalry of flutes, the bab- 
 bling of brooks. In short, he was the god who gave 
 rest to the world. Catania felt the blessing of that 
 good reign. Augustus built up her walls and sent 
 her a colony which became the most flourishing in 
 Sicily, even to the times of Theodosius. But after 
 the death of the latter her tribulations began again. 
 Greeks, Saracens, and Normans succeeded one another, 
 and treated her much as Valerius, Verres, and Sextus 
 Pompeius had done. Finally, and not to speak of 
 her miseries from Goths, Saracens, and Normans, as 
 if to crown these successive depredations, came an 
 earthquake in 1169, which overthrew the city and 
 left not a single house standing. Fifteen thousand 
 persons perished. The shock over, those who escaped 
 it returned to their ruins like birds to their nest, and, 
 with the help of William the Good, they rebuilt the 
 city. It was scarcely up before Henry VI., in a 
 moment of ill-temper, set fire to it and put all the 
 inhabitants to the sword. Luckily a few saved them- 
 selves. Those who escaped the father, conspired 
 against the son. Frederick Barbarossa was a chip of 
 the old block ; he reburned the city and again put
 
 90 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 the people to the sword. After Henry and Frederick 
 nothing could be worse than the plague, so that came 
 in 1348, and depopulated Catania. Little by little, 
 in the course of centuries, the ill-fated city Recovered 
 from these successive scourges, the first Sicilian uni- 
 versity was established, and she bore the palm of 
 being the literary centre of the island, when, in 1669, 
 a flood of lava, thirty miles long and three miles wide, 
 issued from Monte Rosso, came down upon her, cover- 
 ing three villages on its way, sapping her foundations 
 and pushing her into her port, which it choked and 
 rendered worthless forever. 
 
 Now there is the history of Catania for twenty-six 
 centuries ; and yet that obstinate town has sprung 
 up again in the same spot, each time driving its 
 stone roots deeper and deeper into that unstable and 
 treacherous soil. More than that : Catania is, bar- 
 ring Messina, the richest city in Sicily. 
 
 As soon as breakfast was over, we set out to see the 
 town. Our guide took us direct to its two squares. 
 I have observed that guides always take you at once 
 to the squares. For this I am very much obliged to 
 them, because, once seen, we are rid of them. The 
 squares of Catania are, like the squares of all other 
 cities, great empty spaces surrounded by houses ; the 
 larger the space, the finer the square ; that is agreed 
 to in all parts of the world. One of the squares in 
 Catania is surrounded by insignificant buildings ; I 
 do not know what such constructions are; they are 
 not houses, they are not public buildings ; the people 
 call them palaces much good may that do them ! 
 The other square is rather more picturesque ; that
 
 THE SPERONARA 91 
 
 is, it is a little more irregular. In the centre rises a 
 marble fountain, surmounted by nn elephant in lava, 
 bearing on his back an obelisk of granite. Is that 
 obelisk, or is it not, Egyptian ? That is the grave 
 question that rends apart the archaeologists of Sicily. 
 Such as it is, Egyptian or not, one thing is certain, it 
 served as sp'ma to the circus discovered in 1820. 
 
 It was in this square that I happened to ask my 
 guide if he knew the Signore Bellini's father. At 
 this inquiry he turned quickly round and, pointing 
 to an old gentleman who was driving past in a little 
 carriage with one horse, he said : " There he is now, 
 going into the country." 
 
 I ran after the carriage and stopped it, thinking 
 that one never takes a liberty in speaking to a father 
 of his son, and a son like this one especially. At the 
 first words I said to him the old man took me by 
 both hands and asked if I really knew his son. I 
 took from my portfolio a letter of introduction 
 which Bellini had given me, just as I left Paris, for 
 the Duchesse de Noja, and I asked him if he knew 
 the handwriting. The poor father answered onlv by 
 taking it in his hands and kissing it ; then, turning 
 to me, he said : 
 
 " Oh ! you do not know how good he is to me ! 
 We are not rich ; well, after every success, comes a 
 little souvenir, and each souvenir is chosen so as to 
 give me a little comfort and pleasure in my old age. 
 If you will come home with me I will show you a 
 quantity of things I owe to his filial piety. Each 
 one of his successes crosses the sea and brings me 
 some new comfort. This watch, that came from
 
 92 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 * Norma ; " this horse and carriage are a part of the 
 profits of the ' Puritani.' In every letter he writes 
 he always says he is coming; but it is so far from 
 Paris to Catania that I can't believe in that promise, 
 and I fear I shall die without seeing him. But you 
 will see him you ! " 
 
 " Yes," I answered, for I believed I should see him 
 again, "and if you have any commission for him 
 
 " No. What could I send him, I ! my blessing ? 
 Poor boy ! I give him that day and night. You 
 must tell him that you gave me a happy day by 
 speaking of him, and that I embraced you.'" Hie 
 old man kissed me. " But you must not tell him 
 that I wept. Besides," he added, smiling, " I weep 
 for jov. Is it really true that he has a reputation, 
 my son ? " 
 
 " The highest reputation, I do assure you." 
 
 "What a strange thing! Who could have told 
 me that when I scolded him because, instead of 
 working, he was always heating time with his feet 
 and making his little sister sing our old Sicilian airs. 
 Well, well ; all is written above. But I wish I could 
 see him again before I die. Does your friend there 
 know him too, my son ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Personally ? " 
 
 " Yes, personally. Mv friend is himself the son of 
 a distinguished musician." 
 
 " Then call him ; I should like to shake his hand 
 also." 
 
 I called to Jadin, who came. It was then his turn 
 to be cherished and caressed by the poor old man,
 
 THE SPERONAHA 93 
 
 who wanted to take us home to spend the day with 
 him. But this was impossible; his home was in the 
 country, and our time was mapped out. We prom- 
 ised to see him if we returned by way of Catania ; 
 then he pressed my hand and left us. Scarcely had 
 lie driven a few steps before he called to me. 
 
 "Your name? "he said. "I forgot to ask your 
 name." 
 
 I told it to him ; but the name brought him no 
 recollections. What he knew of his own child was 
 not the artist, but the good son. 
 
 " Alexandre Dumas, Alexandra Dumas,"" he re- 
 peated. " Good ; I shall remember that he who 
 bears that name brought me good news of my 
 Alexandre Dumas ; I shall remember your name ; 
 adieu ! adieu ! " 
 
 Poor old man ! I am sure he has not forgotten it, 
 for the news I gave him of his son was the last he 
 was ever to receive. 
 
 On leaving him our guide took us to the Museum, 
 a modern institution wholly made up of antiquities. 
 Catania has had the good luck of possessing a rich 
 jrignore who did not know what to do with his money 
 and was an artist to boot. This is Don Igna/io di 
 Patarno, Prince of Biscari. He was the first to 
 remember that he walked on another Herculaneum, 
 and truly royal excavations were begun by a private 
 individual. It was he who found the temple of 
 Demeter, and brought to sight the thermos, the 
 aqueducts, the basilica, the forum, and the sepulchres. 
 And it was he who founded the Museum and col- 
 lected and classed the objects it contains into three
 
 94 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 classes : antiquities, products of natural history, and 
 curiosities. Of these the Sicilian vases are, beyond 
 a doubt, the most interesting part of the Museum, 
 because their shapes are infinitely varied, and nearly 
 all are perfect in elegance. As for the idols, penates, 
 lamps, etc., they are what one sees everywhere. 
 
 From the Museum we were going towards the 
 cathedral along the rue Saint-Ferdinand, when I 
 called to Jadin, who was behind me. 
 
 "Hold Milord!" I said. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Hold him first ; I '11 tell you afterwards." 
 
 Jadin called Milord and slipped his handkerchief 
 through his collar. 
 
 " Now," said I, " look at the window of that 
 optician." 
 
 On the window sat a cat, trained to look at the 
 passers-by through a pair of spectacles which he wore 
 very gravely on his nose. 
 
 "The deuce !" said Jadin, "that was a good idea 
 of yours; that one belongs to the class of learned 
 cats ; 't would have cost us more than two pauls." 
 
 Milord, in his capacity of bull-dog, was so great a 
 strangler of cats that we had found it necessary to 
 take measures accordingly. Consequently, after 
 Genoa, the town in which he first began to ransack 
 Italy for the feline race, we had debated and argued 
 the value of a well-conditioned cat; and it was 
 settled with the owners of the first two strangled 
 ones that a cat of usual race, dapple-gray, striped 
 gray, tortoise-shell, was worth a maximum price of 
 two pauls ; there were, of course, exceptions to this
 
 THE SPERONARA 05 
 
 tariff, angoras, learned cats, cats with two heads or 
 six paws. We had exacted a receipt in due form for 
 the Genoese cats ; to this we added successively the 
 subsequent receipts, so that we now possessed an 
 indisputable title. Every time that Milord com- 
 mitted murder and more than two pauls was de- 
 manded of usas the value of the victim, we drew our 
 tariff from our pocket and proved that two pauls was 
 the price accepted for other murders ; and it was very 
 rare that the owner did not content himself with 
 what had satisfied the other persons. But, as I have 
 said, there were exceptions, and a cat wearing spec- 
 tacles in so majestic a manner evidently belonged to 
 them. Jadin therefore said a sensible thing when he 
 remarked that the cat of the optician would cost us 
 more than two pauls, and he acted with laudable 
 prudence in slipping his handkerchief through 
 Milord's collar. 
 
 Thanks to that precaution we passed through the 
 rue Saint-Ferdinand without mishap, and without 
 Milord's appearing to perceive, except by his brief 
 captivity, the momentary anxiety of our minds. 
 
 The church we were going to is under the protec- 
 tion of Sanf Agata, who is buried there, as every- 
 body knows. Her form of martyrdom was to have 
 her breasts torn off with red-hot pincers ; so that the 
 saint, like Dido, knowing how to compassionate the 
 agony she suffered, is especially miraculous for dis- 
 eases of the breast. A multitude of votive offer- 
 ings, in silver, marble and wax, all representing 
 breasts, show faith in her healing power and the 
 confidence felt by the Catanian population in the
 
 96 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 chaste and beautiful virgin they have chosen for 
 their patron saint. 
 
 In the choir some beautiful oak bas-reliefs dating 
 from the 15th century represent the whole history of 
 the saint, from the moment when she refused to 
 marry Quintilian to that in which her body was 
 brought back from Constantinople. The most inter- 
 esting of these bas-reliefs are those representing the 
 moment when the saint is beaten with iron rods, 
 when her breasts are cut off, when thev bum her, and 
 when, visited in prison by Saint Peter, she is healed 
 by him. Then comes the second period of the 
 legend. Still following the bas-reliefs, we see the 
 saint appear to Guibert and command him to go to 
 Constantinople and search for her body. He obeys, 
 and finds her tomb. Hampered by the difficulty of 
 bringing back this precious relic, he cuts the body 
 into pieces, puts a piece into the quiver of each of 
 his soldiers, and thus brings her back to Catania 
 with nothing missing but one breast, which happily 
 is found and brought back by a little girl ; so that 
 the blessed Agata is now, to the shame and con- 
 fusion of infidels, as whole as she ever was. All 
 these bas-reliefs are charming in naYvcte. No one 
 pa vs any attention to them ; no book speaks of them ; 
 no guide dreams of showing them ; and yet they are 
 undoubtedly one of the most interesting things in 
 the church. 
 
 We were returning to the hotel, intending to eat 
 a mouthful Ix'fore we went to sec the garden of the 
 Benedictines, when, looking about me, I perceived 
 that Milord had become invisible. Whenever that
 
 THE SPERONARA 97 
 
 happened \ve knew what would follow : in a few minutes 
 we .should see him issuing from some door or window, 
 licking his chops and followed by a native, male or 
 female, bearing a cat by the tail and clamorous for 
 two pauls. I looked up and saw that we had heed- 
 lessly taken the rue Saint- Ferdinand and were close 
 to the shop of the optician. At the same instant 
 I heard an uproar of devils behind a cask that stood 
 by the door. I sei/ed Jadin by the arm and showed 
 him the window the cat was missing! lie under- 
 stood at once, rushed to the cask, picked up a pair 
 of spectacles which he put on his nose, as if they 
 were his he had lost, and marched away, followed bv 
 Milord. As for the luckless cat, she expired obscurely 
 in the corner to which she had imprudently descended, 
 and where Jadin had prudently left her corpse. 
 This happened at the hour when, as Italians say 
 disdainfully, no one is in the streets but dogs 
 and Frenchmen. No one, therefore, witnessed the 
 murder, not even the storks of the poet Ibicus, and 
 not only did the crime remain unpunished but Jadin 
 fell heir to the spectacles of the deceased. Those 
 spectacles are now in Jadin's studio ; he shows them 
 as the spectacles of the famous Abbe Meli, the 
 Anacreon of Sicily. He has already refused a 
 hundred crowns for them, offered by an Englishman, 
 and says he would not part with them for twentv- 
 five louis. 
 
 Our last visit in Catania was to the convent of 
 San Nicola, the richest in Sicily, the cupola of which, 
 higher than any other in the city, was built about 
 the middle of the 18th century from designs bv 
 
 7
 
 98 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 Contini. The church and the garden are the two 
 remarkable features of this famous monastery ; the 
 church for its columns of verd antique, and for a 
 very fine organ, the work of a Calabrese monk, who 
 asked, as his only payment, to be buried under his 
 masterpiece : the garden for the difficulties it has 
 vanquished and for its noble view of Mount yEtna. 
 As for its difficulties, its foundation is lava and every 
 atom of its soil was brought there by the hand of 
 man. 
 
 The rule of the monastery of San Nicola was 
 formerly very severe. The monks were to live on 
 yEtna at the limit of the habitable region ; their 
 convent was therefore built a mile above Nicolosi, 
 the last village on the way to the crater. But as 
 all things weaken in the long run, this rule lost its 
 rigour, little by little ; first, the monks ceased to re- 
 pair the buildings ; next, one or two rooms having 
 fallen in from the weight of snow, the worthy fathers 
 judged it advisable to build the magnificent annex 
 at Catania which took the name of San Nicola il 
 Nuovo, and after that they lived during the summer 
 only at San Nicola il Yeechio. This lasted for 
 awhile and then San Nicola il Yecchio was abandoned 
 both summer and winter ; though the brethren .still 
 kept an eye on yEtna from their beautiful old garden 
 in Catania. There was talk for a few years of repair- 
 ing the old buildings (though good care was taken 
 not to do so), until finally a band of robbers, people 
 hardier and less fastidious about their comforts than 
 the worthy monks, took possession of the place and 
 made it their abode.
 
 THE SPERONARA 99 
 
 In 1806 Count Weder, a blue-blooded German, as 
 his name indicates, started from Vienna to visit 
 Sicily ; he embarked at Trieste, landed at Ancona, 
 visited Rome and Naples, where he obtained certain 
 letters of introduction, set sail at Naples, and dis- 
 embarked at Catania. Count Weder had known 
 for years of the existence of the monastery of San 
 Nicohi and of its great reputation for possessing 
 among its serving brothers the best cook in all 
 Sicily. Now, Count Weder was a very distinguished 
 gastronome, and he had been careful to obtain in 
 Rome, from a cardinal with whom he had dined at 
 the Austrian embassy, a letter of introduction to the 
 superior of the monastery. The letter was urgent ; 
 it presented the count as a pious and fervent pilgrim, 
 and requested that hospitality l)e shown him when- 
 ever it pleased him to visit the convent. 
 
 The count was learned after the manner of Ger- 
 mans ; that is to say, he had read a great quantity 
 of old and forgotten books ; so that he was able in 
 supporting his assertions, however erroneous and 
 ridiculous they were, to quote a certain number of 
 unknown names, which gave a sort of pedantic 
 majesty to his paradoxes. Now, among these old 
 books he had found a catalogue of all the Benedic- 
 tine monasteries scattered over the surface of the 
 globe, and he had seen and retained with the tenac- 
 ity of the Teuton mind that the rule of the Bene- 
 dictines of Catania enjoined them, as I have said, to 
 live on the last confine of the rc^ione coltirata and 
 the first of the rcggione nemorowt. So, when he 
 sent for a muleteer to take him to San Nicola he
 
 100 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 informed the muleteer that he desired to be taken 
 to " San Nicola sulP .Etna." 
 
 That was all the Italian the count knew. 
 
 There was no mistaking it ; the direction was 
 plain : nevertheless, the muleteer began to risk 
 remarks ; but the count shut his mouth with the 
 words : " I bay veil." Every one knows the habitual 
 power of that argument : the muleteer bowed to 
 the count, and returned in half an hour with one 
 mule. 
 
 " Nein" said the count, " two mules ; my P'^ggag 6 -" 
 
 " Does your Excellency take his baggage ? " 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 " Oh ! " said the muleteer, " I thought perhaps 
 your Excellency would leave that at the inn ; it 
 would be safer." 
 
 " I nefer leaf my paggage." 
 
 The muleteer responded by an almost impercep- 
 tible sign that meant, " Every one his own way," 
 and went off to get another mule. But after the 
 mule was loaded the honest guide thought he owed 
 it to his conscience to make a last remark : 
 
 " Is your Excellency quite decided ? " 
 
 " Cerdainlv," replied the count, sticking an enor- 
 mous pair of pistols into the holsters of his saddle. 
 
 " You are going to San Nicola il Vecchio ?" 
 
 " I am." 
 
 " Then your Excellency has friends at San Nicola 
 il Vecchio?" 
 
 " I haf a letter for the cheneral." 
 
 " For the captain, your Excellency means?" 
 
 " For the cheneral, I /av."
 
 THE SPERONARA 101 
 
 " Hum ! hum ! " muttered the guide. 
 
 " Bczides, I bay veil, I bay veil ; do you hear me, 
 knafe?" 
 
 " Excuse me," continued the guide, " but since 
 your Excellency is so kindly disposed, would you 
 mind paying me in advance ?" 
 
 " In adfance ! why 7.0 ? " 
 
 " Because it is now three o'clock ; we shall not 
 arrive till after dark and I must return immediately." 
 
 " Py night ? " said the count. " I subbose they 
 haf subber at der gonfent ? " 
 
 " The convent ? " 
 
 " Yes, at San Nicola." 
 
 " Oh ! certainly, they have supper ; the table is 
 more likely to be spread by night than by day." 
 
 " The rogues ! " said the count, and a gastronomic 
 gleam illuminated his face. " Here 's your bay, and 
 someding for der gut news you gif me." 
 
 And he gave him three piastres which he took 
 from a well-filled purse. 
 
 " Thank you, Excellency," replied the muleteer, 
 who, once paid, had nothing more to say. 
 
 " Shall we start now ? " said the count. 
 
 " When you please, Excellency." 
 
 The guide helped the count to mount his mule 
 and led the way, singing a species of canticle that 
 sounded more like a miserere than a tarantella ; but 
 the count was too absorbed in the thought of the 
 fine supper he was about to eat to take notice of 
 what was melancholy in the prelude. 
 
 The trip was made rather silently. The guide 
 had ended by believing, on seeing the count's confi-
 
 102 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 dcncc supported by his pistols, that he must be on 
 the best of terms with the occupants of San Nicola 
 il Vecchio, and might be a member of some Bohe- 
 mian band who did business with those of Sicily. 
 As for himself, he knew that he had nothing to fear 
 personally, muleteers being usually sacred to robbers, 
 and especially so when they bring them so good a 
 customer as the count appeared to be. 
 
 Nevertheless, at every village they passed on the 
 way he lingered, on one pretence or another. It 
 was really a species of compromise he was making 
 with his conscience, in order to give the count time 
 to make reflections and inquiries, and to return 
 whence they came if so it pleased him. But at 
 every halt the count would say, in a voice that 
 hunger made urgent : 
 
 " Kn afant ! come, come, en afant ! der teufel ! we 
 shall nefer get dere." 
 
 And off he went, followed by the amazed eyes of 
 the peasantry, who had just heard from the muleteer 
 the object of this strange pilgrimage, and could not 
 conceive how any man should even dream of going 
 to San Nicola il Yecchio unless he was taken there 
 by force. 
 
 The count and his guide went in this way through 
 Gravina, Santa-Lucia di Catarica, Manun/iata, and 
 Nicolosi. Reaching the latter village, the guide made 
 a last effort : 
 
 " Kxcellency," he said, " if I were you I should 
 sup and sleep here, and to-morrow I should take a 
 little walk, as it were, and go, all alone, to San 
 Nicola."
 
 THE SPERONAUA 103 
 
 " You clold me clat I should find a gut subber uud 
 a gut ped at der gonfent." 
 
 " Pardieu, yes," replied the guide, " if they are 
 willing to let you in." 
 
 " Putt don't I dell you I haf a letter to der chen- 
 eral?" 
 
 " To the captain ? " 
 
 " No, to the cheneral." 
 
 "Then," said the guide, "you are absolutely de- 
 termined to go?" 
 
 " Ccrdainlv I am." 
 
 " Very good ; then let us go." 
 
 And the pair set out again. 
 
 It was now dark, there was no moon, and they 
 could not sec a yard before them. But as the guide 
 knew the way perfectly there was no risk of losing it. 
 He took a little path that was scarcely perceptible, 
 turning to right from the main path ; then, begin- 
 ning to leave the cultivated region, he entered that 
 of the forests. After an hour's march, a black build- 
 ing rose before them, at the windows of which no 
 light was seen. 
 
 " There is San Nicola il Vecchio," said the guide, 
 in a low voice. 
 
 " Ho ! ho !" said the count, "dat's a gonfent in a 
 melangoly siduation." 
 
 " If you like," said the guide eagerly, " we can go 
 back to Nicolosi, and if you don't want to sleep at 
 the inn, there is an excellent man, il Signore Gemel- 
 laro, who won't refuse you a bed." 
 
 " I don't know him. Be/ides, Saint Nigola is 
 where I wish to go, and not Nigolosi."
 
 104- JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 " Zerebello da tedesco? muttered the Sicilian. 
 
 Then, whipping his mules, they were soon at the 
 gate of the monastery. 
 
 The monastery had nothing reassuring on nearer 
 view. It was an old structure of the twelfth centurv, 
 where it was easy to read the ravages that each erup- 
 tion hud committed since the days of its foundation. 
 The date of all the conflagrations and earthquakes 
 was, as it were, sculptured on those stones. By cer- 
 tain dentellations that came out in vigorous relief 
 against the dark-blue sky, now brilliant with stars, 
 it was easy to see what part of the building had 
 fallen into ruins. Yet the walls around the edifice 
 seemed fairly well repaired and loopholes had been 
 made in them, which gave San Nicola il Vecchio 
 more the appearance of a fortress than the aspect of 
 a monastery. 
 
 The count looked at all this with a very calm air 
 and told the muleteer to knock. The latter, who 
 had made up his mind, raised the old iron knocker, 
 eaten by the rust of time, and let it fall by its own 
 weight. The stroke resounded through the depths 
 of the convent and was answered by a shrill bell. 
 Almost at the same moment a little window, made in 
 the wall about eight feet from the ground, was 
 opened. Through it came a long iron tube, directed 
 towards the count's chest ; a bearded head appeared 
 at the aperture and a voice, which had no monachal 
 unction, demanded : 
 
 " Who goes there ? " 
 
 "Friend," replied the count, putting the muz/le 
 of the gun aside with his hand, " friend."
 
 THE SPERONARA 105 
 
 At the same moment he fancied there came to 
 him, through the open window, the smell of a roast 
 that rejoiced his soul. 
 
 " Friend ? hum ! friend ? " said the man at the 
 window. " Who \s to prove you are a friend ? " 
 
 And he repointed the gun in its first direction. 
 
 " Mv fery tear prudder," replied the count, putting 
 aside the weapon with the same coolness as before, 
 " I gombrehend ferv well that you should dake brc- 
 gautions, pefore admitting strangers ; I should do 
 der same in your blace, but I haf a letter from 
 Gardinal Morosini to your cheneral." 
 
 " For our captain ? " said he of the gun. 
 
 " No, no, for your cheneral." 
 
 " Oh, well, it is all one. Are you alone ? " 
 
 " All alone. 11 
 
 " Wait ; they will let you in." 
 
 " Hum ! dat zmclls gut, dat roast," remarked the 
 German, getting off' his mule. 
 
 " Excellency," asked the muleteer, who, during 
 this time, had unloaded the count's baggage. " You 
 do not need me any longer ? " 
 
 " Fetter stay," said the count. 
 
 " No," said the muleteer ; " with your permission 
 I 'd rather sleep elsewhere." 
 
 " Veil then, go," replied the count. 
 
 " Shall I come and fetch you back ? " 
 
 " No, the cheneral will see to that." 
 
 " Very good. Adieu, Excellency." 
 
 " Adieu." 
 
 At this moment the key began to turn in the 
 lock ; the muleteer jumped on one of his mules,
 
 106 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 seized the bridle of the other, and set off at a trot, 
 lie was already fifty yards distant when the gate 
 opened. 
 
 " Dat zmells gut," said the German, inhaling the 
 odour that came from the kitchen, " ferv gut." 
 
 " You think so ?" remarked the strange porter. 
 
 " Yes," said the count, " I do." 
 
 " That \s the chiefs supper ; he is on the road and 
 we expect him every minute." 
 
 " Den I arrife in gut time," said the count, 
 laughing. 
 
 " Does he know you, our chief? " 
 
 " No ; putt I haf a letter for him." 
 
 *' Ah ! that 's another thing let me see it." 
 
 " Here it is." 
 
 The porter took the letter and read the direction : 
 
 " Al reverendissimo generak del Benedettini ; al 
 convento di San Nicola di Catania. 
 
 " Ah ! I understand," said the porter. 
 
 "Ah! you gombrehend ; dat is fery lucky," said 
 the count, patting him on the shoulder. " In dat 
 case, my vrend, if you gombrehend, pring in mv 
 paggage, and take gut care of der bordmanteau ; 
 my burse is in it." 
 
 " Oh ! that \ where your purse is a good thing to 
 know," said the porter, fetching the portmanteau 
 with special alacrity. 
 
 Then, having brought in the rest of the baggage, 
 he said : " I see you are a friend, so come along." 
 
 The count did not need to be asked twice; he 
 followed his guide. 
 
 The interior aspect of the convent was not less
 
 THE SPERONARA 107 
 
 strange than its exterior. Ruins everywhere ; many 
 empty casks about; no images of saints or crucifixes. 
 The count stopped a moment, for he was one of 
 those talkers who have the bad habit of stopping 
 when they speak, and he expressed his surprise at the 
 devastation he saw. 
 
 " We can't help that," said his guide. " We are 
 rather isolated, as you must have seen ; and as the 
 mountain is full of rascals who fear neither God nor 
 the devil, we never leave the little that we own lying 
 about. All the precious things we have are locked 
 up in the cellar. Besides, you know we have another 
 monastery down there in Catania." 
 
 " No, I did n't know. So ! you haf anoder monas- 
 tery ? Tear tear ! " 
 
 " Now, please count your baggage yourself, so 
 that you may swear to the chief that nothing has 
 been taken." 
 
 " Oh ! dat is fery eaxy ; one drunk, one garbet-pag, 
 and one bordmanteau. I trust dat to you, dat bord- 
 manteau, pecausc my burse is in it." 
 
 "Three articles only, is that right? It isn't 
 much." 
 
 " It is enough." 
 
 " You think so ? " 
 
 " Yes, I dink so." 
 
 " Well, wait there," said the porter, showing the 
 count into a species of cell. " I don't doubt the 
 chief will be here in half an hour." And he made a 
 movement to depart. 
 
 " Stop ! stop ! while waiting could I go into der 
 gitchen ? I can gif some gut adlice to der gook."
 
 108 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 " Faith ! I don't sec any objection,'" said the porter. 
 " Wait here till I put your baggage in safety. How 
 much money did you say there was in your purse? " 
 
 " Dree dousand six hundred and dwenty ducats."" 
 
 " Three thousand six hundred and twenty ducats ; 
 good," 1 remarked the porter. 
 
 " That zeems a fery worthy man," murmured the 
 count, looking at the brother as lie carried away all 
 his possessions, " a fery worthy man, indeed.'" 
 
 Ten minutes later the porter returned. 
 
 " If you wish to go to the kitchen you can do so," 
 he said. 
 
 The count followed the Sicilian, who took him to 
 the kitchen. The spit was turning, the ovens were 
 baking, and saucepans boiled on all sides. 
 
 " Gut," said the German, stopping on the lower 
 step, and taking in with eye and nostril, this succu- 
 lent scene, " gut, it zeems I haf not habbened on a 
 vast tay. Gut evening, gook, gut evening." 
 
 The cook had been notih'ed ; and he received the 
 count with deference. The count profited by this 
 reception to go round the kitchen, lift the covers of 
 all the saucepans, and taste all the sauces. Suddenly 
 he rushed upon the cook, who was in the act of 
 shaking salt upon an omelet, and snatched the pan 
 of eggs from his hand. 
 
 " Hey ! vat is dat you do ? " he cried. 
 
 " What am I doing ? " said the cook. " I am 
 salting an omelet." 
 
 " Stop, miserable man, you don't but zalt into an 
 omeled ; you but zugar and bre/erves, and gooseperry 
 jam."
 
 THE SPERONARA 109 
 
 "Nonsense,"" said the cook, trying to snatch the 
 pan back again. 
 
 " No, no, no ! " cried the count. " I '11 made das 
 omeled ; gif me die jam."" 
 
 " Ha ! " said the cook, getting angry, " we will 
 soon see who is master here." 
 
 " I am," said a strong voice. " What is all this?" 
 
 The count and the cook turned round. A man 
 from forty to forty-five vears of age, in a monk's 
 robe, stood upon the stairway ; he was tall, and had 
 the hard, imperious countenance of those who are 
 accustomed to command. 
 
 *' The captain ! " exclaimed the cook. 
 
 " Ah, the cheneral, gut," said the count. " Chene- 
 ral," he continued, going up to the monk, " I peg 
 your bardon, but vou haf a gook who does not know 
 how to make omeleds." 
 
 " Are you Count Weder, monsieur?" said- the monk, 
 eyeing him. 
 
 " Yes, cheneral," replied the count, not letting go 
 of pan or fork and preparing to beat the eggs, " I am 
 Count Weder in ber/on." 
 
 " Then it is you who brought me the letter of 
 introduction which the porter has just given me ? " 
 
 " My /elf." 
 
 " Vou are very welcome, monsieur le comte." 
 
 The count bowed. 
 
 " I regret that the situation of our convent, its 
 long distance from other habitations, does not allow 
 me to receive you more suitably ; we are poor her- 
 mits on a mountain, and you will pardon us, I hope, 
 if our table is not well supplied." 1
 
 110 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 " What ! not well zubblied ! Why, der zubber, on 
 die gontrary, zeems egzellent, and if your gook will 
 make das omeled mit jam 
 
 " But, captain " interposed the cook. 
 
 "Give the preserves to monsieur, and let him make 
 his omelet as he likes." The cook obeyed without 
 a word. " Do not hurry yourself, monsieur le comte," 
 continued the monk ; " make yourself at home, and as 
 soon as the omelet is done to your liking, come up 
 to us ; we shall await you." 
 
 " An affair of fife minutes, cheneral ; haf zubber 
 zerved." 
 
 " You hear," said the monk to the cook. " Serve 
 the supper ; " and he went upstairs. 
 
 The count, triumphant, finished his omelet and 
 followed him. 
 
 The Superior was awaiting his guest with the 
 whole community, consisting of some score of brothers, 
 in a well-lighted refectory where a table was set in 
 perfect style. The count was struck with the luxury 
 of its silver-ware, and the fineness and beauty of the 
 tablecloths and napkins. The convent had evidently 
 taken from its treasure-house and presses the best it 
 had, to do honour to its guest. As for the apart- 
 ment, its dilapidated aspect contrasted strangely 
 with the luxury displayed within it. It was a 
 large hall which must formerly have been a chapel ; 
 in the altar of which a chimney had been con- 
 structed. The walls had no other decoration 
 than spiders 1 webs; and a few bats attracted by 
 the light flitted about the ceiling, going in and 
 out of the broken windows at will. A complete
 
 THE SPERONARA 111 
 
 arsenal of carbines was picturesquely arranged in 
 one corner. 
 
 The count took all this in at a glance ; he admired 
 the religious abnegation of the good fathers, who, 
 possessing such treasures as those before his eyes, were 
 willing to live exposed to the inclemency of the 
 weather, like the ancient hermits of Mount Carmel and 
 the Thebaid. The Superior noticed his surprise. 
 
 " Monsieur le comtc," he said, " I beg your pardon 
 once more for this poor house and the poor dinner 
 which is all we can offer you. Perhaps your friends 
 had pictured our convent to you as an abode of 
 delight. That is how society judges, monsieur le 
 comte. Therefore, when you return to the world I 
 hope you will do us justice. 1 ' 1 
 
 " Pless me ! cheneral," replied the count ; " I see 
 noding amiss mit der tinner, and I saw a fine tisblay 
 of bots and bans in der gitchen, and if der fine is as 
 gut-" 
 
 " Oh ! " interrupted the Superior, " you may be 
 easy as to that ; the wine is good." 
 
 " Eh ! if der fine is gut, dat is all we need." 
 
 " But I fear," added the Superior, " that our ways 
 may not seem to you quite monachal. For example, 
 we never sup without a pair of pistols beside each of 
 us ; that is a precaution against accidents that may 
 happen at any moment in so lonely a place as this. 
 You will therefore excuse us if, in spite of your pres- 
 ence, we follow our usual custom." 
 
 So saying the Superior opened his gown and took 
 from his belt a pair of superb pistols, which he laid 
 beside him.
 
 112 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 " Right, cheneral, right ! " cried the German ; 
 " bistols are the vrends of man; I haf bistols my /elf, 
 and oh ! it is ama/ing how like yours are to dcm. r> 
 
 " Not so very ama/ing," said the Superior, repress- 
 ing a smile ; " they are very good weapons, made by 
 Kukenreiter ; I sent to Germany for them." 
 
 " Kukenreiters ! zo are mine. Zend for mine, 
 cheneral, they are mit my paggage, to gombare mit 
 yours." 
 
 " After dinner, count, after dinner. Sit opposite 
 to me, there, that is right. Do you know your 
 Benedicite ? " 
 
 " Once, but now I haf forgot 
 
 " What a pity, for I counted on you to sav it ; but 
 if vou have forgotten it, we must do without it." 
 
 " Yes, yes," said the count, disposed to be very 
 complying. 
 
 He ate his soup without a blessing, as did all the 
 monks. When he had finished, the captain passed 
 him a bottle. 
 
 " Taste that," he said. 
 
 The count, confident that he had to do with a very 
 choice wine, filled a small glass, took it by the stem, 
 examined for an instant by the nearest lamp the 
 liquid, yellow as amber, within it; then he carried it 
 to his lips and sipped it with the voluptuous slowness 
 of a gourmet. 
 
 " w JTis astonishing," he said; "I who thought I 
 knew all fines, I do not know dat." 
 
 " That is Marsala, a wine that is not known, but 
 deserves to be. Ah ! our poor Sicily, she has many 
 neglected treasures within her."
 
 THE SPERONARA 113 
 
 " What name ticl you gall it ? " 
 
 " Marsala." 
 
 " Marxala: veil, it is a gut fine. I shall py some; 
 is it tear ? " 
 
 " Two sous a bottle." 
 
 " What ? " said the count, who thought he heard 
 wrong. 
 
 " Two sous a bottle." 
 
 " Doo sous a pottle ! Vy, you haf baradisc, 
 cheneral ; I shall nefer leaf you ; I shall make my/elf 
 penedictine." 
 
 " I must warn you that it has a defect," said the 
 Superior. 
 
 " Tefect ! it has no tefeets." 
 
 " I beg your pardon ; it is heady." 
 
 " Heady ! " said the count, contemptuously ; " I 
 could trink bints and not show it more than if I 
 trank gooseperry /irop." 
 
 " If so, don't restrain yourself," said the Superior ; 
 " do as you do at home ; only, I assure you we have 
 other wines." 
 
 In virtue of the permission thus accorded, the 
 count began to eat and drink like a true German ; 
 and it must he owned that he sustained the reputa- 
 tion of his compatriots admirably. The monks, 
 encouraged by their Superior, would not allow them- 
 selves to be outdone bv a stranger, so that presently 
 the religious silence that reigned at the beginning of 
 the repast was broken ; each began to talk to his 
 neighbour in a low voice, then loudly to the table at 
 large. At the second course, every one was shouting 
 at the top of his lungs and recounting the strangest
 
 114 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 adventures it was possible to hear. The count, little 
 as he could understand Sicilian, fancied he heard 
 talk of bold deeds done by brigands, convents 
 pillaged, gendarmes shot, nuns violated. But there 
 was nothing surprising in that ; the isolated situation 
 of these worthy Benedictines, their remoteness from 
 the city, must have made them more than once the 
 witnesses of such scenes. The Marsala still went 
 round, without prejudice to the dry Siracusa, the 
 muscat of Calabria, the malvoisie of Lipari. Strong 
 as the count's head was, his eves began to cover with 
 a film and his tongue to thicken. Then monologues 
 succeeded to conversations, and songs to monologues. 
 The count, who desired to keep upon the level of his 
 hosts, searched his anacreontic repertory, and finding 
 nothing suitable for the moment but Schiller's famous 
 brigand song, he began to sing with all his might : 
 Stehlen, morden, hnren, balgen, to which, it seemed to 
 him, the company responded with loud applause. 
 
 Presently everything began to swim round about 
 him ; he fancied he saw the monks throw off their 
 religious gowns and transform themselves into ban- 
 dits ; the ascetic faces changed character, and 
 blazed with ferocious joy ; the dinner degenerated 
 into an orgy ; still they went on drinking, and each 
 time they drank it was some new wine, some heady 
 wine, wine from the cellars of the Prince of Paterno 
 or from those of the Dominicans of Aci-Hcale ; they 
 beat the table with the empty bottles, shouting for 
 more ; the lamps were upset by the blows, the cloth 
 took fire, then the napkins, then the table, and 
 instead of extinguishing the flames they threw on
 
 THE SPERONARA 115 
 
 benches and chairs and stalls. In an instant the 
 table was a bonfire, round which the monks, trans- 
 formed to bandits, danced like demons. Suddenly, 
 in the midst of the devilish uproar, the voice of the 
 captain was heard, calling : I<e monache I le monache ! 
 A loud hurrah greeted this cry. An instant later 
 a door opened and four nuns appeared, dragged in 
 by four or five bandits. The count beheld all this 
 as if in a dream, and (as in a dream) he felt that 
 some superior force held his body in its place, while 
 his mind was active elsewhere. In an instant the 
 bandits sprang upon the poor girls ; the captain 
 attempted to be heard, but his voice was drowned 
 in the general clamour. Then it seemed to the 
 count as if the captain pulled out his famous 
 kukenreiters, that were so like his own. He fancied 
 he heard two shots ; he closed his eves, dazzled by 
 the flame. When he opened them he saw blood, 
 two brigands writhing and howling on the floor, 
 and the youngest of the nuns in the arms of the 
 captain. Then he saw no more; his eyes closed a 
 second time without the power to open, his legs 
 gave way under him, and he fell on the floor in a 
 heap, dead-drunk. 
 
 When the count awoke it was broad daylight ; he 
 rubbed his eyes and looked about him. He was 
 lying under a tree at the edge of the woods ; on his 
 right was Nicolosi, on his left Pedara, before him 
 Catania, and beyond Catania the sea. lie seemed 
 to have passed the night under the stars, lying on a 
 soft bed of sand, his head resting on his portmanteau, 
 and without other dais than the illimitable a/ure of
 
 116 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 the sky. At first he remembered nothing, and lay 
 for some time like a man coming out of a lethargy ; 
 at last his thought, by a slow and confused process, 
 went backward ; he recalled his departure from 
 Catania, the hesitations of his muleteer, his arrival 
 at the monastery, his altercation with the cook, the 
 welcome of the general, the dinner, the Marsala, the 
 songs, the orgy, the fire, the nuns, and the pistol 
 shots. He looked about him and saw his trunk, his 
 carpet-bag, his portmanteau. He opened the latter 
 and found his portfolio, his sea-foam pipe, his to- 
 bacco pouch, his purse his purse, which, to his 
 great amazement seemed as full as ever ; he opened 
 it with anxiety ; yes, it was full of gold, and besides 
 the gold there was a note ; the count opened it and 
 read as follows : 
 
 MONSIEUR LE COMTE, We offer you a thousand ex- 
 cuses for leaving you in so abrupt a manner ; but an 
 expedition of the utmost importance takes us in the 
 direction of Cefalu. I hope that you will not forget 
 the hospitality of the Benedictines of San NicolA il 
 Vecchio, and I beg you, on your return to Rome, to 
 ask Monsignore Morosini not to forget those poor sinners 
 in his prayers. 
 
 You will find all your baggage, except the kuken- 
 reiters, which I ask your permission to keep as a 
 souvenir of you. 
 
 DOM G A ETA NO 
 
 Prior of Sun NicolA il Vecchio. 
 OCTOBER 16, 1806. 
 
 Count Weder examined his purse ; not a penny 
 was missing.
 
 THE SPERONARA 117 
 
 When he reached Nicolosi, he found the village 
 in commotion. The convent of Santa-Clara had 
 been broken into, the silver pillaged, and four of 
 the nuns earned off', without any clue as to where 
 they were taken. 
 
 The count sent for his muleteer, remounted his 
 mule, returned to Catania, and finding that a ship 
 was about to sail for Naples, he went on board and 
 quitted Sicily forever that same night. 
 
 Two years later he read in the " Allgemeine 
 Zeitung" that the famous bandit chief Gaetano, 
 who had taken possession of the monastery of San 
 Nicola il Vecchio on /Etna and made it a den of 
 robbers, had been captured after a terrible struggle 
 with an English regiment and hanged, to the great 
 joy of the inhabitants of Catania, whom he sei/ed 
 for ransom in their very town itself.
 
 ON the day after our arrival at Catania we were 
 resolved, as I have said, to attempt the ascen- 
 sion of /Etna. I say attempt, for it is pre-eminently 
 the occasion when travellers can apply to themselves 
 the proverb : " Man proposes, and God disposes." 
 
 No sight is more common than travellers starting 
 from Catania to ascend the Ghibello (as ./Etna is 
 called in Sicily), and none more rare than the privi- 
 leged beings who reach her crater. The reason is 
 that during nine or ten months of the year the moun- 
 tain is really inaccessible; until the 15th of June it 
 is too early, after October 1st it is too late. 
 
 In this respect we fulfilled conditions, for we 
 reached Catania September 5th : besides which, the 
 day had been magnificent ; no fog nor mist veiled 
 /Etna. From all the streets that led that way we 
 had seen her, the evening before, serene and majestic. 
 The light smoke rising from the crater followed the 
 direction of the wind, floating like a pennant ; and 
 the sun, which we had watched as it disappeared from 
 the cupola of the Benedictines, glided in a sky with- 
 out a cloud, promising for the morrow a day not less 
 beautiful than the one that was ending. 
 
 So at five in the morning our guide woke us with 
 the announcement that the weather was made ex-
 
 THE SPERONARA 119 
 
 pressly for us. We ran to the windows that looked 
 on /Etna, and we saw the vast mountain bathing her 
 colossal head in the blond vapours of the dawn. We 
 could distinguish perfectly the three regions we had 
 to cross before arriving at the .summit : the cultivated 
 region, the wooded region, the barren region. The 
 cone, contrary to its usual state, was entirely with- 
 out snow. 
 
 Ordinarily the ascent is not begun till four in the 
 afternoon ; but we wished to stop a few hours at 
 Nicolosi and visit Monte-Rosso, one of the many sec- 
 ondary volcanoes that bristle around yEtna. Besides 
 which, I had heard of a certain Signore Gemellaro at 
 Nicolosi, a modest and amiable learned man, who 
 had lived there fifty years and would be pleased to 
 answer all my questions. I asked for a letter to him 
 and was told it was quite unnecessary ; his obliging 
 hospitality being offered to all travellers undertaking 
 the ascension, which was always painful and often 
 dangerous. 
 
 At five o'clock, therefore, after providing ourselves 
 with a bottle of the best rum we could find, we 
 mounted our mules and started for Nicolosi, where 
 the rest of our provisions were to be bought. Each 
 wore his ordinary clothes, to which, in spite of our 
 landlord's advice, we added nothing, being unable to 
 suppose that after leaving Catania in a temperature 
 fit to cook an egg we should find ten degrees of frost 
 on the mountain. 
 
 I know nothing finer, more original, more varied, 
 wilder and more fertile both, than the road that leads 
 from Catania to Nicolosi, crossing, in turn, seas of
 
 120 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 sand, oases of orange-trees, rivers of lava, carpets of 
 harvest lands, and walls of black marble. Three or 
 four villages are on the way, poor, wretched, pitiful, 
 peopled with beggars, like other Sicilian villages ; 
 but with it all they have sonorous, poetic names, 
 that resound like happy names, Gravina, Santa- 
 Lucia, Massanunziata. They stand on lava, are 
 built with lava, and are roofed with lava. They 
 come from the bowels of the mountain, and there 
 they will return some day. They unfold on the sur- 
 face of the volcano like poor flowers withered before 
 they bloom, which the first stormy wind will carry off. 
 
 Between Massanun/iata and Monte Miani on the 
 right of the road is the Moat of the Dove. Whence 
 came that tender name applied to a black and 
 gloomy excavation, two hundred feet deep and one 
 hundred and fifty wide ? Our guide could not tell us. 
 
 We reached Nicolosi, a species of little country 
 town built on the confines of the habitable world. 
 Two or three miles before reaching it we began to 
 enter a desolate region ; although for half a mile 
 above it we saw fine plantations and a slope covered 
 with vineyards. Does some interior fire partially 
 take the place of the heat of the sun, already much 
 tempered at that height? This is another of 
 the mysteries to which illiterate guides and learned 
 travellers are equally unable to give the key. 
 
 We stopped at one of those hovels which Sicily 
 alone has the audacity to bapti/e with the name of 
 inn ; and as it was still early we sent our cards, while 
 breakfast was preparing, to Signore Gemellaro, ask- 
 ing permission to pay him a visit, lie replied that
 
 THE SPERONARA 121 
 
 he was just sitting down to table, and that if we 
 would share his meal we should be welcomed. What- 
 ever might have been our desire, in view of the food 
 that awaited us, to accept so gracious an offer, we 
 had the discretion to refuse it and to content our- 
 selves with a meal at the inn. This was a meri- 
 torious action, worthy to stand parallel with the 
 severest fasts of the fathers of the desert. 
 
 Breakfast over, we ordered our guide to buy us a 
 pair of chickens, or half a dozen pigeons of any kind, 
 wring their necks, pluck them, and have them roasted. 
 This was provision for our breakfast on the mountain 
 the next day. That precaution taken, we started 
 for the house of Signore Gemellaro, the most impos- 
 ing in the village. The servant ushered us into the 
 study where his master awaited us. As soon as I 
 saw him I gave a cry of joy ; he was the very man 
 who at Aci-Ileale had so obligingly informed me of 
 the way to the grotto of Polyphemus. 
 
 " Ah ! it is you," he said, on seeing us, " I thought 
 I should find you old acquaintances. Every travel- 
 ler who sets foot in Sicily belongs to me of right ; 
 he has to pass this way, and I catch him on the 
 jump. Did you find your grotto?" 
 
 " Easily, monsieur, thanks to your kindness, which 
 we have come once more to put to proof." 
 
 "At your orders, gentlemen," he said, making us 
 a sign to sit down, "and I venture to say that if you 
 want information about this region you cannot do 
 better than address yourselves to me." 
 
 In fact, Signore Gemellaro had lived for sixty 
 years in the village of Nicolosi, where he was born ;
 
 122 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 and the occupation of his life was to observe the 
 volcano that was seldom out of his sight. For sixty 
 years the mountain had never made a motion of any 
 kind that Signore Gemellaro did not instantly study 
 it; the crater had not changed in shape twenty-four 
 hours before Signore Gemellaro had drawn it under 
 its new aspect ; the smoke never thickened or volatil- 
 ized a single time that Signore Gemellaro did not 
 gather from its darkening or its tenuity auguries 
 that results never failed to confirm. In short, Si- 
 gnore Gemellaro was, and is, the modern Empedo- 
 cles; but I hope that, wiser than him of old, he will 
 be buried with both slippers. Thus, the Signore 
 Gemellaro knows his yEtna to the tips of his fingers. 
 The mountain has not thrown up a mouthful of lava 
 for 3000 years that Signore Gemellaro does not 
 possess a specimen of it ; in fact, there is nothing 
 in this region down to the island Julia, of which 
 Signore Gemellaro does not own a fragment. 
 
 Mv readers have doubtless heard of the island 
 Julia, that ephemeral isle that had but three months' 1 
 existence, it is true, but which made more noise 
 during its passage through this world than other 
 islands existing since the deluge. 
 
 One fine morning of the month of July, 1831, the 
 island Julia rose from the depths of the sea and 
 appeared upon its surface. It was six miles round, 
 it had mountains and valleys like other isles ; it had 
 even a spring; true, that spring was of boiling 
 water. Scarcely had this island issued from the 
 main when an English vessel passed ; in whatever 
 part of the seas a phenomenon of any kind occurs, an
 
 THE SPERONARA 123 
 
 English vessel is sure to be passing just then. The 
 captain, ama/ed at seeing an island where his chart 
 did not indicate so much as a rock, hove-to, and 
 getting into his gig went ashore upon it. He noted 
 that it lay in latitude 38 ; that it had mountains, 
 valleys, and a spring of boiling water. He sent for 
 eggs and tea, and breakfasted by the spring ; after 
 which he took the Hag of England and planting it 
 at the top of the highest mount, he pronounced 
 these sacramental words : " I take possession of this 
 territory in the name of His Britannic Majesty." 
 Then he returned to his ship and set sail for 
 England, where he arrived safelv and announced 
 that he had discovered in the Mediterranean a 
 hitherto unknown island, which he had named Julia 
 in honour of the month of July, the date of his 
 discovery, and of which he had taken possession in 
 the name of Great Britain. 
 
 Immediately after the English ship had left the 
 island a Neapolitan ship came by, and was no less 
 astonished than its predecessor had been. At sight 
 of this unknown island the captain, a prudent man, 
 took in sail in order to keep at a respectful distance. 
 Then he levelled his glass, and bv the aid of that 
 instrument he saw that the island was uninhabited, 
 that it had valleys and a mountain, and that from 
 the summit of that mountain floated the British flag. 
 He immediately called out for four volunteers to go 
 and see what it meant. Two Sicilians presented 
 themselves, got into the boat, and started. A 
 quarter of an hour later they returned bringing 
 with them the English flag. The Neapolitan cap-
 
 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 tain then declared that he took possession of the 
 island in the name of the King of the Two Sicilies, 
 and he named it Isola San Ferdinando. After 
 which he returned to Naples, asked an audience of 
 the king, told him he had discovered an island, 
 thirty miles in circumference, covered with orange- 
 trees, lemon-trees and pomegranates, in which was 
 a mountain higher than Vesuvius, a valley like that 
 of Jehoshaphat, and a spring of mineral water, on 
 which a bathing establishment could be set up finer 
 than that of Ischia. He added, by the way and 
 without dwelling on details, that an English vessel 
 having attempted to dispute the possession of the 
 isle, he had sunk the said ship, in proof of which he 
 had brought back her flag. The minister of the 
 navy, who was present at the audience, thought this 
 proceeding rather questionable ; but the King of 
 Naples entirely approved of his captain, made him 
 an admiral, and decorated him with the grand 
 cordon of Saint Januarius. 
 
 The next day it was announced in all the three 
 newspapers of Naples that Admiral Bonnacorri, Duke 
 of Saint-Ferdinand, had discovered in the Mediter- 
 ranean an island, forty-five miles in circumference, 
 inhabited by a people who spoke an unknown lan- 
 guage, the king of which had offered to the admiral 
 the hand of his only daughter. Each journal also 
 contained a sonnet to the glory of the adventurous 
 navigator. The first compared him to Yasco di 
 Gama, the second to Christopher Columbus, the 
 third to Amerigo Vespucci. 
 
 The next day the British ambassador went to ask
 
 THE SPERONARA 125 
 
 explanations from the minister of the Neapolitan 
 navy touching rumours injurious to the honour of 
 Great Britain as to the destruction of an English 
 vessel which Admiral Bonnacorri claimed to have 
 sunk. The minister of the navy replied that he 
 certainly had heard some vague rumour of that kind, 
 but he was not aware, so far, whether it was the 
 English or the Neapolitan vessel that was sunk. 
 Far from being satisfied with this explanation, the 
 British ambassador asserted that his nation had 
 been insulted by the mere idea that an English vessel 
 could be sunk by any vessel whatsoever, and he de- 
 manded his passports. The minister of the navy 
 referred the matter to the King of Naples, who 
 ordered him to sign all the passports the ambassador 
 desired, and he commanded that his own ambassador 
 in London should be ordered to quit the capital of 
 Great Britain at once. 
 
 Meantime the British government followed up the 
 taking possession of the Julia Island with its usual 
 activity. It was the very stopping-place they had 
 wanted so long on the way from Gibraltar to Malta. 
 An old lieutenant who had lost a leg at Aboukir 
 and who for some time past had been soliciting a 
 reward of any kind from the Lords of the Admiralty, 
 was appointed governor of the Julia Island, and 
 received orders to embark im mediately for his govern- 
 ment. The worthy sailor sold a little family estate 
 he had inherited from his ancestors, bought the 
 articles of chief necessity for colonization, went 
 aboard his frigate, the " Dart," with his wife and 
 two daughters, doubled Cape Bretagne, sailed down
 
 126 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 the Bay of Biscay, passed through the Straits of 
 Gibraltar, entered the Mediterranean, called at 
 Pantellaria, arrived at latitude 38, and looked about 
 him. He sa\v no Julia Island Julia Island had 
 disappeared, and it is certain that never, oh ! never 
 more, has any one heard tell of it. 
 
 The two belligerent powers who had both made 
 warlike preparations continued to show their teeth 
 at each other for some eighteen months ; then their 
 snarling grin degenerated into a stiff' smile, until at 
 last they embraced each other, and all was over. 
 
 Let us leave the Julia Island, or the Isola San 
 Ferdinando, whichever they choose to call it, and 
 return to /Etna, which may very well be suspected of 
 being the author of this bad joke that came so near 
 upsetting the tranquillity of Europe. 
 
 The word "/Etna" is, according to the learned, a 
 Phoenician word, signifying the mount of the furnace . 
 The Phoenician language was, it will be seen, in the 
 style of that which Covielle spoke to the Bourgeois 
 Gentilhomme expressive of much in few letters. 
 Many poets of antiquity declare that the mountain 
 was the place where Deucalion and Pyrrha took 
 refuge during the flood of the universe. On that 
 ground, Signore Gemcllaro, who was born at Nicolosi, 
 can undoubtedly claim the honour of Ixnng descended 
 in direct line from one of the first stones they threw 
 behind them. That leaves the Kohans, the Mont- 
 morencys, and the Noailles at an illimitable distance. 
 
 Homer speaks of /Etna, but without describing 
 it as a volcano. Pindar calls it a pillar of heaven. 
 Thucydides mentions three explosions after the ar-
 
 THE SPERONARA 127 
 
 rival of the Hellenic colonies that came before the 
 one in which he lived. There were two eruptions 
 at the period of the Dionysiuses ; after that, they 
 succeeded one another so rapidly that none but the 
 violent ones were counted. 1 
 
 Since the eruption of 1781, yEtna has had, now 
 and then, a little notion of upsetting Sicily, but as 
 these whims have had no serious result it is permis- 
 sible to suppose that what she has done in that 
 way was solely out of self-respect and to preserve 
 her position as a volcano. 
 
 Of all these eruptions the most terrible was that 
 of 1669. As this eruption issued from Monte-Rosso 
 which is only half a mile from Nicolosi, Jadin and 
 I started to see the crater, after promising Signore 
 Gemellaro to dine with him. 
 
 It should be distinctly understood that yEtna con- 
 siders herself too far above all other volcanoes to 
 proceed as they do. Vesuvius, Stromboli, and even 
 llecla pour the lava from the top of their craters, 
 as wine overflows too full a glass. yEtna does not 
 give herself that trouble. Her crater is merely a 
 .show crater, a crater of ceremony, which contents 
 itself by playing cup-and-ball with incandescent 
 rocks as large as ordinary houses, which the eve can 
 follow in their aerial ascension as it follows the flight 
 of shells from a mortar ; but during that exhibition 
 the real eruption is going on elsewhere. When .Etna 
 
 1 The chief eruptions of ./Etna were in 662 B. c., and, for the 
 Christian era, in the years -2-25, 120, 812, 1169, 12S.i, 1329, 131*3, 
 UOS, 1444, 1446, 1147, 1336, 1603, 1607, 110, 1614, 1619, 10*34, 
 1669, 168-2, 1688, 1689, 1702, 1766, and 1781.
 
 128 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 is in travail there rises on her back, in one spot or 
 another, a species of boil about the size of Mont- 
 martre ; then the boil bursts, and a river of lava pours 
 down following the slope, burning or overthrow- 
 ing everything on its way until it ends in the sea. 
 This method of proceeding is the reason why JEinn is 
 covered with a quantity of little crater-cones that 
 look like huge hay-cocks; each of these secondary 
 volcanoes has its name and its own particular date, 
 and all have made in their time more or less noise, 
 and done more or less damage. 
 
 The Monte-Rosso is in the first rank of this secon- 
 dary aristocracy ; it would be considered, in any 
 neighbourhood but that of the Andes, the Cordilleras, 
 and the Alps, a very pretty little mountain, of an 
 altitude of 900 feet ; that is to say, three times the 
 height of the towers of Notre- Dame. This volcano 
 owes its name to the terrous scoriae of which it is 
 formed ; the ascent is easy, and a climb of half an 
 hour brings one to the crater. This is a sjxxnes of 
 well, divided at the bottom like a salt-cellar, which 
 at the present time has a good-natured air of perfect 
 tranquillity. Although there is no path into it, 
 persons can, if necessary, be lowered down bv ropes ; 
 its depth is about 200 feet, its circumference five or 
 six hundred. 
 
 This was the mouth, now mute and cold, from which 
 there issued, in 1GC9, such a rain of stones and ashes 
 that the sun was, literally, obscured for three months, 
 and the wind blew the ashes to Malta. The violence 
 of the evacuation was such that a rock fifty feet long 
 was flunr to a distance of one thousand feet from the
 
 THE SPERONARA 129 
 
 crater whence it came, where it plunged into the 
 ground to a depth of twenty-five feet. Then the 
 lava followed the rock, rose boiling to the orifice, 
 overflowed on the southern slope, and leaving Nicolosi 
 to right and Boriello to left, bagan to flow, not as a 
 torrent but as a river of fire, covering with its burning 
 current the villages of Campo-Rotondo, San Pietro, 
 and Gigganeo, till it threw itself into the harbour of 
 Catania, driving before it a portion of the town. 
 There a terrible struggle between fire and water 
 began ; the sea, forced back, at first gave way and 
 recoiled three-quarters of a mile disclosing its depths 
 to the human eye. Ships were burned in port, large 
 fish floated dead upon the surface of the water. 
 Then, as if furious at its defeat, the sea returned to 
 attack the lava. The struggle lasted fifteen days ; 
 finally, the vanquished lava stopped, and from its 
 molten state passed to a solid one. Fifteen days 
 longer the sea boiled still, stiffening the new shore it 
 was forced to accept ; then, little by little, the ebulli- 
 tion ceased. But the entire region was devastated ; 
 three villages were annihilated, Catania was three- 
 fourths destroyed, and its port more than half filled up. 
 From the top of Monte-Rosso, or rather the Monti- 
 Rossi, for the mountain divides into two summits 
 like Vesuvius, one sees the whole of this flow of lava, 
 five leagues long and at places three leagues wide, 
 which two centuries have been unable to cover with 
 more than two inches of earth. From the point 
 where I stood, to right, to left, before and behind 
 me, within the circumference mv eve could take in, I 
 counted twentv-six mountains, all produced bv vol-
 
 130 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 canic eruptions and similar in form and height to the 
 one on which I was. 
 
 In turning my eyes around me I observed at the 
 foot of another extinct volcano, the remains of the 
 famous convent of San Nicola il Vecchio ; on our way 
 down from the Monti Rossi we visited its ruins. It 
 was built, according to Farello, by Count Simon, 
 grandson of the Norman Roger, the most popular 
 conqueror of Sicily, known to this day by every peas- 
 ant as the " Comte Ruggiero." Some savants insist 
 that the monastery stands on the site of the ancient 
 city of Inessa ; others declare that the said ancient 
 city stood on the opposite slope of y'Etna; volumes on 
 the subject have been exchanged between the erudites 
 of Catania, Taormina, and Messina, with the result 
 that the facts are more obscure than before ; each 
 and all having such excellent proofs for their own 
 opinion. On my return to Catania one of them 
 asked me what was thought on the subject by the 
 Academy of Sciences in Paris. I replied that the 
 Academy of Sciences, after pondering this grave 
 question for some time, had recognized the fact that 
 two cities of Inessa must have existed, built in 
 rivalry to each other; one by the Naxians on the 
 southern slope of yEtna, the other by the Siccans on 
 the northern slope. The savant struck his brow as 
 though he felt illuminated by a sudden idea, ran to 
 his desk, took a pen, and l>egan a volume which, as 
 I have since been told, throws a flood of light on this 
 important question. 
 
 This monastery, where, according to the intentions 
 of its pious founder, the Benedictines were condemned
 
 THE SPERONARA 131 
 
 to live exposed to the ravages of the volcano which 
 their prayers ought to have exorcised, is little more 
 than a ruin. The parts best preserved are the chapel 
 and the famous hall where Count Weder, a second 
 Faust, was present at the saturnalia of Gaetano-Meph- 
 istopheles. A plateau which overhangs the monastery 
 is nothing else than a mass of black lava rent into 
 deep gulfs, from the upper part of which we could 
 look down upon an amphitheatre of extinct craters. 
 
 After inspecting the ruins of this doubly interest- 
 ing monastery we descended to dine, at half-past four 
 o'clock, with our excellent host Gemellaro, and with 
 all the more alacrity because our morning meal had 
 well prepared us for a second. We found the table 
 laid, having hit upon the rare and fleeting moment 
 when no one waits or causes others to do so. 
 
 Signore Gemellaro is one of those learned men in 
 whom I delight ; learned experimenters, who detest 
 all theories and talk only of what they have seen. 
 During dinner the conversation rolled, of course, 
 upon the mountain of our host. I say hi* mountain, 
 for he is well convinced that /Etna belongs to him, 
 and he would be much astonished if the King of the 
 Two Sicilies set up a counter claim. After /Etna, 
 that which Signore Gemellaro thinks grandest and 
 finest is Napoleon, that other extinct volcano, which, 
 during an eruption of fourteen years, caused such 
 earthquakes under thrones and empires. His dream 
 was to possess a complete collection of all the engrav- 
 ings made upon his hero. I distressed him bv telling 
 him there were enough to load four vessels, and that 
 the crater of Monte-Rosso could not contain them.
 
 132 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 After dinner our host inquired into the prcpara-j 
 tions we had made for ascending .<Etna. We toid 
 him they were limited to a bottle of rum and the 
 roasting of two or three chickens. Signorc Gemellaro 
 then cast his eyes on our costumes, and observing 
 Jadin with a woollen shirt and me with a linen jacket, 
 he asked us, shivering, if we had neither cloaks nor 
 overcoats. We told him that for the moment we 
 possessed absolutely nothing but what was on our 
 backs. " True Frenchmen ! " he muttered, rising. 
 " No German or Englishman would start in that way. 
 Wait, wait ! " And he fetched us two heavy over- 
 coats with hoods, like our military greatcoats, assur- 
 ing us that we should not be a couple of miles above 
 Nicolosi before we did homage to his foresight. 
 
 Our talk lasted till nine at night, when the guide 
 came round with our mules. We asked him if he 
 had succeeded in procuring provisions. He showed 
 us four of those miserable fowls that exist only in 
 Italy ; all four were not worth a good tame pigeon. 
 He had also bought two bottles of wine, bread, grapes, 
 and pears ; with that, he said, any one could make 
 the tour of the world. 
 
 We mounted our animals and set out into a night 
 that seemed to as, coming from a lighted room, to 
 be frightfully dark ; but, little by little, we lx?gan to 
 distinguish the landscape, thanks to the myriad of 
 stars that strewed the sky. At first we felt, by 
 the way our mules sank l>eneath us, that we were 
 crossing sand. Soon we reached the second region, 
 that of forests, if indeed a few sparse, sick) v, stunled 
 tree.* deserved that name. We rode through it for
 
 THE SPERONARA 133 
 
 nearly two hours, following with confidence the path 
 our guide, or rather our mules, had taken ; a path 
 which, to judge by its eternal ups and downs, seemed 
 frightfully rugged. Already, for more than an hour, 
 we had felt the j ustice of Signore Gemellaro's predic- 
 tions with regard to cold, so that when we arrived at 
 a species of hut without a roof, where our mules 
 stopped of themselves, we put on our hooded coats. 
 This hut was called the " Casa del Bosco 11 or "del la 
 Neve, 11 - house of the Wood or the Snow, names 
 that suit it successively, summer and winter. This, 
 said our guide, was our halting-place. \Ve were now 
 half-way up the path to the Casa Inglese, only we 
 had, as the peasants say, eaten our white bread first. 
 
 The Casa della Neve was a prelude to the desola- 
 tion that awaited us higher up. Without roof, with- 
 out shutters, without doors, it offered no shelter but 
 its four walls. Fortunately, our guide had supplied 
 himself with a little axe ; he brought us an armful 
 of wood, and with the help of a phosphorus match 
 we kindled a roaring fire. The reader will understand 
 how welcome it was when I tell him that a little 
 pocket thermometer that I carried with me, went 
 down 18 degrees [Reaumur] since leaving Catania. 
 
 Our fire lighted, the guide advised us to go to sleep, 
 and he left us alone to attend to his mules. We 
 tried to follow his advice ; but no ! we were as wide- 
 awake as mice ; it was impossible to close an eye ; 
 but we made up for sleep by several glasses of ruin 
 and a variety of jokes on Parisian friends, who were 
 at that hour snugly biking their tea and little think- 
 ing that Jadin and I were gadding among the forests
 
 134 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 and craters of JEtnu. We remained, sleepless, in the 
 hut till half- past twelve o'clock, at which hour our 
 guide requested us to remount our mules. 
 
 During our halt the heavens were enriched with a 
 crescent moon ; slim as it was it cast a little light ; 
 the trees were becoming fewer and fewer, until they 
 ceased altogether. We were now entering the third 
 region, and we could feel by the feet of our mules 
 when they trod on lava, when they crossed ashes, or 
 when they were trampling a species of moss, the only 
 vegetation that grows at that height. As for eyes, 
 they were of little or no utility ; the ground appeared 
 to them more or less coloured, and that was all ; we 
 were quite unable in such obscurity to distinguish 
 details. 
 
 The higher we went, the more intense became the 
 cold, and in spite of our coats and hoods we were 
 fro/en. This change of temperature had suspended 
 conversation ; each of us, concentrated within him- 
 self as if to preserve what warmth he had, rode on 
 silently. I went first, and though I could not see 
 the ground on which we advanced, I could perfectly 
 distinguish on our right gigantic escarpments and 
 vast peaks rising like giants, their black forms 
 defined upon the indigo sky. The farther we ad- 
 vanced, the more these apparitions took a weird, 
 phantasmal aspect ; one felt that Nature had never 
 made these mountains thus; but that some long and 
 mighty struggle had despoiled them. We were 
 crossing the battle-field of Titans; we were climb- 
 ing Pel ion piled on Ossa. 
 
 It was all terrible, sombre, majestic ; I saw and felt
 
 THE SPERONARA 135 
 
 the j)oesy of this nocturnal journey, but I was so cold 
 that I had no courage to exchange a word with Jadin 
 to ask him if these visions were the effect of torpor, 
 or whether I was dreaming. From time to time 
 strange mysterious noises, resembling no noises that 
 I had ever heard, came from the bowels of the earth, 
 which seemed to moan and groan like a living being. 
 These noises had something unexpected, lugubrious, 
 and solemn that made one shiver. Often, at the 
 sound, the mules would stop and stoop their smok- 
 ing nostrils to the soil, then, raising their heads, 
 neigh sadly, as if they wanted to make it known they 
 comprehended that great voice of the Solitude, and 
 that it was not of their own will they had come there 
 to trouble its mysteries. 
 
 Ever as we rose, minute by minute the cold be- 
 came more intense; scarcely had I strength to lift 
 my flask of rum to my lips. Moreover, that opera- 
 tion was followed by another more difficult still 
 that of corking the flask ; my hands were so fro/en 
 that they had no sensation of the things they 
 touched, and my feet were so heavy they seemed 
 to have an iron weight attached to each leg. At 
 last, feeling that I was stiffening into torpidity more 
 and more, I made an effort over myself, stopped my 
 mule, and dismounted. While doing this, Jadin 
 passed me on his animal. I asked him if he did 
 not want to do likewise ; he shook his head in sign 
 of refusal and rode on. At first it was impossible to 
 walk ; I seemed to be setting my naked feet on mil- 
 lions of pins and needles. The idea occurred to me 
 to use my mule, and I grasped his tail. But he was
 
 136 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 too well satisfied at having got rid of me not to pre- 
 serve his independence if he could. Hardly had he 
 felt the contact of my hand when he flung out his 
 two hind-legs ; one of them struck me in the thigh 
 and threw me ten feet back. My guide ran to help 
 me and lifted me up. 
 
 Nothing was broken ; moreover, the commotion 
 had put my blood in circulation ; I felt almost no 
 pain, although my fall showed that the blow had 
 been violent. I began to walk and I felt much 
 better. A hundred steps farther on I found .lad in 
 waiting for me. My mule, which had joined his 
 without me or the guide, told him that an acci- 
 dent of some kind had happened. I reassured him, 
 and we went on, I on foot. It was now two o'clock 
 in the morning. The sombre arch of the sky was 
 beginning to pale ; a faint dawn lighted the ground 
 on which we trod, bringing with it a more glacial air 
 than that we had hitherto breathed. In this pallid, 
 lustreless light we presently saw before us something 
 that looked like a house; we approached it, Jadin 
 on his mule at a trot, and I running as best I could. 
 The guide pushed open a door, and we entered the 
 Casa Inglese, built at the foot of the cone for the 
 comfort of travellers. 
 
 My first cry was for fire ; it was one of those in- 
 stinctive desires which are easier to form than to 
 see accomplished ; the upper limits of the forest are 
 six long miles from the Casa, and in its neighlxnir- 
 hood all lava, ashes and snow not a blade of 
 grass, not a plant can grow. The guide lighted a 
 lamp that he found in a corner, closed the door as
 
 THE SPERONARA 137 
 
 hermetically as possible, and told us to warm our- 
 selves as best we could by wrapping our hooded coats 
 about us and eating something, while he took the 
 mules to the stable. 
 
 As, all things considered, the wisest thing to do 
 was to get out of the state of torpor in which 
 we were, we began to tramp up and down as well as 
 we could. Within the house the thermometer was 
 six degrees below zero [Reaumur], a difference of 41 
 degrees from the temperature of Catania. 
 
 Our guide returned, bringing a handful of straw 
 and a few dry branches, which we owed no doubt 
 to the magnificence of some Englishman who had 
 preceded us. It sometimes happens that those 
 worthy insularies, always perfectly well-informed as 
 to the precautions they ought to take, hire an extra 
 mule, and in crossing the forest load it with wood. 
 Little of an Anglomaniac as I am, this is a piece of 
 advice that I give to whosoever intends to make the 
 ascent of ^Etna. A mule costs one piastre, and I 
 know I would gladly have given ten louis for a 
 faggot. 
 
 The sight of the fire, however short its duration, 
 restored our courage. We gathered to it as if to 
 devour it, stretching our feet into the flame; and 
 then, a little thawed, we proceeded to think of 
 breakfast. 
 
 Everything was fro/en, bread, chickens, wine, 
 fruits ; nothing but our rum remained intact. 
 We devoured two of the chickens as if they were 
 larks ; we gave the third to our guide and kept the 
 fourth for hunger to come. As for the fruit, it was
 
 138 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 like biting into ice ; we therefore drank a cup of 
 rum in place of dessert and felt ourselves a little 
 revived. 
 
 It was half past three o'clock in the morning. Our 
 guide reminded us that we had still before us an as- 
 cent of three-quarters of an hour at the very least, 
 and that if we wished to reach the summit of the 
 cone before sunrise there was no time to lose. 
 
 We left the Casa Inglese. Objects were now 
 beginning to be distinguishable ; all around us ex- 
 tended a vast plain of snow, in the middle of which, 
 sloping at an angle of 45 degrees or about that, 
 rose the cone of ./Etna. Below us all was darkness ; 
 in the east alone, the faintest tint of opal coloured 
 the sky, on which were vigorously defined the moun- 
 tains of Calabria. 
 
 At a hundred steps beyond the Casa we found the 
 first billows of a plain of lava, its jet black tones 
 contrasting with the snow in the midst of which it 
 lay like a sombre island. We were forced to mount 
 its solid waves, clambering from one to another as I 
 had already done at Chamounix upon the Mer de 
 Glace, with this difference, that the sharp spines of 
 the lava cut the leather of our boots and wounded 
 our feet. This crossing, which lasted a quarter of 
 an hour, was one of the most painful incidents of the 
 trip. 
 
 At last we reached the foot of the cone, which, 
 though it rises thirteen hundred feet from the plateau 
 on which we stood, was entirely free of snow, either 
 iK'cause its slope is too rapid for the snow to remain, 
 or Ix'causc its inward (ires will not allow a flake upon
 
 THE SPERONARA 139 
 
 its surface. This is the cone, eternally in motion, 
 that changes its shape with every new eruption, 
 burying that shape in the old crater, and re-forming 
 itself with another. 
 
 We began to climb this new mountain, wholly 
 composed of friable earth, mingled with stones 
 which loosened beneath our feet and rolled away 
 behind us. At certain places the pitch was so steep 
 that we could touch with our hands the slope above 
 us without stooping ; and as we rose, the air rarefied 
 and became at every moment less and less breath- 
 able. I remembered all that Balmat had told me 
 of his first ascension of Mont Ulanc, and I began to 
 feel precisely the same effects. Though we were 
 already nearly a thousand feet above the line of 
 eternal snows and had still eight hundred feet to 
 climb, the hooded coat I had upon my shoulders 
 became unbearable, and I felt it was impossible to 
 carry it a moment longer; it weighed upon me like 
 one of those leaden copes that Dante saw in hell's 
 sixth circle crushing the shoulders of hypocrites. I 
 therefore left it on the path, not having the courage 
 to carry it farther, and told the guide to pick it up 
 as we repassed. Soon it was the same with the 
 stick I held in my hand and the hat I wore on 
 my head. I abandoned the two articles successively, 
 and they rolled to the foot of the cone, where they 
 were stopped by the sea of lava, so steep was the 
 descent. I saw Jadin in his turn getting rid of all 
 the superfluities of his equipment, and stopping at 
 every hundred feet to recover his breath. 
 
 We were only a third of the way up ; we had taken
 
 140 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 nearly half an hour to climb four hundred feet ; the 
 eastern sky grew lighter and lighter ; the fear of 
 not arriving at the summit of the cone in time for 
 the sunrise spurred our courage, and we started with 
 fresh vigour, not pausing to look about us at the 
 vast horizon that enlarged at every step around our 
 feet. But the farther we advanced, the more the 
 difficulties increased ; the slope became more rapid, 
 the ground more friable, the air more rarefied. Soon 
 we began to hear, on our right, subterranean roars 
 that forced themselves on our attention ; our guide 
 walked in advance, and led us to a fissure from which 
 a great noise issued, and, driven by some inward 
 current of air, a thick, sulphureous smoke. Ap- 
 proaching the edge of this cleft we saw, at a depth 
 we could not measure, an incandescent red and 
 liquid bottom. Fortunately the wind did not send 
 the smoke in our direction, or we should have been 
 asphvxiated, so horrible an odour of sulphur came 
 with it. 
 
 After a halt of some minutes on the edge of this 
 furnace, we started again, going up diagonally for 
 greater ease. My head began to beat and ring, as 
 though the blood were coming out of my ears, and 
 the air, that grew less and less breathable, made me 
 pant as if my breath would fail me altogether. I 
 wished to lie down and rest a moment, but the earth 
 exhaled such an odour of sulphur that I could not 
 do so. I then bethought me of binding my cravat 
 across my mouth and breathing through its texture ; 
 that, relieved me. 
 
 At last, little by little, we arrived at three-quarters
 
 THE SPERONARA 141 
 
 of the ascent, and we saw at a few hundred steps 
 above us the summit of the mountain. Then we 
 made a final effort and, half upright and partly on 
 all-fours, we clambered that short distance, not 
 daring to look below us for fear our heads should 
 turn giddy, so steep was the fall of the ground. At 
 last Jadin, who was a few steps in advance of me, 
 uttered a cry of triumph ; he was there ! he stood 
 in front of the crater, and a few seconds later I was 
 beside him. We found ourselves literally between 
 two abysses. 
 
 Once there, and needing no longer to make violent 
 motions, we began to breathe with more facility ; 
 besides which, the spectacle before our eyes was so 
 striking that our discomforts disappeared, great as 
 they were. 
 
 We stood in front of the crater, that is to say, of 
 an immense pit, eight miles in circumference and 
 nine hundred feet deep ; the walls of this vast ex- 
 cavation being covered from top to bottom with 
 scarified substances of sulphur and alum. At the 
 bottom, so far as we could see from the distance at 
 which we stood, there was some substance then in 
 ebullition, and from the monstrous abyss rose a 
 slender, tortuous smoke like a gigantic snake stand- 
 ing erect on its tail. The edges of the crater were 
 scooped out irregularly and more or less elevated. 
 We stood on one of its highest points. 
 
 Our guide left us for a moment to contemplate 
 that spectacle in silence, merely catching us from 
 time to time by our jackets when we went too near 
 the edge ; for the stone is so friable that it mi<rht
 
 142 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 easily give way beneath our feet and renew the old 
 story of Empedocles ; then he asked us to stand at 
 some twenty feet distance from the crater to avoid 
 all risk of accident, and to look about us. 
 
 The east, which had passed from the opal tints 
 we had seen at the Casa Inglese to a tender rose, 
 was now suffused with the flames of the sun, whose 
 disk was beginning to rise beyond the mountains of 
 Calabria. On the flanks of those mountains, of a 
 dark and uniform blue, the villages and towns 
 detached themselves like small white spots. The 
 Straits of Messina seemed a little river, while to 
 right and left the seas stretched away like mirrors. 
 To left the mirror was dotted with black specks ; 
 these specks were the islands of the Liparian archi- 
 pelago. From time to time one of them shone out 
 like an intermittent lighthouse; it was Stromboli, 
 casting its flame. To the west, all was still dark. 
 The shadow of vEtna was thrown across the whole of 
 western Sicily. 
 
 / 
 
 During three-quarters of an hour the sight grew 
 more and more magnificent. I have seen the sunrise 
 from the Ilighi and the Faulhorn, those titans of 
 Switzerland ; but nothing is comparable to what is 
 seen from /Etna : before us, Calabria from the l'i//o to 
 Cape DelTArmi, the Straits from Scylla to Reggio, 
 the Tyrrhenian Sea, and the Ionian Sea ; to left, the 
 isles of Eolus, that seem within reach of one's hand ; 
 to right, Malta, floating on the horizon like a semi- 
 transparent mist ; around us, all Sicily, seen as the 
 bird sees it, with its shores dentelled by capes, prom- 
 ontories, ports, bays, roadsteads ; its fifteen cities,
 
 TUP: SPERONARA 143 
 
 its three hundred villages ; its mountains that look 
 like hillocks, its valleys like the furrow of a plough- 
 share ; its rivers, threads of silver through the 
 meads ; and last, the crater, immense, bellowing, 
 filled with flames and smoke ; above its head the 
 heavens, and hell beneath its feet : such a sight 
 made us forget all fatigue, danger, suffering. I 
 admired wholly, without restriction, in perfect faith, 
 with the eyes of the body and the eyes of the soul. 
 Never had I seen God so near and, consequently, so 
 great. 
 
 We stayed an hour thus, surveying the entire old 
 world of Homer, Virgil, Ovid, and Theocritus, with- 
 out the idea occurring to either Jadin or myself to 
 touch a pencil, so much did we feel that the scene 
 entered deeply into our hearts and would remain 
 engraved there without the help of sketch or writing. 
 Then we cast a last look on that horizon of fifteen 
 hundred miles, which is seen but once in a lifetime, 
 and began the descent. 
 
 Except for the danger of rolling from the top to 
 the bottom of the cone, the difficulty of descending 
 is not comparable to that of the ascent. In ten 
 minutes we were on the lava island, and a quarter of 
 an hour later at the Casa Inglese. The cold, though 
 stinging, had ceased to be painful ; we entered the 
 house to arrange ourselves a little, for our toilet, 
 as I have said, had undergone a variety of modifi- 
 cations during the ascent. 
 
 This P'nglish house, which the ingratitude of 
 travellers will end by reducing to the condition of 
 the ("asa della Neve, is still a precious gift, although
 
 144 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 an indirect one, of the scientific philanthropy of our 
 excellent host, Signore Gemellaro. He was scarcely 
 twenty years of age before he saw of what incalcu- 
 lable benefit to persons ascending for meteorological 
 experiments would be a house where they could rest 
 during the fatigue of ascension, and get relief from 
 the excessive cold that renders the region uninhabit- 
 able. As a result, he addressed his co-citizens, by 
 voice and in writing, ten several times, trying to 
 obtain from them a voluntary subscription ; but his 
 efforts had no success. 
 
 About this time a little inheritance came to him ; 
 he then resolved to have recourse to no one; and he 
 built with his own money a little house, which he left 
 open gratuitously for travellers. This house was 
 situated, by his calculation and that of his brother, 
 at a height of 9219 feet above sea-level. A grateful 
 traveller wrote upon its door these words : 
 
 Casa hire quantula Etnam perlustrantibus grutln- 
 sima. 
 
 The house was thenceforth called La Gratissima. 
 
 But in building La Gratissima, Signore Gemellaro 
 had done only as much as his individual means 
 enabled him to do; that is, he had given a shelter 
 for scientific men. That was not enough, he thought ; 
 he wished to supply means of study to such men 
 by furnishing all the instruments necessary for the 
 meteorological observations that they came from all 
 parts of the world to make. This was at the period 
 when the English occupied Sicily. Signore Gomel - 
 laro applied to Lord Forbes, the general of the 
 British armv.
 
 THE SPERONAUA 145 
 
 Lord Forbes not only adopted GemellarcTs plan, 
 but he resolved to give it an even broader develop- 
 ment. He opened a subscription, at the head of 
 which he put his own name for 71,000 francs. The 
 subscription thus headed soon amounted to the 
 desired sum, and Lord Forbes built, close beside 
 the little house of Gemellaro, called for the last 
 seven years La Gratissima, a building of three 
 rooms, two studies, and a stable for sixteen horses. 
 This was the house, a palace compared to its puny 
 neighbour, which was called, after its founders, the 
 Casa Inglese. At the present time La Gratissima is 
 in ruins, and the English house, dilapidated more 
 and more by passing travellers, threatens soon to 
 offer them nothing better than the shelter of four 
 walls. 1 
 
 After a short halt of a quarter of an hour to dis- 
 pose of our last chicken and the rest of our bread, we 
 left the Casa Inglese and came out upon the plateau 
 called, in derision no doubt, the plain del Frumento 
 [wheat]. It was entirely covered with snow, although 
 this was the hottest time of year. We turned aside 
 to the left to see the valley del Bore ; at every step 
 we made in the virgin snow we sank six inches at 
 the least. 
 
 The valley del Bore would make a magnificent 
 decoration for hell in the " Diablo Amoureux " or 
 " La Tentation." I have never seen anything more 
 gloomy, more desolate, than this gigantic precipice, 
 
 1 It was repaired on the occasion of a visit from Kin? Uni- 
 berto, and is now kept up by the Italian Alpine Club. An 
 observatory has been built beside it. - TK. 
 
 10
 
 146 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 with its cascades of jet-black lava, congealed in their 
 course down the incandescent earth. Not a tree, not 
 an herb, not a moss, not a living thing ; a total 
 absence of noise, movement, and life itself. To the 
 three regions dividing .'Etna there should certainly 
 be added a fourth more terrible than the rest that 
 of fire. In the depths of the valley del Bove, we 
 saw, three or four thousand feet below us, two 
 extinct volcanoes opening their twin jaws. They 
 looked to us like molehills, but they were really 
 mountains 1500 feet high. 
 
 It needed all the insistence of our guide to tear us 
 from this spectacle ; the assurance that we had 
 thirty miles to do in returning to Catania had little 
 or no effect upon us. There was Catania beneath 
 our feet ; we could almost touch it ; how could there 
 be those thirty miles the guide talked of? 
 
 We mounted our mules, however, and started. Four 
 hours later we were again with Signore Gemellaro ; we 
 had quitted him with a feeling of friendship, we 
 returned to him with feelings of gratitude. And 
 yet he is one of the men whom governments for- 
 get ; no recollection of his merit seeks him out, no 
 favours reward him. Signore Gemellaro is not even 
 a correspondent of the Institute ! It is true that 
 this good and dear Gemellaro is neither the better 
 nor the worse for that. 
 
 We reached Catania at eleven at night, and the 
 next day, by five in the morning, we were once 
 more on board our speronara and setting sail for 
 Siracusa.
 
 VI 
 
 SIRACUSA 
 
 OUR return was joy to the whole ship's com- 
 pany. Apart from the kick of the mule, from 
 which, it is true, I still felt a rather sharp pain, the 
 journey had ended without accident. Each sailor 
 kissed our hands as if, like ^Eneas, we returned from 
 hell. As for Milord, who since the affair of the 
 optician's cat had been as much as possible imprisoned 
 on board in charge of his two friends, Pietro and 
 Giovanni, his joy was unbounded. 
 
 The weather was magnificent. Since our great 
 tempest not a cloud was in the sky ; the wind, com- 
 ing from Calabria pushed us gently as if by its hand. 
 The coast we were hugging was peopled with mem- 
 ories. At a league from Catania a few scattered 
 stones still mark the site of ancient Ilybla; after 
 Ilvbla came the Symaethus, which has changed its 
 ancient classic name to that of Giaretta. Formerly, 
 so say the ancients, the Symsvthus was navigable ; 
 to-day it bears not the tiniest little boat. In ex- 
 change, its waters, receiving the sulphureous oils, the 
 naphtha jets, and the petroleum of /Etna, have the 
 faculty of condensing that bituminous liquid, thus 
 enriching its mouth with a beautiful yellow amber, 
 which the peasants collect and take to Catania, where 
 it is carved.
 
 148 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 Next, we came within sight of the lake Pergusa, 
 where, as Ovid tells us, the swans are not seen to 
 glide, a tranquil, transparent, meditative lake, veiled 
 by a curtain of forests and reflecting on its bosom 
 the flowers of an eternal springtide. It was on its 
 bank that Persephone was playing with her young 
 companions, filling her basket with iris, violets, and 
 heartVease, when she was seen, beloved, and kid- 
 napped by Pluto, while she, a chaste and innocent 
 young girl, tearing her robe in her excess of sorrow, 
 wept as many tears for her lost flowers as for her 
 threatened virginity. 
 
 After the lake, came the fields of the Lsrstrigoni- 
 ans ; next Lentini, the ancient Lcontinoi, where the 
 inhabitants preserved the lion's skin given them by 
 Heracles, as their device, when he founded their 
 city ; then Augusta, built on the site of ancient 
 Megara, Augusta, of bloody, infamous memory, 
 which cut the throats of three hundred blind soldiers 
 returning from Egypt in 1799 ; then last, after 
 Megara, we came to Thapsus, couchant in the sea : 
 
 44 Pantagise, Megarosque sinus, Thapsumquc jacentem." 
 
 As we pursued our voyage we were struck with 
 the change of aspect of the coast. Instead of fertile 
 fields gently sloping to the sea and covered with 
 reeds that supplied a flute to Polyphemus and a 
 shelter to the loves of Acis and Galatea, rose great 
 cliffs from which flew thousands of pigeons as we 
 passed them. Towards four in the afternoon a reef 
 surmounted by a cross reminded passers of the wreck 
 of certain vessels. At last, rounding the cape of
 
 THE SPERONAHA 149 
 
 Santa Panagia, we saw the first lines of the walls 
 of Siraeusa and we entered her port to the noise of a 
 school of drummer-boys doing their exercise. That 
 was the first disillusion provided for us by the 
 daughter of Archias the Corinthian. 
 
 Issuing from the island of Ortygia to build upon 
 the mainland Achradina, Tyche, Neapolis, and Olvm- 
 pieum, Siracusa, after seeing the fall into ruins of 
 each of her four daughters has now returned to her 
 primitive cradle. To-day it is simply a town of less 
 than two miles in circumference, containing one 
 hundred and sixteen thousand souls, and surrounded 
 by walls, bastions, and courtines, built by Charles V. 
 In the days of Strabo it had a hundred and twenty 
 thousand inhabitants, about as many as the modern 
 city, with a circumference of one hundred and eighty 
 stadia 60 miles. Then, as its population increased 
 and its walls and its five towns could no longer 
 contain it, it founded A era 1 , Casmena?, Camarina, and 
 Henna. 
 
 In the days of Cicero, fallen as he found it from 
 its ancient prosperity, here is what it still was to his 
 eyes : 
 
 " Siracusa is built in a situation at once strong and 
 pleasant. The town can be reached easily from all 
 sides, whether by land or sea ; her harbours, inclosed 
 as it were, in the circle of her walls, have many en- 
 trances, but these harbours are all connected with 
 one another. A part separated by this junction 
 forms an island : this island is inclosed in the city, 
 which is so vast that we may really say it is one city, 
 but composed of four large towns. On the island is
 
 150 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 the palace of Achron, which the money-lenders use : 
 here also rise, among other temples, those of Diana 
 and Minerva, which are the most remarkable. At the 
 extremity of this island is a spring of water, named 
 Arethusa, of surprising si/.e, rich in fish, which would 
 be invaded by the sea without a dike that protects it. 
 The second city is Achradina, where is a great public 
 square, with beautiful porticos, a prvtaneum rich in 
 ornament, a very large edifice that serves as a place 
 of meeting in which to tre.it of public affairs, and a 
 magnificent temple dedicated to Jupiter Olympius. 
 The third city is Tyche; it received its name from a 
 temple of Fortune that formerly existed. It incloses 
 a very vast space for exercises of the body, and several 
 temples. This quarter of Siracusa is very populous. 
 Finally, the fourth city is named Neapolis. At the 
 upper part of this city is a very large theatre ; besides 
 which, it possesses two noble temples, the temple of 
 Ceres and the temple of Proserpine ; one may also 
 remark there a statue of Apollo that is very fine." 1 
 
 That was the Siracusa of Cicero, such as the wars 
 of Athens, Carthage, and Rome had made her; such 
 as the depredations of Verres had left her. But the 
 old Siracusa, the Siracusa of Iliero and Dionvsius, 
 the veritable Pentapolis, was very differently beauti- 
 ful, very differently rich, very differently splendid. 
 That city had a circumference of twenty-four miles; 
 she had a population of one million two hundred 
 thousand inhabitants, whose excessive wealth became 
 proverbial, so that it was said of any man who boasted 
 of his wealth : " He has not a tithe of that possessed 
 by a Siracusan."
 
 THE SPERONARA 151 
 
 Siracusa, that Sinicusa, had an army of one hundred 
 thousand men and ten thousand horses distributed 
 within her walls; she had six hundred vessels plou^h- 
 in^ the seas from the straits of Gades to Tyre, and 
 from Cartilage to Marseilles. She had three harbours 
 open to all the navies of the world : Trogilus, over- 
 looked by the walls of Aehradina, which was skirted 
 by the road leading from Ortvgia to Catania; the 
 Great Harbour, the Slcanum aitms of Virgil, which 
 contained one hundred and twenty vessels ; the Little 
 Harbour, portiut mamorcus^ which Hiero surrounded 
 with palaces and Dionysius paved; besides which, so 
 that Siracusa might have no cause to envy other cities, 
 she had Athens for rival, Carthage for allv, Home 
 for enemv, Archimedes for defender, Dionysius for 
 ruler, and Timoleon for deliverer. 
 
 At six o'clock we set foot ashore on ()rtv<na. 
 
 . O 
 
 They made us go through endless port formalities, 
 by which we lost a full half-hour, so that once arrived 
 in Siracusa we had time only to look fora hotel, dine, 
 and go to bed, postponing all visits till the morrow. 
 I had a letter to a young man of whom the friend 
 who introduced me said marvels. This was the 
 Conte di Gargallo, son of the Marchese di Gargallo, 
 to whom Naples owes the finest translation of Horace 
 made in Italy. The count was, my friend told me, 
 witty as a Frenchman and hospitable as an old Sira- 
 cusan, praise that seemed to me exaggerated until 
 I saw the count, and inadequate after I knew him. 
 
 At eight in the morning I presented myself at his 
 house. lie was still in bed. They took my friend's 
 letter and my card up to him. lie jumped out of
 
 152 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 bed, ran to me, and held out his hand with such cor- 
 diality that from that moment I felt we were friends 
 forever. lie had never, at this time, been in Paris, 
 yet he spoke French as though he were born and bred 
 in Touraine, and knew our literature as a man who 
 had made a special study of it. At the first words 
 he said, the first gesture he made, he reminded me, 
 in accent, mind, and ways of my dear good Mery, 
 whom he had never seen, and knew only by name. 
 
 The count put his house, carriage, and person at 
 our service. We declined with thanks the first offer 
 and accepted the two others. It was agreed that to 
 give some order to our investigations we should begin 
 with Ortygia, which, as I have said, is now the only 
 Siracusa ; after which we would visit successively the 
 sites of Neapolis, Achradina, Tyche, and Olympieum. 
 
 Our first visit was to the Museum, a modern crea- 
 tion of some twenty-five years 1 standing. Naples has 
 a way of taking all the best it can find in Sicilv ; 
 nevertheless there remains in the Museum a noble 
 statue of vEsculapius, and the famous Venus Callipyge 
 of which Athemrus speaks. The statue of the god- 
 dess seemed to me worthy of its reputation. 
 
 From the Museum we went to the site of the an- 
 cient temple of Artemis, the most ancient Greek 
 building in Siracusa. The city owed a temple to that 
 goddess, for Ortygia belongs to her. She obtained 
 it from Zeus when he divided Sicily between Pallas, 
 Persephone, and herself; and she had given it its 
 name in memory of the wood of Ortygia at Delos, 
 where she was born ; consequently, a festival of three 
 days was held in Siracusa in her honour. It was
 
 THE SPERONARA 153 
 
 during one of these festivals that the Romans, checked 
 for three years by the genius of Archimedes, sei/ed 
 the city. Two Doric columns, encased in a partition 
 wall of the strada Trabochetto, are all that remain 
 of this temple. 
 
 The temple of Pallas, converted into a cathedral 
 in the 12th century, is better preserved than that of 
 her half-sister, and no doubt owes its preservation to 
 the transformation it has undergone ; the columns 
 left standing are Doric, fluted, and projecting on the 
 exterior of the wall that unites them ; they in- 
 cline to one side since the earthquake of 1542. 
 
 I reserved my visit to the fountain of Arethusa 
 for the last. The fountain of Arethusa is, for every 
 poet, an old school friend : Virgil invokes her in his 
 tenth Eclogue, addressed to his friend Gallus. Ovid 
 relates certain things that do the highest honour to 
 the morality of the nymph. It is true that he puts 
 the tale into the mouth of the nymph herself, who, 
 like other writers of memoirs, may have painted her 
 portrait at half-length onlv. However that may be, 
 here is what public rumour says of her : 
 
 Arethusa was one of the most beautiful and bash- 
 ful of the nymphs of Artemis. A huntress, like the 
 daughter of Latona, she passed her time in the 
 woods, chasing the deer, and modestly ashamed of 
 her beauty, which would have been the glory of 
 other women. One day, after hunting a roebuck, 
 she ran out, dishevelled and breathless, from the 
 forest of Styniphale, and saw before her a little 
 stream, so pure, so calm, so gently flowing, that 
 although it was several feet deep its gravelly bottom
 
 154 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 was plainly seen. The nymph was warm ; she began 
 by dabbling her pretty bare feet in the water ; then 
 she went in to her knees ; then, wooed by the soli- 
 tude, she unfastened the hook of her tunic, laid the 
 chaste garment on a willow, and plunged into the 
 brook. But hardly was she there before she felt 
 the water quivering with love and caressing her as 
 though it had a soul. At first Arethusa, certain of 
 being alone, paid little heed to the matter ; but 
 presently, thinking she heard a noise, she ran to the 
 bank ; unfortunately, the shv nvmph was so troubled 
 in mind that, instead of the Ixmk whereon lay her 
 tunic, she mistook the way and landed on the oppo- 
 site shore. She was scarcely there before the hand- 
 some head of a young man rose in the midst of the 
 current ; he shook his damp curls, and said, look- 
 ing at her with loving eyes-. "Where goest thou, 
 Arethusa ? Beautiful Arethusa, where goest thou ? "" 
 Perhaps any other nymph would have paused at 
 that sweet look and that soft voice ; but Arethusa 
 was a timorous virgin, who, accompanying Artemis 
 in the davtime only, had never seen the prudish 
 murderess of Actaeon turn human at night for the 
 handsome shepherd of the Caraiae. So, instead of 
 stopping, she took to flight, all naked and dripping 
 as she was. On his side, Alpheus, that was the 
 young man's name, made but one bound from his 
 stream to the shore and started in pursuit, naked 
 and dripping like herself. Thus they ran, he not 
 catching her, past Orchomene, Psophis, Monte Cyl- 
 Icna, the Krymanthus, and all the countries adjacent 
 to Klis ; bounding through ploughed lands, forests,
 
 THE SPERONARA 155 
 
 over rocks and mountains, the lover not gaining one 
 step upon the nymph. But at last, when evening 
 came, the beauteous fugitive knew but too well that 
 her strength was failing ; soon she heard the steps 
 of the god coming nearer; then, as the sun went 
 down, she saw his shadow touching hers, she felt an 
 ardent breath upon her shoulders. She knew she 
 could run no longer, she must be caught ; and she 
 cried out as she ran : " To me ! to me ! divine hunt- 
 ress ! save me ! Remember me whom thou thought- 
 est worthy to bear thy bow and arrows ! Artemis ! 
 goddess of chastity, have pity upon me!"" 
 
 As she said the words she saw herself wrapped in 
 a cloud. Alpheus, in the act of catching her, lost 
 her from sight. But instead of departing discour- 
 aged, he obstinately remained where he was. So 
 when the cloud dispersed no nymph was there, only 
 a running brook ; Arethusa was metamorphosed into 
 a stream ! 
 
 Then Alpheus became once more a river, a river 
 god, and changed his course to mingle his waters 
 with those of Arethusa. But Artemis, protecting 
 her nymph,- opened before her feet a subterranean 
 way. Arethusa took it, her streamlet ran beneath 
 the waters of the Mediterranean and came to the 
 surface in Ortygia. Alpheus, on his side, when he 
 saw the trick, plunged in not far from the Olym- 
 peium, still pursuing his mistress, and coining to the 
 surface in the harbour of Siracusa, not two hundred 
 feet away from her. 
 
 Arethusa always maintained that she did not meet 
 the god on her submarine journey ; but in spite of
 
 156 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 the protestations of the poor nymph it must be 
 owned that so close a neighbourhood seems slightly 
 compromising. In fact, ever since those days, when- 
 ever Arethusa's chastity is mentioned before Poseidon 
 and Amphitrite, that august couple smile as if they 
 knew more than they choose to tell about the passage 
 of the river and the streamlet through their liquid 
 kingdom. However that may be, we were not less 
 eager to be presented to her. They took us to a 
 dirty washing-pool, where a score of washerwomen, 
 their sleeves rolled up to their armpits and their 
 gowns nearly up to their knees, were wringing the 
 shirts of the Syracusans. " There," they told us, 
 "is the fountain of Arethusa." It was not worth 
 while to be so prudish to end in that way. 
 
 AVe were curious, nevertheless, to taste this mirac- 
 ulous water ; I took a glass and plunged it in the 
 place where the streamlet filters through the rock ; 
 to the eye it is clear and limpid, but a little salt to 
 the taste, another proof against the poor nymph, 
 which leads us to think that she may not, as Auso- 
 nius says, have held out against the pure kisses of 
 her lover : incorruptantm mixcentcs oscuhi aqiuimm. 
 
 A few steps from Arethusa's fountain rose the 
 palace of Verrcs, the ruins of which served to build 
 a Norman fort in the llth century; this fort stands 
 on the spot where was once the rock of Dionysius, 
 raxed by Timoleon. 
 
 Opposite, and on the other side of the opening of 
 the Great Harbour rose the ancient Pleinmyrion, the 
 fortress built by Archimedes. Four animals in bronze, 
 a bull, a lion, a goat, an eagle, adorned the four
 
 THE SPERONARA 157 
 
 corners, each turned towards one of the cardinal 
 points. When the wind blew it entered the jaws or 
 the beak of the animal facing it and made it utter 
 the cry that belonged to its kind. It was this colic 
 masterpiece which, it is said, made Rome so jealous 
 of Syracuse. 
 
 We re-crossed the whole town to visit Neapolis, 
 but there we were obliged to leave our carriage, the 
 ancient pavement that still retains the ruts of the 
 old chariot-wheels being most uncomfortable for 
 modern vehicles. 
 
 We skirted the Marble, or Little, Harbour, having 
 to our right the sea, and to our left a few ruins. It 
 was in this harbour, the most precious jewel of Sira- 
 cusa, that the fleet of the Republic lay. Xenagoras 
 built there the first galley with six rows of oars, and 
 Archimedes constructed the marvellous vessel that 
 Ilicro II. sent to Ptolemy, King of Egypt ; which, if 
 we believe Athenseus, had twenty rows of oars, and 
 contained baths, a library, a temple, gardens, piscine, 
 and festal hall. 
 
 The road we followed took us straight to the con- 
 vent of the Capuchins. After a walk of half an 
 hour we reached the abode of the good fathers and 
 were ushered in by two monks whom we had met on 
 the way, talking with them as we walked along. 
 The convent was kept with an admirable cleanli- 
 ness that contrasted with the frightful filth of the 
 town, the sight of which had pursued us since our 
 entrance into Sicily. This cleanliness strengthened 
 Jadin in a scheme he had thought of for some time; 
 namely, to put himself to board in a convent for a
 
 158 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 week, to work at his ease, while examining the in- 
 terior life of a monastery. He asked the good 
 fathers, through the Conte di Gargallo, if they 
 would be willing to receive him for eight days ; they 
 replied that they would do so with great pleasure, 
 and they fixed the price for lodging and food at 
 forty sous a day. Jadin was in ecstacy at such 
 an arrangement, when the count whispered to him to 
 await the dinner hour before making any engage- 
 ment. Jadin asked if the dinner would not be plen- 
 tiful enough to fill a worldly stomach. The count 
 replied that, on the contrary, the Capuchins were 
 thought to have splendid repasts, and above all, very 
 varied ones, but that there might lie an obstacle in 
 the preliminary preparations. 
 
 At the moment when we reached the gate we had 
 found it surrounded by beggars. It was the hour at 
 which the Capuchins daily distributed soup to the 
 poor, and over a hundred of them, men, women, 
 and children, awaited this moment with mouths half 
 open and burning eyes, like hounds awaiting their 
 quarry. 
 
 I have not yet spoken of the Sicilian beggar, the 
 occasion not having presented itself; and yet it is 
 impossible to pass in silence a class of persons who 
 form at least one tenth of the population. Whoso 
 has not seen the Sicilian beggar knows nothing of 
 poverty. The French In-ggar is a prince, the Roman 
 Ix-ggar a great seigneur, the Neapolitan Ix'ggar a 
 worthy bourgeois, in comparison with the Sicilian 
 bc-ggar. The pauper of Jacques ('allot with his mass 
 of rags, the Egyptian fellah in his simple shirt would
 
 THE SPERONARA 159 
 
 seem men of property at Palermo or Siraciisa. At 
 Siracusa and Palermo poverty is seen in all its 
 hideousness, with fleshless, feeble limbs, and caver- 
 nous, feverish eyes. It is hunger, with its cries of 
 suffering, with its eternal death-rattle hunger, that 
 triples the years on the faces of the young girls ; 
 hunger, that makes the young Sicilian maiden, at an 
 age when in all lands all women are beautiful, with 
 youth at least, seem falling into decrepitude; hunger, 
 more cruel, more implacable, more deadly than de- 
 bauchery, that blasts and withers like debaucherv, 
 without affording the gross and sensual comfort of 
 its rival in destruction. 
 
 All the persons in that crowd had eaten nothing 
 since the day before ; then they had come to receive, 
 as they did to-day, as they would to-morrow, their 
 porringer of soup. That soup was all their nourish- 
 ment for twenty-four hours, unless some among them 
 might obtain a few farthings from the compassion of 
 their compatriots or the pity of foreigners but 
 such luck is almost unheard-of; the Sicilians are 
 familiarized with poverty, and foreigners are few. 
 
 When the distributor of that blessed soup ap- 
 peared, strange howls were heard and each be<mr 
 
 1 O Ot^ 
 
 rushed towards him utensil in hand ; some were too 
 weak to howl and rush, and these dragged themselves 
 moaning on their hands and knees. 
 
 In the soup were scraps of the meat that served to 
 make it, which the cook had cut into little pieces so 
 that the greater number might get a scrap. Those 
 to whom this good luck fell uttered roars of jov, and 
 retired to a corner ready to defend their pri/e if
 
 160 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 others, less well treated by luck, tried to take it 
 from them. 
 
 I saw, in the midst of all this, a child clothed, not 
 in a shirt, but in a species of spider's web, so many 
 were its holes ; he had no porringer and was crving 
 with hunger. He held out his poor little shrunken 
 hands joined together to serve as best they could for 
 the lacking cup. The cook poured into them a 
 spoonful of the soup. It was boiling, and it 
 scalded the poor child's hands ; he gave a cry of 
 pain and opened his fingers against his will ; the 
 broth and a bit of meat fell upon the pavement, 
 and the child, throwing himself on all-fours, lapped 
 it up like a dog. 
 
 " If these good fathers omitted the distribution for 
 a time,"" I said to the count, who was beside me, 
 "what would these unfortunates do p" 1 " 
 
 " They would die," he answered. 
 
 We left two piastres with one of the brethren to 
 be converted into farthings for distribution to the 
 poor wretches ; then we fled. 
 
 The garden of the Capuchins extends over the site 
 of the ancient Intomms or quarries. It was from 
 these quarries that ancient Siracusa, its walls, tem- 
 ples, and palaces issued. We went down by steps to 
 a depth of fifty feet or more, passing under a huge 
 bridge, beyond which we came upon a modern tomb. 
 It was that of a young American named Nicholson, 
 M!IO was killed in a duel at Syracuse. As a heretic, 
 and also because of the manner of his death the doors 
 of all the churches were closed against him. Not less 
 hospitable to the dead than to the living, the good
 
 THE SPERONARA 161 
 
 Capuchins took the body and gave it burial in their 
 own garden. 
 
 These gardens, like those of the Benedictines at 
 Catania, are miracles of art and patience. At Cata- 
 nia the lava had to be covered by hand ; here, the 
 rock. The task was the same and was fulfilled with 
 wonderful courage. The deepest of the eleven quar- 
 ries, called to-day the Latomia del Paradiso, once a 
 labyrinth of stone where not an herb could grow, has 
 now a wealth of orange and lemon trees and cactus. 
 Its gigantic walls, one hundred and thirty feet down 
 from the level ground, are covered with espaliers below 
 and draped with vines above, while from the smallest 
 crevices aloes expand their powerful leaves and shoot 
 up their centenary bloom. 
 
 It was in these latomias that the seven thousand 
 Athenian prisoners were confined after the defeat of 
 Nicias. They were so crowded in these horrible 
 death-pits that an epidemic broke out among them, 
 and the Siracusans, fearing contagion, sold them as 
 slaves, releasing a few whom they heard reciting from 
 memory the verses of Euripides. Among those re- 
 leased was the famous philosopher who, on hearing 
 read to him certain verses of Dionvsius, made the re- 
 quest, now become proverbial : " Send me back to 
 the quarries." In Sicily no tradition is ever lost, be 
 it 3000 years old; that quarry is still called the 
 Latomia of Philoxenes. 
 
 In the centre of each quarry (the heavens forming 
 its roof) rises a species of column, solitary, rough- 
 hewn, capriciously twisted. At the top of these 
 columns, which reached to the level of the plain, were 
 
 11
 
 162 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 stationed sentinels who watched the prisoners and 
 passed down their food in baskets by means of a 
 rope. 
 
 We traversed in every direction this strange laby- 
 rinth, with its ancient aqueducts that still bring 
 water as in the days of Hiero and Dionvsius; with 
 its cascades of verdure, that seem to fall from the 
 very tops of the inclosing walls, their rich waves un- 
 dulating to the slightest breeze; with its old illegible 
 inscriptions, that travellers strive to decipher as a 
 homage to Euripides-Sauveur. It is in these quarries 
 that we find the famous grotto called the Ear of 
 Dionvsius, hewn in the rock, which possesses to this 
 day the most extraordinary acoustic qualities. I 
 don't know what relationship existed between King 
 Dionvsius and King Midas, but I am sorry for the 
 former to say that the grotto that bears the name of 
 his aural apparatus bears also a close resemblance to 
 the form of ears that the King of Phrvgia received 
 from Apollo's munificence. 
 
 Whoever it was that gave to this grotto hewn in 
 the rock (for it is cut and polished with too much 
 care into its strange form to be thought a work of 
 nature) whoever it was, I say, who gave a form and 
 name to it, the fact exists that it has the faculty of 
 transmitting the slightest sound made in its interior 
 to a sort of little cave scooped out at its upper end. 
 This secret cave is supposed to have been the resort 
 of Dionvsius the tyrant, who gave himself up to the 
 study of acoustics and listened there for the com- 
 plaints, threats, and projects of vengeance uttered by 
 his prisoners. Unless a traveller is willing to incur the
 
 THE SPERONARA 163 
 
 sovereign contempt of his guide, I advise him to ex- 
 press no doubt of this historic truth. 
 
 The Ear of Dionysius is hollowed in the rock in 
 the form of the letter S ; it is two hundred and ten 
 feet deep, seventy-five feet in height, and thirty-five 
 feet wide at its opening, contracting to fifteen feet as 
 it goes up; to my thinking it made conspiracy the 
 easiest thing in the world in Syracuse. Conspirators 
 had only to await the moment when the tyrant entered 
 his study and then draw up the ladder. I took, I 
 must admit, a verv poor opinion of the ancient in- 
 habitants of Syracuse, when I had read all their 
 authors and found that the above idea had never once 
 occurred to any of them. 
 
 Our guide proposed to us to verify for ourselves the 
 truth of what he had told us as to the transmission 
 of sound. At the first words he said, and before we 
 had replied either yes or no, three or four young ras- 
 cals, whose business it evidently was to watch for 
 strangers adventuring on their domain, started up to 
 prepare the means of ascension. In ten minutes 1 time 
 two of them lowered a rope from the summit of the 
 rock ; to this a pulley was immediately attached, a 
 seat was fastened to the rope and one of the two 
 young fellows being seated in it was drawn up by the 
 three others, to familiari/e us by example with this 
 singular method of locomotion. 
 
 As the example, attractive as it was meant to lx?, 
 did not have the expected power of attraction upon 
 us (though we each desired that the experiment should 
 l)e made by the other), we drew lots as to w ho should 
 have the honour of being swung up to the Tyrant's
 
 164 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 aerial cell. Fate favoured Jadin ; he made a grimace 
 that showed he did not appreciate his luck, but 
 nevertheless he bravely took his seat upon the perch. 
 Scarcely there, and as if our guides were afraid he 
 might reverse his decision, he rose majestically into 
 the air, where he presently began to turn round and 
 round like a ball of thread when we try to unwind it. 
 Milord emitted a howl when he saw his master taking 
 a route he could not follow ; and as for me, I own I 
 watched him with some anxiety until I saw him safely 
 and comfortably lodged in his pigeon-hole. Then, 
 reassured by Jadin himself, I entered the quarry to 
 carry out the experiment. 
 
 The grotto descends in winding, somewhat in the 
 shape of an ear, to a depth of two hundred and ten feet 
 or thereabouts. Iron rings attached in places to the 
 stone were long supposed to have been used to chain 
 prisoners, but the Abbe Capodicci proved that these 
 rings were modern and probably used to fasten horses. 
 This, however, did not prevent our guide, who was 
 not of the abbe's opinion, from explaining their use as 
 instruments of torture. I did not wish to contradict 
 him for such a trifle as that, so I was very pitying 
 over the fate of the poor wretches so uncomfortably 
 riveted to the wall. 
 
 When we reached the extreme lower end of the 
 grotto the guide requested me to say something in 
 the lowest voice I could use, but still intelligibly, so 
 that Jadin, whose ear would l>e applied to the precious 
 little hole of the Tyrant, would hear distinctly what 
 I said. On which I requested Jadin in a whisper to 
 strike a match and light his cigar.
 
 THE SPERONARA 165 
 
 After giving him time to conform to that request, 
 the execution of which would he a proof that he had 
 heard me, I tore apart a sheet of paper ; then our 
 guide, keeping his own experiment for the last, fired 
 a pistol, the noise of which, by the same acoustic 
 effect, was to seem to Jadin like the roar of cannon. 
 Then we ran back to the upper extremity of the 
 grotto, and there was Jadin smoking his cigar, hop- 
 ping on one foot, and rubbing his ears. He had 
 heard my words and the tearing of the paper per- 
 fectly. As for the pistol-shot, which was quite 
 unexpected, it had made him stone-deaf in the right 
 ear. Our guide was triumphant. Jadin descended 
 in the same way by which he had gone up, without 
 other damage than his deafness, which lasted for the 
 rest of the day. 
 
 After a visit to the so-called tomb of Archimedes, 
 we took our way towards the Greek theatre, driving 
 before us myriads of lizards of all colours, the sole 
 modern inhabitants of the old city of Neapolis. The 
 theatre, one of the most interesting relics in Syracuse 
 was built by the Greeks, at what period remains 
 unknown. The following inscription cut into a 
 stone, BA2IAI22AE <HAI2TAO2, set savants on the 
 scent, and made them decide, with their usual cer- 
 tainty, that it dated from the reign of Queen Philistis. 
 But, having reached that discovery, the learned men 
 found themselves balked, history making no mention 
 of the said queen, and chronology, from Archias to 
 I Hero II., ottering not the slightest chink into which 
 could l)e inserted a feminine reign. So the two 
 Greek words above quoted are the despair of Sicilian
 
 166 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 savants ; if they become excited on any subject, you 
 have only to whisper those words distinctly, and 
 down go their ears, they sigh profoundly, take their 
 hats and depart. 1 
 
 However this may be, there is the theatre ; it 
 exists ; that cannot be denied ; it is the very same 
 where Gelon called together the people in arms, and 
 went, alone and unarmed, to render an account of 
 his administration. There, Agathocles assembled 
 the Siracusans after the murder of the chief men of 
 the city ; and Timoleon, old and blind, came there 
 often, so says Plutarch, to sustain, by the counsels 
 of his genius, the people he had delivered by the 
 strength of his arm. Nothing can be more pic- 
 turesque than this wonderful ruin ; the view is mag- 
 nificent. Jadin stopped there to make a sketch ; I 
 helped him to set up his establishment and then left 
 
 1 The names of Hiero I., Philistis, supposed to have been the 
 wife of Hiero II., and Nereis, the wife of his son Gelon, are cut 
 upon their seats ; and history, not fable, records that ./Eschylus 
 sat beside the first Hiero to witness the performance of his 
 "Persians." Pindar too "came cleaving the blue Ionian 
 seas " to sit there in turn and listen to his Ode in honour of 
 Hiero 's victory in the Olympian games, ./Etna, "pillar of 
 heaven," looking from afar upon the scene. Both Hieros were 
 learned men ; lovers of art and poesy, but men of vigour too. 
 The reign of the first (47H-4fi7 n. c.) was glorified by the poets 
 above-named, also by Simonides, Bacchylides, and others ; that 
 of the second Hiero (^75210 B. c.) could boast of Archimedes 
 and Theocritus. It is true that some doubt exists as to whose 
 wife Queen Philistis really was ; but that she lived then, and 
 still lives, in bodily shape, we know by one of the most exquisite 
 Greek coins that we now possess. The best authority on 
 Sicily in compact form is Murray's guide-book, written by Mr. 
 George Dennis, now, unfortunately, out of print. TH.
 
 THE SPERONARA 167 
 
 him, to continue my walk, promising to stop and 
 pick him up on my return. 
 
 I followed the road from Siracusa to Catania which 
 separates Achradina from Tyche. The houses were 
 built without foundations, stone standing on rock, 
 that was all ; I could still follow their outlines, 
 though with some difficulty. The streets were much 
 easier to recognize ; the nits worn by the chariot- 
 wheels served as conducting lines, and directed the 
 eye with certainty. Besides the ruined houses and 
 the rut-worn streets, the ground is also hollowed by 
 irregular holes, which must have been wells, cisterns, 
 piscine, baths, and aqueducts. 
 
 When I reached the Scala Pupaglio, instead of 
 turning down to the Portus Trogilus I took my way 
 up to the Epipolne, following the remains of the old 
 wall which Dionysius the elder built in twenty 
 days, with 6000 yoke of oxen and 60,000 men, over 
 a distance 30 stadia 3i miles. 
 
 The Epipolae, as its name indicates, was a fortress 
 at the summit of a hill overlooking the four quarters 
 of Siracusa. The date of its foundation is unknown ; 
 certain it is that it existed in the days of the 
 Peloponnesian wars. The Athenians, led by Nicias, 
 sei/ed it and made it their base of supplies, though 
 they were soon driven away by their old enemies the 
 Spartans, who had now crossed the seas to come to 
 the help of the Siracusans. After the expulsion of 
 the Tyrants Dionysius sei/ed the site, added to the 
 fortifications, and built the wall in a curve round 
 Achradina from the harbour of Trogilus to the 
 Great Harbour.
 
 168 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 I stood upon the summit of the Epipolsr, now 
 enriched by a telegraph, which at the moment was 
 resting with an air of idleness delightful to see, in 
 spite of the multiplied signals of its telegraphic 
 correspondent. I opened the door gently and found 
 the officials all tranquilly asleep, which accounted, 
 no doubt, for the immobility of their instrument. 
 I took good care not to waken them. 1 
 
 From the heights of the Epipola?, and turning 
 my back to the sea, I overlooked, on the right, the 
 plain where Marcellus camped, and on the left, the 
 whole course of the Anapus. As it was now nearly 
 midday, the sun being in its zenith, and literally 
 bathing me in a heat of 40 degrees, reflected from 
 the pavements of Tyche, I thought it was time to 
 pick up Jadin and return with him to Syracuse. To 
 my great astonishment on reaching the theatre I 
 found only his seat, without blocks or umbrella. 
 I was beginning to fear lest he might have been the 
 victim of some murderous assault when I spied him 
 astride of the largest branch of a splendid Hg-tree 
 which gave him both shade and food. I went to 
 him and remarked that the miller to whom the tree 
 belonged might think the liberty he was taking 
 rather strange; but Jadin answered proudly that 
 he was on his own property, and that he had Ixnight 
 for the sum of ten farthings the right to eat tigs at 
 
 1 It is not pedantic for any one to take Thuoydicles, in the 
 original or translated, and, sitting on the Epipolae, follow with 
 the eye his narrative of the great sea and land struggle of the 
 Athenians under Nicias and the Siracusans ; the whole scene 
 lies there still, the scene of the struggle that was fatal to 
 Greece. TR.
 
 THE SPERONARA 169 
 
 his discretion, and even to fill his pockets with them. 
 The bargain seemed to me a poor one for the miller, 
 Jadin's jacket containing, to my knowledge, eleven 
 pockets of varying si/es. 
 
 We returned to the city at top speed, soaked as 
 though we had plunged into all the three harbours 
 of Syracuse. The metamorphoses of Arethusa and 
 Cyane into fountains were explained to me ; one 
 hour more of that delicious sun and I, too, should 
 have passed into a fluid condition. 
 
 The Conte di Gargallo had remained behind to 
 organize an excursion by boat on the Anapus. At 
 first I offered, with all the pride and ostentation of 
 a proprietor, to provide the boat of the speronara 
 and two sailors ; but the boatmen of Syracuse, like 
 the Swiss guides, have privileges that all travellers 
 must respect. We found on our return that the 
 count, foreseeing, from the great heat, that we should 
 l>e little inclined to start at once, had ordered the 
 boat to be in readiness at three o'clock ; which left 
 us half an hour for a bath, and an hour and a half 
 for a siesta; so when the boatmen came to tell us 
 all was ready, we were fresh and lively as if we had 
 not quitted our beds since the evening before. 
 
 We embarked in the Great Harbour. That was 
 the scene of the famous naval battle between the 
 Athenians and Siracusans in which the Athenians 
 had twenty vessels burned and sixty sunk. Ten or 
 twelve little boats of the size of the one we were in 
 now compose the whole navy of Syracuse. 
 
 Our first visit was to the river Alphcus ; honour 
 to whom honour is due. The river Alpheus, as I
 
 170 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 have already said, disappeared at Olympeium and 
 reappeared in the Great Harbour not two hundred 
 feet from the fountain of Arcthusa; the boiling of 
 its waters is still visible on the surface of the sea, 
 and it is said that if you dip a bottle to a certain 
 depth it will fill with fresh water which is perfectly 
 good to drink. Unfortunately we could not verify 
 the fact ; an empty bottle lacking for the experiment. 
 We next struck across the harbour in a straight 
 line to the mouth of the Anapus, another river which 
 is not without a certain mythological distinction, 
 though it is better known through the rivulet Cyane, 
 which it married, than for itself. In fact, the rivulet 
 Cyane, which joins Anapus about a mile from its 
 mouth, is all that there is of most distinguished in 
 the aristocracy of nymphs, naiads, and hamadryads. 
 It is not known exactly Avho were her father and 
 mother, but it is an undoubted fact that she was 
 cousin to that other Cyane, daughter of the river 
 Meander, who was changed to a rock because she 
 would not listen to a beautiful young man who loved 
 her passionately and killed himself in her presence 
 without his death causing her the slightest emotion. 
 Ix't me hasten to say that her cousin was not of so 
 hard a nature ; so she was changed into a fountain, 
 which was formerly the metamorphosis used for all 
 sensitive souls. Here is how that memorable change 
 occurred; I will not give it in mv own language, but 
 in that of Monsieur Renouard, the translator of 
 Ovid's Metamorphoses. This passage, written in 
 K).H, will give an idea of the manner in which 
 antiquity was understood in the reign of Louis XIII.,
 
 THE SPERONARA 171 
 
 surnamcd the Just not, as might be supposed, 
 because he put to death Marsillac, Bouteville, Cinq- 
 Mars, de Thou, and de Montmorency, but merely 
 because he was born under the sign of the Scales. 
 
 Pluto has just abducted Persephone and is bearing 
 her in his chariot, he does not well know where ; at 
 last he arrives in the neighbourhood of Ortvgia. 
 Now for the translator : 
 
 "Here lived Cyanc, the most renowned nymph 
 that was then in Sicily, who has left in that land 
 her name to waters that still bear it. She rose above 
 the water-line to her stomach, and recognizing Per- 
 sephone, came forward to help her. ' You shall not 
 go farther,' she said to Pluto. * Why do you seek to be 
 the son-in-law of Demcter by force ? Her daughter 
 deserves to be won by gentle speeches, and not ab- 
 ducted. To win her, you should entreat her and not 
 force her. As for me, I tell you truly if I may 
 put mv lowness in comparison with her grandeur 
 that I once was loved by the river Anapus, but he 
 did not have me in the marriage way. He sought 
 my friendship long, and did not enjoy my body until 
 he had first acquired my will/ Making these re- 
 monstrances Cyane stretched her arms to right and 
 left as far as she could, to prevent the chariot from 
 passing on ; then Pluto, irritated, struck his trident, 
 sceptre of his empire, with such force upon the ground 
 that the earth split and made an opening for his 
 dreadful horses, down which they went incontinently 
 to the gloomy Palace of Shades with the prey they 
 drew. Cyane's heart was so broken, both because 
 she saw Persephone abducted and because she was
 
 172 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 so contemptuously treated herself, that she conceived 
 a mourning in her heart which could not be consoled. 
 Feeding with tears her secret woe, she consumed her 
 body until it melted away and turned into the very 
 stream of which she had been the tutelary goddess. 
 Little by little, her limbs were seen to soften, her 
 bones lost their hardness and became pliable ; so did 
 her nails, all the weaker limbs, also the hair, the 
 fingers, the feet, the thighs became, first liquid 
 for a body the less heavy it is the more quickly it 
 changes to water then the shoulders, loins, sides, 
 and stomach flowed in streams ; till at last the cor- 
 rupted veins were full of water in place of blood, and 
 of all her body nothing was left that could be 
 held by the hand. 11 
 
 This translation had the greatest success at the 
 Hotel de Rambouillet. Mademoiselle de Scudery 
 thought the passage I have quoted a masterly 
 thing; Chapelain delighted in it ; and Mademoiselle 
 Paulet turned herself into a fountain every time the 
 passage was read before her. 
 
 The marriage of Anapus and Cyane was happy, if 
 we may believe appearances, for the banks of the bed 
 where they flow together are ravishing ; true walls of 
 verdure, bending over to each other to form an arch 
 both cool and shady. Here grows the papyrus, a 
 gift from Ptolemy Philadelphia to Hiero II., a plant 
 that has now died out of its native Egypt but still 
 flourishes on the banks where King Hiero placed it. 
 From time to time we came to vistas that seemed as 
 if cut bv art, but were really mere accidents of nature, 
 allowing us to see upon the left bank the ruins of
 
 THE SPERONARA 173 
 
 the Epipolae and on the right those of the Olym- 
 peiinn, the famous temple of Zeus, built by Gelon ; 
 the sole remains of which is a pair of columns. It 
 was in this temple that the statue of the god stood 
 covered with a golden mantle which Dionysius the 
 elder appropriated on the ground that the garment 
 was "too heavy for summer and too cold for winter."" 
 Vcrres, amateur of art, admired the statue the more 
 for the absence of the golden cloak, and sent it to 
 Home. It was one of the three most beautiful 
 statues of antiquity, the two others being, as is well 
 known, the Venus Callipyge and the Apollo. 
 
 Nearly opposite to these columns we passed be- 
 neath a bridge of a single arch over the Anapus ; 
 and a few yards farther on we came to the junction 
 of the river and the brook. Then, in a spirit of 
 gallantry we left the river to our right and con- 
 tinued our way upon the brook Cyane. 
 
 Nothing more charming than the twists and turns 
 of the graceful stream between its banks of waving 
 papyrus, that king of reeds ! Sometimes we came 
 to delicious little pools, so clear that we saw their 
 bottom ; sometimes to rapid currents, complaining, 
 as if the voice of the nymph herself were telling Ovid 
 of her sad metamorphosis; or again, to tiny islands 
 the home of aquatic birds, who flew away at our ap- 
 proach or plunged among the reeds, where we could 
 follow their flight by the movement they gave to 
 that forest of flexible stems. Thus we went on for 
 nearly an hour till we came to the fountain of 
 Cyane, a clear translucent pool one hundred feet in 
 circumference. Here it was that Pluto struck the
 
 174 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 earth with his trident and disappeared into Hell. 
 So it is said that this pool is an abyss without a bot- 
 tom. The people of the region call it Lapisma. It 
 was around this spring that the Siracusans held 
 yearly festivals in honour of Persephone, sacrificing 
 a black bull to her manes; and as I stood up in the 
 boat to drag from its depths a root of Ptolemy's 
 papyrus (which afterwards flourished for years in my 
 garden) a black bull pushed his head through the 
 feathery branches and nodded, as if to say, " Times 
 are better now."" 
 
 On our way back, Count Gargallo ordered the boat- 
 men to stop a moment in a delicious retreat shaded 
 on all sides by huge tufts of papyrus, their fringed 
 heads waving softly to the slightest bree/.e. It is 
 here, tradition says, that the scene of the sisters 
 Callipyge took place. 
 
 The sisters Callipyge were, as everybody knows, 
 Siracusans. They were not only the two richest 
 heiresses of the city, but they were also the handsom- 
 est women that could be seen from Megara to Cape 
 Pachinum. Among the gifts that liberal Nature had 
 been pleased to bestow upon them was that richness 
 of shape from which their name is derived. One day, 
 as the sisters were bathing together at the place 
 where we now were, they began to dispute as to 
 which of the two was the handsomer. The case was 
 hard to decide by the interested parties themselves; 
 so they called to a shepherd who was feeding his 
 flock on the shore. The shepherd did not need a 
 second call ; he ran up at once, and the sisters, issu- 
 ing from the water in their dazzling nudity, told him
 
 THE SPERONARA 175 
 
 to judge the question. The second Paris gazed for 
 a long time undecided, turning his ardent eyes from 
 one to the other ; finally, he decided for the eldest. 
 Delighted with his judgment, the fair nvmph offered 
 him her hand and heart, which the swain, as will 
 readily be believed, accepted gratefully. As for 
 the younger, she made the same offer to the brother 
 of the judge, who happened to come by at the mo- 
 ment the judgment was given and declared it to IKJ 
 false. The four young people then built a temple 
 to Beauty, and as each pair continued to hold their 
 own opinion, the rivals decided to appeal to poster- 
 ity ; they caused the two best sculptors of the time 
 to make the two Aphrodites that still bear their 
 name ; one is in Naples, the other in Syracuse. Two 
 thousand three hundred years have elapsed since that 
 period, and posterity, undecided, has not yet given 
 its judgment. Adhuc sub judice Us est, says Horace. 
 Happy days, when shepherds espoused princesses! 
 And such princesses ! Ah !
 
 VII 
 
 DEATH IN LIFE. A LIVING TOMB 
 
 MY guide to the Epipolae had pointed out to 
 me, close to the river Anapus, a little 
 Gothic chapel which he asked me to visit, inasmuch 
 as it had been the scene, about forty years earlier, of 
 a terrible history which still occupies the minds of 
 the people of the neighbourhood. I replied that I 
 saw the chapel perfectly from the spot where we 
 then were (the height of the Epipola?) and as the 
 day was intensely hot I would content myself with 
 hearing its history, which I asked him to relate. 
 He said it was rather long, but eminently interesting, 
 and he proved his words by telling me in substance 
 the following facts : 
 
 The chapel belonged to the San Floridio family, 
 one of the oldest and most distinguished in Sicily. 
 Built by an ancestor of the present marquis, it was 
 chiefly used as the family sepulchre. An old tradi- 
 tion had long been handed down respecting this 
 chapel, which contained, it was said, not only the 
 mortuary vaults, but also certain subterranean cel- 
 lars, in which a Marchese di San Floridio had taken 
 refuge during the Spanish invasion, and where, tra- 
 dition added, he remained for ten years, regularly 
 fed by his old servants, who, at the risk of their lives,
 
 THE SPERONARA 177 
 
 carried food and drink to him on stated days. A 
 score of time's lie might have escaped, but he could 
 never bring himself to quit Sicily, hoping always 
 that the hour of her freedom would strike, and 
 thinking that he then ought to be on the spot at 
 the first signal. 
 
 In 1785 there were two male scions of the family : 
 the Marquis and the Count di San Floridio. The 
 marquis lived in Messina, the count in Syracuse. 
 The marquis was a widower without children, and 
 lived alone with only two servants, a young girl 
 about eighteen or twenty years of age, named Teresa, 
 the foster-sister of a daughter he had lost, and a man 
 of over thirty by name Gaetano Cantarello, the last 
 descendant of the faithful servants who had served 
 their master in his subterranean abode, the secret of 
 which was handed down in the Floridio family from 
 father to son. 
 
 I have already given, apropos of Messina, an ac- 
 count of the earthquake of 1795. The Marchese di 
 San Floridio was one of the victims of that sad event. 
 His two servants, Teresa and Gaetano, escaped; 
 although Gaetano risked his life, it was said, by 
 remaining an hour in the ruins of the house endeav- 
 ouring to rescue his master. The Count di San 
 Floridio, living in Syracuse, came into possession of 
 his brother's wealth, which was immense, and the 
 title of marquis. 
 
 Ten yeai"* had gone by since that event, and the 
 Marchese di San Floridio, who had rebuilt his broth- 
 er's wrecked palace, passed his summers in Messina 
 and his winters in Sracuse. But he never failed to
 
 178 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 have mass said for the soul of his deceased brother 
 in the mortuary chapel of the family on the day and 
 hour of his death, which was nine in the evening. 
 
 The tenth anniversary, in 1805, was about to be 
 celebrated in the customary pomp, and with the 
 addition of a new personage who plays a chief part 
 in this history. I mean the young count, Don 
 Ferdinando di San Floridio, who, having reached his 
 eighteenth year, had just returned from the college 
 of Palermo after finishing his studies. 
 
 Don Ferdinando (now the present marquis) knew 
 well that he bore one of the noblest names and would 
 inherit one of the largest fortunes in Sicily. His 
 instincts were those of a true gentleman. He was 
 a handsome youth, with hair black as ebony, black 
 eyes, a Grecian nose, and teeth of enamel, carrying 
 one hand on his hip, his hat a little tipped to one 
 side, and apt to jest, after the fashion of the period, 
 at sacred things ; in other respects, an excellent 
 horseman, strong on fencing, and swimming like a 
 fish, things that are all learned in tlie college of 
 nobles. It was said, moreover, that to these classic 
 studies the beautiful ladies of Palermo had added 
 others for which Ferdinando showed no less taste 
 than he did for those in which he was proficient, 
 although these feminine lessons were not on the 
 college curriculum. At any rate the count was now 
 returning to Syracuse, young, handsome, brave, and 
 just at the age when every man thinks himself 
 destined to become the hero of some adventure. 
 
 This was how matters were when the anniversary 
 of the death of the marquis arrived. The father
 
 THE SPERONARA 179 
 
 and mother of the young count informed him that 
 lie would have to take part in the mortuary service. 
 Don Ferdinando, who did not haunt churches and 
 was, in fact, decidedly Voltairean, would have liked 
 to avoid this nuisance, but he felt that he could not 
 decently hold back from a family duty, and that 
 any reluctance towards an uncle from whom he 
 inherited an income of a hundred thousand francs 
 would be more than improper. So he yielded with 
 fairly good grace under the circumstances, and hav- 
 ing put his father and mother into their litter he 
 jumped as gaily into his own as if he were merely 
 going to figure in a quadrille. 
 
 A word here, in passing, on this charming Sicilian 
 mode of travelling. The litter is a large chaise a 
 portenrs, constructed generally for two persons, who, 
 instead of being seated side by side, as in our modern 
 coupes, sit facing each other as in the old-fashioned 
 vis-a-vis. This litter is placed between two shafts 
 or poles which are fixed to the backs of two mules. 
 A servant leads one mule and the other is compelled 
 to follow. It results that the motion of the litter, 
 especially in so rough and broken a land as Sicily, 
 resembles the pitching of a ship and causes the same 
 sea-sickness. Consequently, the traveller usually 
 holds in execration the person with whom he travels 
 in this way. After an hour of such locomotion 
 he squabbles with his best friend, and by the 
 end of the first day they have quarrelled for life. 
 Damon and Pythias, those classic models of friend- 
 ship, had they travelled from Catania in a litter, 
 would have fought a duel on arriving at Syracuse
 
 180 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 and killed each other fraternally no less than did 
 Eteocles and Polynices. 
 
 On arriving at the chapel the young count found, 
 contrary to his expectation, absolutely no one present 
 except the priest, the sacristan, and the choir-boys. 
 He cast a rather sulky look about him, took two or 
 three turns around the little church, and ended, find- 
 ing the pavement too hard for his knees, by sitting 
 down in the confessional, where, being prepared for 
 slumber by the motion of the litter, he was soon 
 fast asleep. He slept the sleep of eighteen ; neither 
 fugue, nor organ, nor De Profundis woke him. 
 
 The service over, his mother looked for him on all 
 sides, and even called to him in a low voice ; but the 
 marquis, still sore and sour from his journey in the 
 litter, told his wife that her son was a libertine, whom 
 she spoiled by excessive maternal weakness, and that 
 a church was certainly not the place in which to 
 find him. So the marquise, accustomed to obey, got 
 passively into the conjugal litter which started for 
 home, followed by the empty machine, leaving the 
 youth, by his father's orders, to get home as he 
 could. 
 
 Meantime Ferdinando was sleeping, safe and sound, 
 in his confessional, dreaming, perhaps, that Princess 
 M . . . the prettiest woman in Palermo, was giving 
 him a swimming lesson in the basin of La Favorite, 
 and snoring joyously to that sweet illusion. 
 
 At two in the morning he woke, stretched his arms, 
 yawned, rubbed his eyes, and thinking he was in 
 bed, turned over and struck his head sharply against 
 the corner of the confessional. The shock was so
 
 THE SPERONARA 181 
 
 rough that the young count opened his eyes wide and 
 woke up thoroughly. At first he looked about him 
 in amazement, having no idea of where he was ; little 
 by little remembrance came to him, he recalled the 
 circumstances of the night before and guessed the 
 rest ; evidently his father and mother, not seeing 
 him with them, had returned to Syracuse, little 
 thinking that they left him behind them in the 
 chapel. He went to the door and found it locked ; 
 then he took out his watch, a repeater, and finding 
 it half-past two in the morning, he reflected, very 
 judiciously, that the gates of Syracuse would be closed, 
 everybody asleep in his father's country-house, the 
 Belvedere, and that, on the whole, though a confes- 
 sional might not be as comfortable as his own bed, 
 it was better than sleeping out under the stars. He 
 returned therefore to his improvised alcove, shut his 
 eyes, and endeavoured to resume the good sleep lately 
 interrupted. 
 
 He was dropping, little by little, into that interior 
 twilight that is neither the day nor vet the night of 
 thought, when his hearing the sense that is the 
 last to goto sleep transmitted to him vaguely the 
 sound of an opening door, which, as it opened, creaked 
 on its hinges. The count sat up instantly, cast his 
 eyes around the church, and saw, by the light of a 
 lantern carried in his hand, a man bending down 
 before the altar of the side chapel that was nearest 
 to the confessional. Almost immediately, the man 
 rose, wrapped the mantle, half Italian, half Spanish, 
 which the Sicilians call fiferrajiulo, about him, blew 
 out the lantern, and went softly down the whole
 
 182 JOURNEYS WlfH DUMAS 
 
 length of the little church, passing so close to the 
 count that Ferdinando could have touched him with 
 his hand, opened the door, disappeared, and relocked 
 it behind him. 
 
 Ferdinando remained mute and motionless in his 
 place, partly from fear, partly from surprise. Our 
 young count was not one of those iron souls that 
 we read of in novels, one of those heroes who, like 
 Nelson, ask at fifteen what fear is. No, he was 
 merely a brave, adventurous voung fellow, super- 
 stitious as men are in Sicily ; therefore, though at 
 first he laid his hand on his sword to do battle with 
 the apparition whatever it was, he was not sorry 
 when it passed him evidently without seeing him. 
 At first, he fancied he had to do with some dis- 
 embodied being, perhaps an ancestor of his own, 
 displeased at the partiality that gave an annual mass 
 to the late marquis, and now issuing softly from his 
 tomb to ask him for the same favour. But when the 
 mysterious being raised the lantern to blow it out 
 the gleam falling upon his face and figure showed 
 the count a tall man forty to forty-five years of 
 age, to whom a black beard and moustache and some 
 inward preoccupation gave a stern and gloomy ex- 
 pression of countenance. lie then knew that he had 
 to do with a being of the same species though not of 
 the same rank as his own. 
 
 Naturally, there was no further question of sleep 
 for the young man ; lost in a world of conjectures he 
 passed the rest of the night with eye and ear on the 
 watch, trying to find some solid base for the various 
 edifices built up by his imagination. It was then
 
 THE SPERONARA 183 
 
 that he recalled the family tradition of a subterranean 
 retreat in which a former Marchese di San Floridio, 
 proscribed by the Spanish authorities and con- 
 demned to death, lived hidden for ten years ; but he 
 knew that his late uncle, the head of the family, had 
 died without bequeathing the secret of this cavern 
 to any one. Nevertheless, this recollection, incom- 
 plete and incoherent as it was, cast a ray of light 
 into the darkness around the subject ; the count 
 bethought him that the secret which the present 
 family believed had been buried in a grave might 
 have been discovered accidentally by unknown persons. 
 The first result of this new idea was to make him 
 think of brigands, who possibly had made it their 
 resort ; but presently he reflected that for quite a long 
 time there had been no talk in the neighbourhood of 
 any considerable robberies, or of any important 
 murder. 
 
 While the young count was making and unmaking 
 a thousand conjectures, time went on and the first 
 rays of the dawn began to appear ; it then occurred 
 to him that if he wished to fathom, later, this singu- 
 lar adventure he had better not let himself be seen 
 in the neighbourhood of the chapel. He therefore 
 clambered by the help of a few chairs to a window, 
 opened it, let himself slip down outside, dropped with- 
 out accident eight or ten feet, and reached Syracuse 
 just as the doors were beginning to open. By means 
 of a few piastres, he made the porter promise to tell 
 the marquis and his mother that he returned the 
 preceding night half an hour after they did. 
 
 Thanks to this precaution, matters turned out as
 
 184 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 he wished ; and when he appeared at breakfast the 
 marquis was so easily satisfied by his excuses that he 
 saw he might proceed at once to carry out a plan lie 
 had resolved upon. Emboldened by his father's in- 
 dulgence he spoke with apparent indifference of going 
 to shoot in the Pantanelli. The marquis made no 
 objection, and after breakfast the count, armed with 
 his gun, followed by his dog, and furnished with the 
 key of the chapel, started forth, promising his mother 
 to bring her a dish of snipe for her dinner. He 
 crossed the Pantanelli marshes to salve his conscience 
 and muddy his gaiters and his dog, aimed at two or 
 three snipe, which he missed, and reaching the chapel, 
 went straight to the door, opened it, and locked it 
 behind him without being seen. No wonder in that, 
 for it was one hour after midday, and at one hour 
 after midday no one in Sicily, unless he has been 
 changed into a lizard, as Stellio was by Ceres, ever 
 roams the fields. 
 
 He began by going straight to the confessional ; 
 from there he turned his eyes to the altar before 
 which he had seen the man in the cloak stooping 
 down. Then he went to the altar and sought on all 
 sides for some opening; he found none. But on the 
 right of the tabernacle his dog smelt the wall obsti- 
 nately as if he had found a scent, and looked at his 
 master with low and prolonged growls. Don Fer- 
 dinando, who knew the instinct of the faithful ani- 
 mal, felt certain that the mysterious man had passed 
 through that portion of the wall; but in vain did he 
 search, lie could find no traces of an opening ; and 
 after an hour of useless effort he left the chapel,
 
 THE SPERONARA 185 
 
 hopeless of discovering by ordinary means the secret 
 it evidently inclosed. 
 
 In returning, he again passed through the marshes 
 and, being a good shot and less distracted in mind 
 than earlier in the day, he soon had an honourable 
 bagful of snipe, teal, and rail, trophies which he 
 deposited at the feet of his mother, declaring that he 
 had had such good sport he meant, with his father's 
 permission, to go and spend some days at Belvedere, 
 and give himself up to the pleasures of the chase. 
 The marquis, who was very accommodating whenever 
 he was not about to go, or was going, or had gone in 
 a litter, replied that he saw no objection ; the mar- 
 quise endeavoured to make observations against that 
 amusement ; but the marquis answered sharply that, 
 on the contrary, sport was a pleasure essentially aris- 
 tocratic and seemed to him marvellously well suited 
 to a gentleman. Besides, in antiquity itself the chase 
 was specially reserved to noblemen of the highest 
 families: witness Meleagcr, son of TEneas and King 
 of Calydon ; Heracles, son of Zeus and Semcle ; and, 
 above all, there was Apollo, son of Zeus and Latona, 
 that is to say, of a god and goddess, who l)orc no 
 stain on his paternal and maternal quarterings, so 
 that he might even, like himself, Marchese di San 
 Floridio, be a Knight of Malta. The marquis knew 
 very well there was a wide difference between the 
 serpent Python, the lion of Ncmea, the wild-lx>ar of 
 Calydon, and snipe, rails, and teal ; but take it alto- 
 gether, his son, brave as he was, could n't kill any- 
 thing but what he met, and if bv chance his dog 
 should put up any sort of a monster it was very cer-
 
 186 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 tain that Ferdinando would kill it. The poor mother 
 could make no reply to so learned an harangue, so 
 she contented herself with sighing, kissing her son, 
 and begging him to be careful. 
 
 That same evening Ferdinando established himself 
 in the country-house of the Marchese di San-Florid io, 
 about five hundred steps from the Gothic chapel, 
 which in point of fact belonged to it. 
 
 Whatever desire the young man had to renew his 
 nocturnal experience, he was forced to await the mor- 
 row ; he had to make acquaintance with the locali- 
 ties, obtain the key of the park gate, and ask for 
 certain information in the neighbourhood. 
 
 These inquiries were without result. People re- 
 membered to have seen from time to time in the 
 village of Belvedere a man answering the description 
 given by the count, but no one knew his name or 
 where he came from. The gardener of the chateau, 
 however, entering eagerly into the voung counts in- 
 terest, promised to get more particulars regarding 
 this unknown personage. 
 
 That night Ferdinando went alone through the 
 park gate, armed with his sword and a pair of pistols, 
 to the chapel, locked the door behind him, stationed 
 himself in the confessional, like a soldier in a sentrv- 
 box, and watched till morning without seeing any 
 apparition or any other event of the slightest interest. 
 
 The next night, the night after, and the fourth 
 night the count renewed the experiment without- 
 obtaining anv result. lie began to believe he had 
 dreamed, and that his dog had misled him by smell- 
 ing rats. But in the course of the fifth day the
 
 THE SPERONARA 187 
 
 man in the cloak reappeared in the village, and the 
 gardener set to work to obtain information. This, 
 it must be owned, was very vague. The name of the 
 man was unknown, but he was certainly very chari- 
 table, for each time that he came to Belvedere he 
 gave litaral alms. He usually stopped at the house 
 of a peasant named Rizzo. The gardener went to 
 see this peasant and questioned all the family, but 
 learned nothing beyond the fact that the man in the 
 cloak had come to their house several times to ask 
 the names and addresses of the poorest inhabitants 
 of Belvedere. Often he had given them money to 
 buy food of all kinds, such as bread, ham, fruits, 
 which he distributed himself among the poor. Two 
 or three times he was accompanied by a young lad 
 wrapped in a cloak, who seemed very sad. The 
 peasants fancied that this lad was a woman, and 
 had joked the stranger on the subject ; but he took 
 the jest in bad part, and answered, in a tone that 
 admitted of no reply, that the youth was a young 
 priest, a relation of his, who could not get accus- 
 tomed to life in the seminary, so he brought him 
 now and then into the country to amuse him. 
 
 All this, far from lessening the young count's 
 curiosity excited it the more, and on the following 
 night he was at his post, but neither that night nor 
 the next did lie see anything of the man he was 
 awaiting. At Lost, however, on the seventh night 
 since that of their first encounter he heard the door 
 turn on its hinges and then close ; an instant later 
 a lantern shone out suddenly, as if it had been lighted 
 in the church. It passed, as before, the confessional,
 
 188 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 and by its gleam Ferdinando recognized the man of 
 the cloak. This man walked straight to the side 
 altar, raised the lowest of its three steps, and took out 
 something that Ferdinando could not see ; then he 
 approached the wall, appeared to insert a key in a 
 lock, opened a secret door, which, being made between 
 two pilasters, moved a whole section of the stones, 
 closed the door behind him, and disappeared. 
 
 This time the count was wide-awake: no doubt 
 here ; this was not an illusion. The young man re- 
 flected as to what he had better do. If it had been 
 broad daylight, if there had been witnesses to ap- 
 plaud his courage, if his feelings of pride had been 
 excited in any way, he would have waited for the re- 
 turn of the man, marched straight at him sword in 
 hand, and demanded an explanation of the mystery. 
 But he was alone, it was dark, there was no one to 
 praise the grand air with which he put himself on 
 guard ; consequently Count Ferdinando listened to 
 the voice of prudence, and here is what prudence ad- 
 vised him to do : 
 
 The man had knelt before the altar, had raised a 
 stone ; from under that stone he had taken some- 
 thing; that something must be a kev, since with it 
 he had ojK-ned a door. No doubt in going away he 
 would put the key in the place from which he had 
 taken it. Plainly, what the young count had better 
 do was to wait quietly until he was gone, take the 
 key, open the door himself and enter the subterra- 
 nean cavern. 
 
 The plan was so simple that it is no wonder that 
 it occurred to Ferdinando's mind or that he fastened
 
 THE SPERONARA 189 
 
 upon it. This docs not, however, prevent, as some 
 adventurous imaginations may suppose, the young 
 count from being a very brave and very chivalrous 
 young man ; only, as I have said, there was no 
 one looking on, so prudence carried the day against 
 pride. 
 
 He waited nearly two hours. Four o'clock in the 
 morning had just struck when the mysterious door 
 opened ; the man in the cloak came out, lantern in 
 hand, approached the altar, raised the stone, hid the 
 key, replaced the step, passed once more within two 
 feet of Ferdinando, blew out his lantern as before, 
 and went out, locking the church door after him, 
 and leaving the count alone in the church and well- 
 nigh master of his secret. 
 
 Whatever impatience Ferdinando felt to carry on 
 his adventure, not having taken the precaution to 
 bring a lantern, he was forced to wait until daylight. 
 However, each moment's delay gave time for the 
 man in the cloak to go farther away and one 
 chance the more to Ferdinando not to be surprised. 
 
 At the first rays of light he left the confessional, 
 went to the altar, and raised the step ; but at first he 
 saw nothing that resembled what he sought. At 
 last, in a little hole, he saw a wooden peg, which, as 
 he took it up, let fall into his hand a small round 
 key, like that of a piano. lie examined it carefully, 
 put the step back in its place, went to the wall, and 
 guided this time by certainty, ended by discover- 
 ing in the angle of the pilaster a small round hole, 
 almost invisible on account of the shadow projected 
 by the column. He introduced the key, and the
 
 190 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 door turned on its hinges with a facility which its 
 weight made surprising. He saw before him a dark 
 corridor, the dampness of which came out to meet 
 him and chilled him. Not a ray of light, not a sound 
 of any kind. 
 
 Ferdinando stopped. It would have been too 
 imprudent to venture unprepared into that vault; 
 some open trap might cruelly punish the curiosity 
 of a rash visitor. He reclosed the door, and, satisfied 
 with this beginning of discovery, he returned to the 
 chateau determined to bring a lantern the following 
 night, and push his investigation to its end. He 
 spent the whole day in a state of agitation we can 
 easily comprehend. Again and again he questioned 
 Peppino the gardener, as if he could tell him some- 
 thing more than he knew already. The worthy man 
 could only repeat what he had said, adding how- 
 ever, that the man in the cloak had been seen in 
 the village the night before ; evidently he was the 
 same man who had entered the chapel. 
 
 At ten o'clock Ferdinando left the chateau with a 
 dark lantern ; he was armed as before, with a sword 
 and a pair of pistols. He entered the chapel with- 
 out meeting any one on his way, raised the stone, 
 found the kev, unlocked the door, and saw before 
 him the dark corridor. This time, armed with his 
 lantern, he boldly entered it. Hardly had he gone 
 twenty steps before he came to a stairway, and at the 
 foot of that stairway was a locked door, for which he 
 had no key. Irritated by this new obstacle, he 
 shook the door violently to see if it would not yield. 
 It remained firm, and the young count saw that with-
 
 THE SPERONARA 191 
 
 out a file and pincers the lock could not be forced. 
 For an instant he thought of calling for assistance, 
 but the truth must be told at the moment he 
 was going to shout an involuntary shudder seixed 
 him, so mysterious and terrible did everything seem 
 to him, even the sound of his own voice ! 
 
 He therefore left the corridor slowly, closed the 
 door behind him, replaced the key under the step, 
 and went back to the chateau to obtain a file and 
 pincers. On his way he met a man, whom he hardly 
 distinguished in the darkness ; moreover, on per- 
 ceiving him the man had crossed to the other side 
 of the road, and when Ferdinando came near him, 
 he turned sharply to the right and disappeared like 
 a shadow among the papyrus and tall reeds that 
 bordered the road. The count continued his way, 
 not reflecting very much on this meeting, which was, 
 after all, not unusual ; for in all parts of Sicily 
 there are crowds of people who do not like to be 
 approached at night. Nevertheless, as far as Ferdi- 
 nando could make out, the man was wrapped in a 
 cloak like the one that was worn by the man in the 
 chapel. But this idea presenting itself to the young 
 count's mind acted only as a spur the more to make 
 him push the affair to its conclusion that very night. 
 For several days he had been making little conces- 
 sions to himself, which he now thought much too 
 prudent ; and he made up his mind to settle the 
 matter at once and recoil at nothing. 
 
 At the chateau he found neither file nor pincers, 
 but he did find a crowbar, which would serve him 
 equally well to break down the second door instead
 
 192 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 of opening it. At the point at which he had now 
 arrived, it did not matter to him how the door was 
 made to yield, provided it yielded. Armed with this 
 new implement, and renewing the candle in his 
 lantern, he returned to the chapel, approached the 
 altar, raised the step, took up the peg, shook it 
 but uselessly, the key was gone ! No doubt the 
 man in the cloak had returned during his absence, 
 and was now in the cavern. 
 
 This time, as I have said, Ferdinando was firmly 
 decided to recoil at nothing. He rose, pale but 
 calm ; examined the priming of his pistols, made 
 sure that his sword came freely from its scabbard, 
 and walked to the wall to listen for any noise. As 
 he did so, the door opened and he found himself 
 face to face with the man in the cloak. 
 
 Both, by instinct, made a step backward, and 
 lighted each other mutually by the lanterns they 
 held in their hands. The man in the cloak then 
 perceived that the person with whom he had to do 
 was almost a boy, and a disdainful smile came upon 
 his lips. Ferdinando saw that smile, understood its 
 meaning, and resolved to prove to the intruder that 
 he was mistaken, and that he himself was indeed a 
 man to be reckoned with. 
 
 Then followed a moment's silence, during which 
 they both drew their swords, for the unknown man 
 wore a sword, though he had no pistols. 
 
 " Who are you ? " asked the count imperiously, 
 Ix'ing the first to break silence. " And what are you 
 doing at this hour in this chapel?" 
 
 " What are you doing here yourself, my little
 
 THE SPERONARA 193 
 
 gentleman ? " sneered the stranger ; " and who are 
 you, if you please, to speak to me in that tone ? " 
 
 " I am Don Ferdinando, son of the Marchese di 
 San Floridio, and this chapel belongs to my family.' 1 
 
 " Don Ferdinando, son of the Marchese di San 
 Floridio ! " repeated the stranger in tones of astonish- 
 ment. " And why are you here at this hour? " 
 
 " You forget it is for me to question you. Why 
 are you here ? " 
 
 " That, my young gentleman,"" said the stranger, 
 coming out of the corridor, locking the door and 
 taking out the key, " is a secret which, with your 
 permission, I shall keep to myself, for it concerns 
 only me." 
 
 " All that passes here on my estate concerns me," 
 replied Ferdinando. " Your secret, or your life ! " 
 
 So saying, he touched the point of his sword to the 
 breast of the stranger, who seeing its glitter, put it 
 hastily aside with his own. 
 
 " Ho ! ho ! " cried the young count, for rapid as 
 the action had been, he recognized by the unusual 
 way the parry had been made that his adversary was 
 perfectly ignorant of the noble art of fencing. " You 
 are not a gentleman, mv good friend, for you do not 
 know how to handle a sword ; you are simply a 
 clown, and that \s another thing. Your secret, or 
 I "ll have you hanged ! " 
 
 The man in the cloak gave vent to a roar of anger ; 
 nevertheless, after making a step in advance as if lo 
 lling himself upon the young count, he stopped and 
 restrained the impulse. 
 
 " No," he said, with some coolness. u No ! I have 
 13
 
 194 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 a mind to spare you on account of the name you 
 bear ; but it can't be done if you insist on knowing 
 the purpose for which I come here. Retire instantly, 
 forget that you have seen me, cease your visits to 
 this chapel, swear upon that altar that no one shall 
 ever know you met me here. The Floridios, I know, 
 are men of honour ; you will keep your oath. On 
 those conditions I will let you live." 
 
 It was now Ferdinando's turn to roar. 
 
 " Miserable wretch ! " he cried, "you threaten when 
 you ought to tremble ! you question when you ought 
 to answer ! Who are you ? what are you doing 
 here ? where does that door lead ? Answer, or you 
 are dead ! " 
 
 And the count touched his sword for the second 
 time to the other man's breast. 
 
 This time the latter did not merely parry, he 
 returned a thrust, flinging away his lantern to hide 
 himself as much as possible from the thrusts of his 
 adversary ; but Ferdinando, extending his left arm, 
 lighted him clearly with his lantern, and a terrible 
 struggle ensued between strength on one side and 
 skill on the other. In face of danger Ferdinando 
 had recovered all his courage ; for several seconds he 
 contented himself by parrying with as much skill as 
 coolness the inexperienced thrusts of his enemy ; 
 then, attacking in his turn with his trained superior- 
 ity he forced the man backward till he brought him 
 to a stand against a column, where seeing the impos- 
 sibility of further struggle, he thrust his sword with 
 such violence into the man's breast that it not only 
 went through his body, but blunted itself against the
 
 THE SPERONARA 195 
 
 column on the other side. Instantly he made one 
 step in retreat, withdrawing his sword and putting 
 himself on guard. 
 
 A moment of dead silence followed, during which 
 the count, turning the light of his lantern full on the 
 unknown man, saw him put his left hand to his 
 hrcast, while his right, which no longer had strength 
 to hold the sword, dropped slowly, letting fall the 
 weapon ; then the wounded man sank slowly to his 
 knees saying as he did so : 
 
 " I am dead ! " 
 
 " If you are wounded as badly as you say," re- 
 turned Ferdinando, not moving from his position 
 for fear of being surprised, " I think you would do 
 well to think of your soul, which does not seem to 
 me in a state of grace. I advise you, if you have a 
 secret to reveal, to lose no time. If it is a secret 
 which I may hear, tell it to me ; if it can be revealed 
 to no one but a priest, say so, and I will fetch one." 
 
 " Yes,"" said the dying man, " I have a secret, and 
 a secret which concerns you, if you really are, as you 
 say, the son of the Marchese di San Floridio." 
 
 " I told you, and I repeat it, I am Don Ferdi- 
 nando, Count of San Floridio, sole heir of my familv." 
 
 " Go to the altar and swear it on the crucifix." 
 
 The count rebelled at the thought that a clown 
 should refuse to believe his word, but reflecting that 
 he owed some indulgence to a man about to die by 
 his act he went to the altar, mounted the steps, and 
 made the required oath. 
 
 " That is well," said the wounded man, " now 
 come nearer and take this kev."
 
 196 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 The young man eagerly advanced and held out 
 his hand, into which the dying man placed a key. 
 The count felt at its touch that it was not the key 
 of the secret door. 
 
 " What key is this ?" he asked. 
 
 " You must go to Carlentini," said the man, evad- 
 ing an answer to the question ; " there you must ask 
 for the house of Gaetano Cantarello; you must 
 enter that house alone alone, do you hear me ? 
 In the bedroom, at the foot of the bed you will find 
 a tile marked with a cross ; beneath that tile is a 
 coffer in which are sixty thousand ducats ; you will 
 take them : they are yours." 
 
 " What is all this tale ? " asked the count. " I 
 don't know you ; I don't wish to inherit money from 
 you." 
 
 "Those sixty thousand ducats belong to you. 
 They were stolen from your uncle, the Marchese di 
 San Floridio of Messina, by me, Gaetano Cantarello, 
 his servant. It is not an inheritance ; it is a 
 restitution." 
 
 " Inheritance or restitution, I don't care which," 
 cried the count. " I am not searching for sixty thou- 
 sand ducats ; that is not the secret I wish to know. 
 Here," he added flinging the key to Cantarello, " take 
 back the key of your house, and give me in exchange 
 the key of this door ; " and he pointed to the wall. 
 
 " Come and take it," said Cantarello in a dying 
 voice, " I have no strength to give it to you ; here, 
 here in this pocket." 
 
 Ferdinando advanced without distrust and leaned 
 over the dvinj; man. Hut the latter sei/ed him
 
 THE SPERONARA 197 
 
 suddenly with his left hand and with the desperate 
 strength of dying power, while with the right he 
 grasped his sword and struck the young man a blow 
 which luckily deflected, causing only a comparatively 
 slight wound. 
 
 " Ah ! miserable traitor ! " cried the count, snatch- 
 ing a pistol from his belt and discharging it point- 
 blank at Cantarello. " Die as a dog and a reprobate 
 if you will not repent as a Christian and a man." 
 
 Cantarello fell over, this time quite dead. 
 
 Ferdinando stooped over him, his second pistol in 
 hand for fear of surprise; then, very certain there 
 was nothing to fear, he searched the body carefully ; 
 but nowhere, in no pocket, could he find the key of 
 the secret door. Doubtless, in the struggle Canta- 
 rello had flung it behind him, hoping in that way to 
 prevent his adversary from obtaining it. 
 
 Then the count picked up his lantern which he 
 had let fall, and began to search for the key leading 
 to the secret which continued to escape him in so 
 singular a manner. At the end of a few minutes, 
 weakened by loss of blood from his wound, he felt 
 his head humming as if all the bells of the chapel 
 were ringing at once ; the pillars that supported the 
 roof seemed to detach themselves from the floor and 
 walk round him ; he fancied the walls were closing 
 in and would smother him like those of a tomb. 
 With a mighty effort he sprang towards the door of 
 the chapel to breathe the open air; but before he 
 had made ten steps in that direction his weakness 
 overcame him and he fell unconscious. 
 
 When Don Ferdinando came to himself he was
 
 198 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 lying in a bedroom of the chateau Belvedere, his 
 mother weeping beside him, the marquis walking 
 with great strides up and down the room, and the 
 doctor preparing to bleed him for the fifth time. 
 Peppino the gardener, through whom the young 
 count had made such frequent inquiries about the 
 man in the cloak, had felt anxious at seeing his 
 master go out so late ; he had followed him at a dis- 
 tance ; hearing the pistol-shot he entered the chapel 
 and found Ferdinando unconscious and Cantarello 
 dead. 
 
 The young count's first words were a question as 
 to whether the key had been found. The marquis 
 and his wife exchanged anxious looks. 
 
 " Do not be uneasy,'" said the doctor ; " after so 
 serious a wound, there is nothing surprising in a little 
 delirium." 
 
 " I am perfectly calm, and I know very well what 
 I am saying, 11 declared Ferdinando. " I ask if the 
 key of the secret door has been found, a little key, 
 made like the key of a piano."" 
 
 " Oh ! my poor child ! " cried the marchesa, clasp- 
 ing her hands and raising her eves to heaven. 
 
 "Tranquillize yourself, madam,' 1 said the doctor, 
 "it is only a passing delirium; after this fifth 
 bleeding 
 
 " Go to the devil, you and your bleeding, doctor ! " 
 cried the patient. " You have drawn more blood 
 out of me with your miserable lancet than Canta- 
 rello with his sword." 1 
 
 "Oh ! he is mad ! he is mad ! " sobbed his mother. 
 
 " Well, in any case, my dear father," said Ferdi-
 
 THE SPERONARA 199 
 
 nnndo, " my madness will serve your interests, for I 
 have recovered for you sixty thousand ducats which 
 you thought you had lost, but which are now at 
 Calentini, at the foot of Cantarello's bed, under a 
 tile marked by a cross ; you can send and get them 
 and see if I am mad. Let me alone, doctor ; what I 
 want is a good roast chicken and a bottle of Bordeaux 
 wine, and none of your cursed bleedings." 
 
 It was now the doctor who raised his eves to heaven. 
 
 " My child, my dear child ! " cried the marchesa ; 
 "do you wish to make me die of grief?"" 
 
 " Is another bleeding absolutely indispensable ? " 
 asked his father. 
 
 " Absolutely," replied the doctor. 
 
 " Well, then, we must call in four of the servants 
 and have him held by main force on the bed while 
 you operate." 
 
 " Good God ! " cried the count, " there "s no need 
 of all that. Is it going to give you a vast deal of 
 pleasure, my dear mother, to see me bled ? " 
 
 " Yes, because they say it will do vou good." 
 
 " Here, doctor, here ""s my arm ; but it is to be the 
 last time, you know." 
 
 " Yes, the last time," said the doctor, " provided 
 it relieves the head and causes the delirium to 
 disappear." 
 
 The doctor performed his operation, but as the 
 count was already horribly weakened he could not 
 support this fresh loss of blood and he fainted again ; 
 fortunately this return of unconsciousness lasted only 
 a few moments. 
 
 While thev were bleeding him against his will
 
 200 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 Ferdinando made certain reflections ; he saw that 
 if he talked any more about the key of the piano, 
 the buried money, and the secret door, they 
 would think him still delirious, and bleed and re- 
 bleed him till all his natural strength was gone. 
 Consequently, he resolved to say nothing more of 
 those matters, but to keep himself to himself and ac- 
 complish entirely alone an enterprise he had begun 
 alone. So the young count came out of his second 
 unconsciousness with the meekest disposition in the 
 world ; he kissed his mother, saluted his father re- 
 spectfully, and held out his hand to the doctor, say- 
 ing that he felt it was to his great art he owed his 
 life. At these words the doctor declared the delirium 
 had entirely disappeared, and answered for his 
 patient's recovery. 
 
 Ferdinando then risked asking for a few details as 
 to what had happened. lie learned that the gar- 
 dener had followed him, and hearing a pistol-shot had 
 entered the church and found him lying ten paces 
 distant from a dead man, in a condition not far re- 
 moved from that of the corpse. These questions on 
 his part naturally led to others on the part of his 
 father and mother. But Ferdinando simply answered 
 that having entered the church out of curiosity 
 l>ecause in passing he fancied he heard a noise there, 
 he had been attacked by a tall man whom he believed 
 lie had killed. He added that he was very desirous 
 to thank the gardener for his /eal, and he requested 
 that Peppino should be brought to see him. They 
 promised that if on the morrow he should con- 
 tinue to get better his request would be granted.
 
 THE SPERONARA 201 
 
 That very evening, as the marquis and his wife, 
 profiting by a doxe of their patient, had gone to 
 supper, Ferdinando, waking up, heard the voice of 
 1'eppino at his door, asking about the condition 
 of his young master. Instantly Ferdinando called 
 out to the servants to let him in. The footman on 
 service hesitated, but Ferdinando reiterated the order 
 in so imperative a tone that on the count's promise 
 that he would keep him only a few moments the 
 man admitted him. 
 
 " Peppino," said Ferdinando as soon as the door 
 was closed, " you are a brave fellow, and I regret now 
 I did not put more confidence in you. You can earn 
 a hundred onces if you choose to obey me, and obey 
 only me." 
 
 " Speak, my young lord," replied Peppino. 
 
 " What have they done with the man I killed ? " 
 
 " Taken him to the village church, where his body 
 was shown in order to get it recognized." 
 
 "Has it been recognized ? " 
 
 Yes." 
 
 " For whom ? " 
 
 " The man with the cloak who went to the Ri/./osV 
 
 " Hut his name ? " 
 
 " Not known." 
 
 " Good. They searched him ?" 
 
 " Yes, but they found nothing on him but money, 
 flint, tinder, and a match. All those articles are on 
 view at the judge's house." 
 
 *' Among them was there a kev ?" 
 
 " I think not." 
 
 '" (io to the judge's house; examine those articles
 
 202 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 minutely, and if there is a key come back and tell 
 me what shape it is. If there is no key, go to the 
 chapel and hunt all round the column near which 
 the body lay ; you will find two keys." 
 
 * Two ? " 
 
 " Yes ; one, a good deal like the key of this secre- 
 tary ; the other, small and round, like the key of a 
 piano here ! like that one over there. Do you 
 understand ? " 
 
 " Perfectly." 
 
 " Whether you find one, or whether you find two, 
 you are to bring whatever you find back to me 
 but only to me, mind you." 
 
 " To no one but you, that 's agreed." 
 
 " Come to-morrow, Peppino." 
 
 " To-morrow, Excellency." 
 
 " By the bye ! come when my father and mother 
 are at breakfast, so that we can talk at our ease." 
 
 " Good ; I '11 watch the time." 
 
 " The hundred onces will be ready for you." 
 
 " They will be very welcome, your Excellency, see- 
 ing that I am going to marry that daughter of llix/o, 
 a fine slip of a girl." 
 
 "Hush! here's my mother coming back. Go 
 through that closet, and down by the little staircase, 
 so that she may not see you." 
 
 Peppino obeyed. When the marchesa entered she 
 found her son alone and perfectly himself. 
 
 The next day at the hour agreed upon, Peppino 
 returned. He had executed his commission with 
 admirable intelligence. Among the articles at the 
 judge's house was an ordinary key like that of a
 
 THE SPERONARA 203 
 
 secretary. Having made sure of this fact, Peppino 
 went to the chapel and made such a thorough search 
 that on the opposite side of the altar he had found 
 the second key, made like that of a piano. No 
 doubt Contarello had flung it as far away from him 
 as he could. The young count sei/ed it eagerly ; he 
 saw it was the very same that he had found under 
 the first step of the altar, the one which opened the 
 door of the corridor. He hid it under the pillow of 
 his bed. Then, turning to Peppino, he said : 
 
 " Listen. I don't know when I shall be able to 
 get up ; but, at all hazards, have ready in your own 
 house for the moment when I shall want them, two 
 torches, pincers, a file, and a crowbar, and try not to 
 be out of your own house at night for the next 
 fifteen days." 
 
 Peppino promised the count to have ready the 
 articles required, and went away. 
 
 I-ieft alone, Ferdinando wanted to see how much 
 strength he had, and he tried to rise. But scarcely 
 did he get into a sitting posture before he felt every- 
 thing twirling about him. His wound was not seri- 
 ous, but the doctor's bleedings had so weakened him 
 that, seeing he was likely to faint again, he lay down 
 as fast as possible, fully understanding that before 
 he attempted any further action he must wait till 
 his strength came back. 
 
 So he remained all that day and all the morrow 
 very quiet, showing no signs of delirium beyond 
 demanding from time to time chicken and Bordeaux 
 wine. But, as will readily be believed, the doctor 
 considered those demands exorbitant and even crazy ;
 
 204 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 he said they denoted the remains of fever which 
 must Ix? combated ; so he ordered herb broth to be 
 severely continued, and talked of a sixth bleeding if 
 these symptoms of disordered appetite, which indi- 
 cated weakness of the patient's stomach, were not 
 subdued. Ferdinando took the hint, and seeing that 
 lie was absolutely at the doctor's mercy, he resigned 
 himself to the herb broth. 
 
 At the end of another ten days, being really well 
 and allowed to move about the house, he sent for 
 Peppino, and as soon as he was alone with him asked 
 for news of what had happened during his confine- 
 ment. Nothing had happened ; all was in precisely 
 the same state. The name of the dead man, who 
 had now been buried, was still unknown ; no one had 
 entered the chapel, but peasants passing the place at 
 night said they heard groans and the sound of chains 
 being rattled underground, proof positive that the 
 deceased had died in his sins, and that his soul had 
 come back to ask the pravcrs of him who had so 
 violently and unexpectedly driven it from his Ixxlv. 
 
 All this only made Ferdinando the more determined 
 to carry out his original intentions, and he resolved 
 to attempt the enterprise at once. Consequently, he 
 told the tale to Peppino, ordered him to keep it 
 secret, and to be ready with torches, crowbar, pincers, 
 and file at the little park gate leading from the 
 chateau to the chapel on the night but one follow- 
 ing. Peppino promised all that his young master 
 wished. 
 
 Everything went on as planned : Ferdinando, no 
 longer nursed and watched, left the chateau soon
 
 THE SPERONARA 205 
 
 after midnight, met Peppino at the little gate, and 
 together they entered the chapel. 
 
 The impression on Don Ferdinando was deep when 
 he found himself again at the spot where he had 
 gone through such violent emotions and run so 
 terrible a danger ; but none the less did he advance 
 with a firm step towards the secret door, noting on 
 his way the stains of Cantarello's dried blood which 
 still reddened the pavement about the column at 
 the foot of which he had fallen. Ferdinando turned 
 aside with an involuntary shudder, made a circuit, 
 looking askance and in silence at the traces Death 
 had left in passing ; then he went straight to the 
 secret door which he opened without difficulty. Once 
 in the corridor the two young men lighted each a 
 torch and continued their way, went down the stair- 
 case and found the second door. In an instant they 
 had broken it in; but as it opened so noxious an 
 exhalation issued through it that both were obliged 
 to step back several paces in order to breathe at all. 
 Don Ferdinando then ordered the gardener to go 
 back and set the first door open, so that the outer 
 air could enter these subterranean vaults. Peppino 
 went back, fixed the door open, and returned. Fer- 
 dinando, impatient, had already continued his wav, 
 and Peppino saw the light of his torch shining 
 brilliantly in the distance. Suddenly the gardener 
 heard a cry and rushed towards his master. Ferdi- 
 nando was leaning against a third door, which he had 
 just opened ; so horrible a spectacle had met his 
 eves that he could not repress the cry at which 
 Peppino hastened to him.
 
 206 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 This third door opened into a low vaulted cellar 
 in which were three dead bodies : that of a man 
 fastened to the wall by a chain that went round his 
 Avaist ; that of a woman lying on a mattress ; that 
 of a child fifteen or eighteen months old lying on 
 its mother. Suddenly the young men quivered ; 
 they thought they heard a moan. The man and 
 woman were really dead, but the child still breathed ; 
 its mouth was glued to a vein in the arm of its 
 mother, and it seemed to owe its prolonged existence 
 to the blood it had sucked. Nevertheless, the babe's 
 weakness was so great that it was evident if prompt 
 care were not given to it. nothing could save it ; 
 the woman appeared to be dead for some hours, the 
 man for two or three days. 
 
 Don Ferdinando's decision was rapid and such as 
 the gravity of the case demanded : he ordered Pep- 
 pino to take the child; then, convincing himself 
 that no other creature dead or living was in the 
 vault, except the man and woman (who were un- 
 known to both the young men), he closed the door, 
 left the cave hastily, closed the secret exit, and fol- 
 lowed by Peppino made his way to the village of 
 Belvedere. As they went along Peppino gathered 
 an orange, and squeezed a little of the juice on the 
 lips of the child, which opened its eyes, but shut 
 them instantly, laying its hands upon them and 
 moaning as if the light had painfully dazzled them. 
 But as, at the same time, the child opened it gasp- 
 ing mouth, Peppino renewed his experiment, and 
 the child, though still keeping its eyes closed, seemed 
 to revive a very little.
 
 THE SPERONARA 207 
 
 Don Ferdinando went straight to the judge, told 
 him word for word what had happened, showed him 
 the child in proof of what he said, and summoned 
 him to go with him to the vault to draw up the 
 proccfi-verbal and identify the dead. Then, accom- 
 panied by the judge, he went to the doctor's house, 
 left the baby in charge of the doctor's wife, and all 
 four went to the chapel. Everything there was in 
 the same state as when Ferdinando and Peppino left 
 it. The proems-verbal began. 
 
 The body chained to the wall was that of a man 
 some thirty-five or thirty-six years of age, who seemed 
 to have struggled fearfully to break his chain ; his 
 twisted arms were stretched towards his wife's mouth, 
 and covered with wounds made by his own teeth, 
 seemingly those of despair more than of hunger. The 
 doctor declared that he must have been dead about 
 two days. The man was totally unknown both to 
 him and to the judge, and to the young count. 
 
 The woman may have been twenty-six or twenty- 
 eight years old. Her death seemed to have been 
 rather quiet. She had opened a vein with a knitting- 
 needle, no doubt to prolong the life of her child, and 
 had died of weakness, as already said. The doctor 
 judged she had been dead but a few hours. She 
 seemed, like the man, a total stranger to the village, 
 neither the doctor nor the judge nor the count could 
 recall having ever seen her. 
 
 Near the head of the women and against the wall 
 was a broken chair covered with a petticoat. The 
 judge moved the chair and it was then seen that it 
 had been placed there to hide a hole made at the
 
 208 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 base of the wall. This hole was large enough for ;i 
 person to pass through it, but it stopped at a depth 
 of four feet. Examination being made of this hole, it 
 proved to have been hollowed by the use of a wooden 
 instrument that the Sicilian women call a mazzarello ; 
 it is the same that our women slip through their 
 belts to hold their knitting-needles. They also 
 found beneath the mattress such is the power of the 
 will, the strength of despair several large stones 
 from the foundation of the wall, which must have 
 been wrenched bv this woman with no assistance other 
 than her hands and that frail tool. The earth, as 
 well as the stones, had been covered by the mattress, 
 no doubt to conceal them from whoever watched 
 these prisoners. 
 
 The examination went on. In a depression of the 
 wall a bottle was found in which there had been oil ; 
 a jug in which there had been water, an extinguished 
 lamp, and a tin cup. Another depression in the wall 
 was blackened and calcined, showing that fire must 
 have been lighted several times, although there was 
 no vent at all by which the smoke could escape. 
 
 A table stood in the middle of this cellar. The 
 judge, as he placed himself at it to write, noticed a 
 second tin cup, in which was a black liquid ; near 
 this cup was a pen, and on the ground three or four 
 sheets of paper. It was then seen that these sheets 
 were covered with very small, fine writing, ill-spelt, 
 but legible. Search was instantly made for other 
 
 O * 
 
 pieces of paper, and two were found in the straw 
 that lay beneath the body of the man. These sheets 
 of paper did not seem to have Ix-cn hidden intention-
 
 THE SPERONARA 209 
 
 ally, but rather to have fallen accidentally from the 
 table and been scattered bv the feet. As the pages 
 were numbered they could be put together and read 
 consecutively. The judge read them aloud, and 
 here is what he read : 
 
 " In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy 
 Spirit, so be it : 
 
 I write these lines in the hope that they may fall 
 into the hands of some charitable person. Whoever 
 that person may be, we implore him in the name of 
 all that he holds most dear in this world and the 
 next, to take us out of the tomb in which we have 
 been shut up, my husband, my child, and myself, for 
 several years, without having deserved in any way 
 this awful punishment. 
 
 My name is Teresa Lentini. I was born at Taor- 
 mina ; I must now be twenty-eight or twenty-nine 
 years old. Since the moment when we were shut up 
 in this cellar where I now write, I have been unable 
 to count hours or separate day from night; I have 
 had no measure for time. We have been here a 
 very long time; that is all I know. 
 
 I was at Catania, in the household of the Marchese 
 di San Floridio, where I was foster-sister to the 
 young Contessa Lucia. The young countess died 
 in, I think, 1798 ; but the marchesa, whom I re- 
 minded of her dearly beloved daughter, wished to 
 keep me near her. bhe died too, that good and 
 worthy marchesa ; God keep her soul ; she was 
 beloved bv every one. 
 
 I then wished to go back to my mother, but the 
 II-
 
 210 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 Marchcse di San Floridio would not permit it. He 
 had with him, as steward, a man whose ancestors 
 had been in the service of his own ancestors during 
 five or six generations; this man knew all about his 
 property and all his secrets, a mail, in short, in 
 whom he had the greatest confidence. His name 
 was Gaetano Cantarello. The marquis was resolved 
 to marry me to this man, that we might both, he 
 said, remain with him until his death. 
 
 Cantarello was a man about twenty -eight to thirty 
 years of age; handsome, but with rather a hard 
 face. There was nothing to say against him ; he 
 seemed an honest man ; he was neither a gambler 
 nor dissolute. He had inherited from his father and 
 received from the kindness of the marquis a con- 
 siderable sum for a man in his position; it was 
 therefore a good match for me, considering my 
 poverty. But when the marquis spoke to me of 
 this project I trembled, in spite of myself, and wept. 
 There was something in the frowning eyebrows of 
 that man, in the savage expression of his eyes, in 
 the harsh tones of his voice, that frightened me 
 instinctively. It is true, I heard all my companions 
 say how lucky I was to be loved by Cantarello, and 
 that Cantarello was the handsomest man in Messina. 
 I asked myself within me whether or not I was cra/y 
 to judge my betrothed in this way. I blamed my- 
 self for being unjust to that poor Cantarello, but all 
 the same, I not only had an instinctive repulsion for 
 him, but I did not conceal from myself that I had 
 just the opposite sentiment for a young vine-dresser 
 in the neighbourhood of Paterno, named Luigi Pol-
 
 THE SPERONARA 211 
 
 lino, who was my cousin. We had loved each other 
 as friends from childhood and we could not have 
 told, ourselves, at what time friendship had changed 
 to love. 
 
 Our despair, his and mine, was great when the 
 marquis made known his projects about Cantarello 
 and me, all the greater because my mother, who 
 saw in this marriage a rise I could never have hoped 
 to make, abandoned entirely the interests of poor 
 Luigi to take up those of the rich steward, and 
 ordered me to renounce my cousin and think of no 
 one in future but his rival. 
 
 This happened at the beginning of the year 1783; 
 the marriage day was fixed for March 15th, when 
 the 5th of February, that day of terrible memories, 
 arrived. All the preceding day, the 4th, the sirocco 
 had blown, so that every one was stupid with the 
 torpor which that wind brings with it. The Marchese 
 di San Floridio was held fast by the gout in his 
 apartment, where he was lying on a cliuise longue. 
 I was sitting in the next room so as to run to him 
 at his first call if by chance he needed anvthing, 
 when suddenly a strange sound hurtled through the 
 air, and the palace began to rock like a vessel at sea. 
 Presently the wall between my room and that of the 
 marquis was split apart wide enough to pass a hand 
 through it, while the parallel wall crumbled down 
 and the ceiling, being without support on that side, 
 came down to the floor. I threw myself to the 
 opposite side to avoid the crush, and I was thus 
 caught as it were under a roof. At the same moment 
 I heard a loud crv from the marquis's bed-chamber.
 
 212 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 I was close to the fissure made in the wall ; I applied 
 my eye to it. A falling beam had struck the mar- 
 quis on the head and he had rolled from his chair to 
 the floor quite bewildered. I was about to run to 
 his assistance when I saw Cantarello enter the 
 chamber through the door that was opposite to me. 
 At the sight of his unconscious master, Cantarello's 
 face assumed such a strange expression that I shud- 
 dered with terror. He looked all about him to see 
 if he was alone ; then, certain that no one was there 
 he sprang upon his master ; I thought at first he 
 meant to succour him, but I was soon undeceived. 
 He detached the rope-belt that fastened the marquis's 
 dressing-gown and wound it round his neck ; then 
 pressing his knee against his master's chest he 
 strangled him. In his death-throes the marquis 
 opened his eves, and no doubt recognized his mur- 
 derer, for he held out to him his clasped hands. I 
 gave an involuntary cry. Cantarello raised his head. 
 "Is any one there?" he asked in a terrible voice. 
 It was then that I saw in their full expression of 
 ferocity those frowning eyebrows, that look which 
 had always, even when his face was calm, so terrified 
 me. Trembling and nearly dead with fear, I kept 
 silence and sank down upon the floor. Presently, 
 as no one came, I rose, and applied my eyes once 
 more to the crack ; for I forgot the danger I ran 
 in remaining in a palace that might crumble to 
 pieces at any moment, so grasped and fascinated was 
 I by the dreadful scene that was passing before mv 
 eves. The marquis lav upon the floor without move- 
 ment and evidently dead. Cantarello was standing
 
 THE SPERONARA 213 
 
 before a secretary, which all of us knew to be full 
 of gold and bank-notes, for never was the key left in 
 it, and we knew that the marquis carried that key 
 upon his person. Cantarello took gold and bank- 
 notes by the handfuls and thrust them into the 
 pockets of his clothing ; then, when he had taken all, 
 he pulled from the marquis's bed the corn-stalk 
 mattress, tipped the secretary over upon the mat- 
 tress, heaped the chairs on the secretary, and put- 
 ting a brand from the stove to the pile, he set fire 
 to it. Then, as soon as he saw flames beginning 
 to rise, he rushed through the door by which he had 
 entered. 
 
 As this is a deadly accusation, which I bring 
 against a human being, I swear before God and before 
 men that my tale is true ; and that I neither add to 
 nor withhold any of the facts that passed before my 
 sight. 
 
 The marquis was dead ; the flames were making 
 frightful progress; shocks still shook the palace so 
 that it seemed at every instant as if it must come 
 down. The instinct of self-preservation then awoke 
 in me ; I dragged myself out of the wreck and 
 rubbish that surrounded me on all sides ; I reached 
 a staircase and went down it like one in a dream, 
 not treading on the steps. Behind me the stairs 
 were engulfed. In the vestibule I suddenly came 
 face to face with Cantarello. I uttered a crv, he 
 tried to take me under the arm and lead me awav, 
 but I sprang into the street crying for help. The 
 streets were full of flving persons ; I mingled with 
 the crowd ; I was lost in its flood, which pushed me
 
 214 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 before it and with it to the great square. I had 
 lost Cantarello from -sight, and that was all I cared 
 for at the moment. The day went by in dreadful 
 fears, then night came. Most of the houses in 
 Messina were in flames : the conflagration lighted 
 the streets and squares like a lurid and terrifying 
 day. Still, .a little tranquillity seemed to come with 
 the night ; the dead were reckoned by their absence ; 
 the living were searched for; whoever had father, 
 mother, brother, or friend, called them bv name. I 
 had no one ; mv mother lived at Taormina. I was 
 sitting in silence, my head on my knees, and seeing 
 over and over again ceaselessly the horrible deed I 
 had witnessed the day before, when all of a sudden I 
 heard my name called in tones of unspeakable dread. 
 I raised my head ; I saw a man running from group 
 to group like a madman. It was Luigi. I rose, and 
 pronounced his name ; he saw me, gave a cry of joy, 
 bounded towards me, took me in his arms, and bore 
 me awav like an infant. I let him do it; I flung 
 my arms about his neck and closed my eyes. All 
 around us I heard cries of terror; through my eye- 
 lids I saw red gleams ; at times I felt the heat of 
 flames. At last, after perhaps half an hour, the 
 pace at which we were going slackened, then it 
 stopped. I opened my eyes ; we were out of the 
 town ; Luigi, worn out with fatigue, had dropped on 
 one knee and was supporting me against the other. 
 On the hori/on, Messina was burning and crumbling 
 down with mighty moans. I was saved, I was in my 
 Luigi's arms, I was out of the power of that infamous 
 Cantarello, I thought so at least.
 
 THE SPERONARA 215 
 
 I rose eagerly. " I can walk," I said to Luigi. 
 " Let us flee, let us flee ! " 
 
 Luigi had recovered breath ; he was as ardent to 
 carry me off' as I to go ; he passed his arm around my 
 body, and we resumed our course. On reaching 
 Contessi, we saw a man who was driving from the 
 half-destroyed village five or six mules. Luigi went 
 to him and proposed to buy one of them which was 
 all saddled ; the price was settled in an instant. 
 The mule paid for, Luigi mounted it and I sprang 
 up behind him. By daylight we reached Taormina. 
 I ran to my mother's house ; she had thought me 
 dead, poor woman ! I told her that the marquis was 
 dead, the palace burned ; I told her, too, that I should 
 have died twenty times over but for Ltiigi ; I threw 
 myself at her feet, and swore that I would rather die 
 than belong to Contarello. 
 
 She loved me ; she yielded. Luigi entered ; she 
 called him her son, and it was agreed that on the 
 morrow I should become his wife. That which 
 made her the more willing was that I had lost every- 
 thing by the death of the marquis. The position I 
 occupied in his household was above that of ordinary 
 servants ; therefore I had no fixed salary. From 
 time to time the marquis made me gifts of money, 
 which I sent at once to my mother. Besides this, 
 as I have said, he promised to give me a dowry. 
 This dowry, I knew, was to be 10,000 ducats, but 
 no writing secured it and the marquis had made no 
 will ; the money, though pledged, was not a debt. 
 The family were ignorant of the promise, and not 
 for the world would I have tried to claim it as a
 
 216 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 right. I had, therefore, really lost all by the death 
 of the marquis, and my mother, who had so obsti- 
 nately refused to marry me to Luigi was now, I 
 think, glad at the bottom of her soul that his feel- 
 ings for me had not changed, as might well have 
 been the case with Cantarello. Besides, she really 
 loved me ; she had seen my distaste for the latter 
 change into insurmountable aversion, and now heard 
 me swear in tones of truth that I would die sooner 
 than belong to that man. Had Cantarello been 
 there to claim me, she would, I think, have left me 
 free to choose between him and his rival. 
 
 The day went by in attending on both sides to 
 the duties of religion. The priest was asked to be 
 ready the next morning at ten o'clock ; our relations 
 and friends were notified that we should receive the 
 nuptial benediction at that hour. As for Luigi, he 
 had long had neither father nor mother, and no 
 relations near enough to make it a duty to notify 
 them. 
 
 These were sad auspices for a marriage. Though 
 the earthquake was less felt at Taormina, built as 
 it is upon a rock, than at Messina and Catania, the 
 town had not been exempt from shocks, which might 
 at any moment become violent. Hut God kept us 
 safe for this time, and daylight dawned without 
 serious accident. Ten o'clock struck, and we went 
 to the church accompanied by nearly the whole 
 village. On entering, I fancied I saw a man hiding 
 behind a pillar in the darkest corner of the church. 
 Simple and natural as the presence of inquisitive 
 persons was, my eyes, whether from instinct or pie-
 
 THE SPERONARA 217 
 
 sentiment could not detach themselves from that 
 figure. 
 
 The mass began ; but just as we knelt before the 
 altar the man came out from behind the column, 
 advanced towards us, and placing himself between 
 the priest and me, said : 
 
 " This marriage cannot go on. 1 " 
 
 "Cantarello !" cried Luigi, putting his hand in 
 his pocket to get out his knife. I seized his arm 
 forcibly, though I felt that I turned pale myself. 
 
 " Do not disturb a divine ceremony," said the 
 priest. 
 
 " This marriage cannot go on, 1 " repeated Cantarello, 
 in a louder and more imperious voice than before. 
 
 " Why not ? " asked the priest. 
 
 " Because this woman is my wife," replied Can- 
 tarello, pointing his finger at me. 
 
 " I ! the wife of that man ! " I exclaimed ; " he is 
 mad.' 1 '' 
 
 "It is you, Teresa, who arc mad," he said, coldly ; 
 " or rather who have lost your memory. Do you 
 not remember that the Marchese di San Floridio had 
 long betrothed us to each other, and that on the 
 very evening before the earthquake I mean on the 
 4th at midnight we were married in his chapel with 
 himself as witness, married by his own chaplain? " 
 
 I gave a cry of terror, for the marquis and the 
 chaplain were both dead, and neither could bear 
 testimony on my behalf. 
 
 " Have you committed this sacrilege, my daugh- 
 ter?"" asked the priest, coming towards me with an 
 air of doubt.
 
 218 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 "Father! 11 I cried, "by all that is mast snored in 
 the world I affirm " 
 
 "And I,"" said Cantarello, stretching his hand 
 towards the altar, " I swear 
 
 " No perjury ! " I cried, " no perjury ! Have you 
 not crimes enough already for which you must render 
 an account to God? " 
 
 Cantarello quivered and looked at me fixedly as if 
 he wished to read to the bottom of my soul; but 
 this time, instead of terrifying me, his glance gave 
 me fresh strength, for in it I saw an appearance of 
 terror. I profited by that moment of fear. 
 
 " rather, 11 I said to the priest, " this man is a 
 poor mad creature who has loved me ; I can attribute 
 the crime he has attempted here to-day only to the 
 excess of his love. Let me speak to him, I beg of 
 you, in a low voice, near the altar, but in presence 
 of you all ; and I hope to make him repent and own 
 the truth." 1 
 
 Cantarello burst out laughing. 
 
 *' The truth ! 11 he cried, " I have told it ; there is 
 no power on earth that can make me say otherwise. 11 
 
 " Silence! " I answered, " and follow me. 11 
 
 God gave me a mysterious, unheard-of strength, of 
 which I should never have supposed myself capable. 
 The priest came down from the altar. I signed to 
 Cantarello to follow me; he did so. All present 
 formed a wide semicircle around us ; Luigi alone 
 stood forward, his hand on his knife and never taking 
 his eyes from us. 
 
 "Teresa," said Cantarello, in a low voice and 
 speaking first, as if he feared what I might say,
 
 THE SPERONARA 219 
 
 " why have you broken the promise you gave to 
 the Marchese di San Floridio ? Why do you force 
 me to have recourse to these means ? " 
 
 " Because," I answered, looking fixedly at him, 
 " I do not choose to be the wife of a thief and 
 a murderer."" 
 
 Cantarello turned pale as death ; but with that 
 exception nothing showed that the blow I had given 
 him struck home. 
 
 " Thief and murderer ! " he repeated laughing ; 
 "you will explain to me those words, I hope." 
 
 " I have but one explanation to give you : I was 
 in the next room and I saw all through a crack 
 in the wall." 
 
 " What did you see ? " asked Cantarello. 
 
 " I saw you enter the chamber of the marquis 
 at the moment when he was struck by the beam ; 
 I saw you rush upon him ; I saw you strangle him 
 with the rope of his dressing-gown ; I saw you 
 force open the secretary, and take everything 
 gold and bank-notes ; then I saw you pull the straw 
 mattress from the bed, overturn the secretary, chairs, 
 and sofa upon it, and set fire to the pile with a 
 brand from the stove. It was I who uttered the 
 cry that made you raise your head ; and when you 
 met me below in the vestibule and I fled you, you 
 thought I was pale with terror, did you not ? No, 
 it was horror." 
 
 u Your story is not ill-imagined,'''' said Cantarello. 
 " No doubt you hope it will be believed." 
 
 " Yes ; for it is not a bile, but a terrible reality.' 1 ' 1 
 
 " What proof have you ? "
 
 220 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 "Proof?" 
 
 " Yes ; you must give proofs. The palace is 
 burned, the body is consumed, the secretary that 
 contained this imaginary gold and bank-notes is in 
 ashes. Yes the proof! what proof have you?" 
 
 Doubtless God inspired me. 
 
 " Then you do not know what happened ? " 
 
 " What happened ? " 
 
 "After your departure, after you had quitted 
 the town to hide your stolen money in some secure 
 retreat, the servants of the marquis assembled and 
 in a tranquil moment they went up to his room. 
 The body was found intact, brought down to the 
 chapel, and the marks of strangulation were plainly 
 seen around the neck. The secretary is in ashes, 
 yes ; the bank-notes are burned, yes ; but gold 
 neither melts nor burns. The servants know that 
 that secretary was full of gold ; they will search 
 for the rolls of it; they will not find them; then 
 I shall tell them where they can be found, and when 
 the cellars and gardens of your house in Catania are 
 thoroughly searched they will be found." 
 
 Cantarello uttered a sort of low growl that I alone 
 could hear ; I saw that he hesitated whether to stab me 
 on the spot or not, at the risk of what might result. 
 
 " If vou make a movement," I said, recoiling a 
 step, "I will call for help, and you are lost. See." 
 
 It was as I said; Luigi and three young men, 
 our relations, stood ready to rush upon Cantarello 
 at the first sign I made them. Cantarello gave 
 a side glance at them, saw their hostile intentions, 
 and seemed to reflect a moment.
 
 THE SPERONARA 221 
 
 "And if I withdraw, if I quit Sicily, if I leave 
 you to be happy with your Luigi, what then? " 
 
 "Then I will hold my tongue." 
 
 " What assures me of that ? " 
 
 " My oath." 
 
 " And your husband, will he know what hap- 
 pened ? " 
 
 " Not so long as you leave us in peace, and do 
 nothing to trouble us." 
 
 " Then swear." 
 
 I extended my hand to the altar. 
 
 "O my God!" I said in a low voice, "receive 
 the oath that I make to never tell to living soul 
 what I saw at the palazzo San Floridio during the 
 day of the 5th. Hear the oath that I make to 
 the murderer and thief to conceal his crime from 
 all the world as though I were his accomplice, and 
 never, directly or indirectly, reveal it to any one." 
 
 " Even in confession ? " 
 
 " Not even in confession ; unless," I added, " lie 
 himself releases me from this oath by attempting 
 some further persecution." 
 
 " Swear by the blood of Christ." 
 
 " By the blood of Christ, I swear it." 
 
 " Father," said Cantarello, going down the steps 
 of the altar and addressing the priest, " I am a poor 
 sinner; forgive me and pray for me. I lied; this 
 woman is free." 
 
 Then, having said these words in a tone that 
 seemed as if repentance alone had brought them 
 from his lips, Cantarello passed the group of young 
 men, Luigi and he exchanging looks, the one of
 
 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 disdain, the other of menace, and with firm step, 
 wrapping himself in his cloak, he reached the door 
 of the church and disappeared. 
 
 The marriage ceremony, so strangely and unex- 
 pectedly interrupted, was completed without further 
 incident. On our return to the house Luigi asked 
 me what had passed between Cantarello and myself; 
 and what power I had over him to make him obey 
 me as he did. I answered that, as he must have 
 seen, I had made an oath, and that oath was to 
 keep total silence. Luigi did not insist ; he knew 
 that no entreaties could make me break a promise 
 thus solemnly made, and I never perceived that 
 he had any unpleasant recollection of my refusal. 
 
 We went to live in Luigfs house. It was a pretty 
 little house, standing alone in a vincvard a couple of 
 miles from Paterno, on the other side of the Gravitta, 
 on the road to Centorbi. As for Cantarello, he had 
 left Sicily, so they said, and no one had seen him 
 since the moment when he quitted the church at 
 Taormina. Nothing had transpired in regard to the 
 murder or the theft, and no suspicion existed that 
 the Marchese di San Floridio was not killed accident- 
 ally. For three years Luigi and I were the happiest 
 creatures upon earth : our only grief was the loss of 
 our first child. But God soon after sent us a second, 
 full of vigour and health, and we began to forget our 
 first loss however sorrowful it was. Our child was 
 put out to nurse at Feminamorta, a little village 
 about six miles from our house, and every Sunday 
 we went to see it, or else its nurse brought it to
 
 THE SPERONARA 223 
 
 One night it was the night of December 2d and 
 3d, 1787 some one rapped violently on our door. 
 Luigi rose to ask who it was. " Open," said a voice, 
 " I come from Feminamorta ; sent by the nurse of 
 your child." 
 
 I gave a cry of terror, for a messenger sent at that 
 hour boded no good. Luigi opened the door. A 
 man in peasant's dress stood by it. 
 
 " What is it ? " asked Luigi ; " is our child ill ? " 
 
 " It was taken with convulsions at five o'clock,* 1 
 said the peasant, " and the nurse sends you word that 
 if you do not make haste and come she is afraid the 
 poor innocent will die before you can have the com- 
 fort of kissing it." 
 
 " A doctor ! " I cried, " a doctor ! can we not fetch 
 one from Paterno ? " 
 
 " Useless," replied the peasant, " it would only 
 delay you, and the village doctor is with the 
 child." 
 
 Then, as if hurried himself, he started back along 
 the road to Feminamorta at a run. 
 
 " If you get there before us," Luigi called after 
 him, " say that we are following you." 
 
 " Yes," replied the peasant from a distance. 
 
 We dressed in haste, weeping ; then, locking the 
 door behind us, we started for Feminamorta ; but, 
 half-way there, as we were passing a spot narrowed 
 by rocks on both sides, four masked men sprang 
 upon us, knocked us down, bound our hands and legs, 
 and put a gag in our mouths and a bandage on our 
 eyes. Then, calling up a litter borne on the backs of 
 mules, they made us get into it, Luigi and me, locked
 
 224 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 the door with a key, and started off along the high- 
 way, the mules going at a fast trot. We went on 
 thus for four or five hours; then we stopped; an 
 instant later the door of the litter opened and we 
 felt, from the eold dampness about us, that we must 
 l>e in some sort of grotto ; then they removed our 
 
 g^ rs - 
 
 " Where are we ? and where are you taking us ?" I 
 a-sked at once, and so did Luigi. 
 
 " Eat and drink, 11 said a voice that was wholly 
 unknown to us, while some one loosed our hands, 
 leaving our legs bound ; " eat and drink, and con- 
 cern yourselves about nothing else. 1 '' 
 
 I tore the bandage from my eyes. As I had sup- 
 posed, we were in a cavern ; two masked men were 
 guarding the entrance, pistol in hand, while the two 
 others handed us wine and bread. 
 
 Luigi pushed awav the wine and bread when offered 
 to him and made an attempt to undo the ro|>e that 
 bound his legs. One of the men pointed a pistol at 
 his breast. 
 
 " Another movement, and you are a dead man, 1 ' 
 he said. 
 
 I entreated Luigi to make no resistance. They 
 offered us the bread and wine again. 
 
 " I am not hungry or thirsty,"" said Luigi. 
 
 " Nor I, either," I added. 
 
 " As you please, 11 said the man who had already 
 spoken, "but you will please allow us to bind your 
 hands, gag you, and blindfold you, as before. 1 ' 
 
 "Do what you like," I said; "we arc in your 
 power."
 
 THE SPERONARA 225 
 
 " Infamous wretches ! " muttered Luigi. 
 
 " In Heaven's name," I said to him, " make no re- 
 sistance, Luigi ; don't you see that these men are 
 not wishing to kill us. Have patience, and they may 
 have pity upon us." 
 
 To this hope, which I uttered in tones of distress, 
 a man's laugh replied ; but that laugh made me 
 shudder to the depths of my soul. I recognized it. 
 I had already heard it in the church of Taormina. 
 Beyond a doubt we were in the power of Cantarello, 
 and he was one of the four masked men who escorted 
 us. I held out my hands and let them gag me sub- 
 missively. Not so Luigi ; a struggle took place 
 between him and the man who tried to gag him; 
 but the three others came to the assistance of their 
 companion, and Luigi was bound and gagged by 
 force ; then they blindfolded him and closed the 
 doors and curtains of the litter upon us. 
 
 I cannot say how many hours we remained thus ; 
 it is impossible to measure time in such a situation. 
 It is probable that we spent the day in the grotto, 
 our captors not daring to march except by night. 
 I do not know what Luigi felt, but as for me, I 
 burned with fever and my hunger and thirst were 
 extreme. At last the litter was again opened. This 
 time we were not unbound ; they simply took the 
 gags from our mouths. As soon &s I could speak 
 I asked for drink ; they put a glass to my lips. 
 I emptied it at a gulp, and then they re-gagged me 
 as before. 
 
 I had not taken time to taste the drink they had 
 given me, which was like wine, though it had a 
 
 1$
 
 226 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 curious taste that I did not know ; but whatever the 
 liquor was it refreshed me ; moreover, I presently 
 felt a calmness that I should have thought impos- 
 sible in a situation like mine. This calmness was 
 not without a certain charm. I believed I saw, 
 although my eyes were bandaged, luminous phan- 
 toms passing before me and saluting me with gentle 
 smiles. Little by little I fell into a state of apathv 
 that was neither sleeping nor waking. I fancied that 
 airs, forgotten since my youth, were murmuring in 
 my ears ; from time to time I beheld bright gleams 
 crossing like flashes of lightning the darkness of the 
 night ; and I saw rich palaces brilliantly illuminated, 
 and beautiful meadows all covered with flowers. 
 Presentlv I felt myself taken up and carried into a 
 bower of oleanders and honeysuckle, where I was 
 laid on a mossy bank and saw above my head the 
 beauteous starry sky. Then I began to laugh at 
 the fears I had felt when I thought myself a pris- 
 oner; I saw my child, who ran joyfully up to me; 
 only, singular thing ! it was not the living child, but 
 the dead one. I took him in my arms ; I questioned 
 him about his absence ; he told me that one morning 
 he awoke with angel's wings and rose towards heaven ; 
 but when he saw me weep so much he had asked God 
 to let him come back to earth. Finally, all these 
 things became, little by little, indistinct, and con- 
 fused with one another ; then I fell, almost without 
 transition, into a heavy, deep, dark, dream less sleep. 
 
 When I woke we were in the cave where we are 
 to-day ; I free, Luigi chained to the wall. A table 
 stood between us ; on this table was a lamp, some
 
 THE SPERONARA 227 
 
 food, wine, water, and glasses ; against the wall the 
 remains of a fire by means of which Luigi\s chain 
 had been riveted. Luigi was sitting, his head on 
 his two knees, plunged in such deep grief that I 
 roused myself, rose, and went to him without his 
 hearing me. A sob, which escaped my breast against 
 my will, drew him from his dejection. He raised his 
 head and we fell into each other's arms. 
 
 It was the first time since our abduction that we 
 vcrc able to exchange our thoughts. Like me, 
 though he had not distinctly recognized Cantarello, 
 lie was convinced that we were his victims. They 
 had given him, as they had to me, a narcotic drink 
 which made him lose all sensation, and he had only 
 just wakened when I woke myself. 
 
 The first day we could not eat. Luigi was gloomy 
 and mute; I sat, weeping, beside him. After a time 
 our sorrow softened at the thought that we were still 
 together. At last the need for food came so violently 
 that we ate ; then followed sleep. Life went on for 
 us, without liberty, without daylight. Luigi had a 
 watch. During our journey it had stopped either at 
 midday or at midnight ; he wound it up ; it did not 
 tell us the real time, but at least it gave us an imagi- 
 nary time by the help of which we could measure 
 actual time. 
 
 We had been sei/ed and carried off on the niirht 
 
 o 
 
 of a Tuesday to Wednesday. We calculated that we 
 had waked up on Thursday morning. At the end 
 of twenty-four hours we made a line on the wall with 
 a piece of the charred stone. One day had thus 
 gone by ; it was now Friday. Twenty-four hours
 
 228 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 later we drew another line; it was now Saturday. 
 At the end of the same time we drew another line, 
 but longer than the first two; that line marked 
 Sunday. 
 
 We spent that holy day of our Lord in prayer. 
 
 Eight days went by thus. At the end of those 
 eight days we heard steps that seemed to be coming 
 down a long corridor. These steps came nearer and 
 nearer ; our door opened. A man enveloped in a 
 large cloak entered, holding a lantern in his hand ; 
 it was Cantarello. 
 
 I held Luigi in my arms ; I felt him tremble with 
 anger. Cantarello approached us, and I felt Luigi's 
 muscles contract and distend successively. I was 
 certain that if Cantarello came within the length 
 of the chain Luigi would bound upon him like a 
 tiger and there would be a mortal struggle between 
 the two men. There came to me then a thought I 
 should have supposed impossible that I might be 
 more wretched than I really was. I called out to 
 him to come no nearer. lie comprehended the cause 
 of my fear ; without replying he opened his cloak and 
 showed me that he was armed. Two pistols were in 
 his belt and a sword hung at his side. 
 
 He placed upon the table fresh provisions ; these, 
 like the first, consisted of bread, smoked meats, 
 wine, water, and oil. The oil was especially precious 
 to us ; it was light for our lamp. I knew now that 
 light was one of the first needs of man. 
 
 Cantarello went out and closed the door without 
 any other words having passed but those I had said 
 to prevent him from approaching Luigi, and without
 
 THE SPERONARA 229 
 
 his making any sign beyond the gesture that showed 
 me he was armed. It was then that, feeling certain 
 I was released from my oath, I for the first time 
 told all to Luigi. When I had finished speaking he 
 sighed deeply. 
 
 " lie means to make sure of our silence,"" he said. 
 " We are here for the rest of our lives. 1 " 
 
 A burst of laughter came from behind the door. 
 Cantarello had stopped there ; he had listened and 
 heard all. We knew then that we had no hope but 
 in God and in ourselves. 
 
 We began, after this, to make a careful inspection 
 of our dungeon. It is a species of cellar ten feet 
 wide and twelve feet long, with no other issue than 
 the door. We sounded the walls ; they seemed to 
 us solid. I went to the door and examined it ; it 
 was of oak and secured by two locks. There was 
 little chance of escape, and besides, Luigi was 
 chained round the waist and by one foot. 
 
 Nevertheless, for nearly a year hope never aban- 
 doned us altogether ; for that whole year we meditated 
 on every possible means of escape. Every week, 
 punctually, Cantarello brought us our weekly pro- 
 visions. Strange ! little by little we grew so ac- 
 customed to his visit that, whether from resignation 
 or from the need of an instant's relief to our solitude, 
 we ended by looking forward to his coming with a 
 sort of impatience. Besides, hope, which can never 
 be extinguished, made us always believe that Can- 
 tarello at his next visit would have pity on us. Hut 
 time went by ; Cantarello reappeared with the same 
 impassible and sombre face, and went away usually
 
 230 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 without exchanging with us a single word. We 
 continued to mark our days upon the wall. 
 
 A second year went by. Our existence became 
 wholly mechanical ; we remained whole hours stupe- 
 fied, and, like animals, we only issued from this 
 stupefaction when the need to eat or drink roused 
 us from our torpor. The sole thing that seriously 
 occupied our minds was care that our lamp should 
 not go out and we be left in darkness ; all else was 
 indifferent to us. 
 
 One day, instead of winding up his watch, Luigi 
 broke it against the wall ; from that day we ceased 
 to measure hours, time no longer existed for us, it 
 had dropped into eternity. 
 
 Nevertheless, as I had noticed that Cantarello 
 came regularly every eight days, I made a mark upon 
 the wall each time he came, and that replaced in 
 some degree our watch ; but I, too, wearied of this 
 useless count, and after a while I ceased to mark our 
 gaoler's visits. 
 
 An indefinite time elapsed ; it lasted several years. 
 I became pregnant. 
 
 This was a very joyous and very painful feeling 
 both. To become a mother in a dungeon ; to give 
 life to a human being without giving it light as well; 
 to see the child of one's womb, a poor innocent 
 creature not born as yet, condemned to a torture 
 that was killing us ! 
 
 For our child's sake we returned to God, whom 
 we had almost forgotten. We had prayed to him 
 so long for ourselves and he had not answered, that 
 we had come to believe he did not hear us ; but now
 
 THE SPERONARA 231 
 
 we prayed to him for our child, and it seemed to us 
 that our voice must pierce to the very bowels of the 
 earth. 
 
 I said nothing to Can tarello. I was afraid, I know 
 not why, lest this news might inspire him with some 
 dark design against us or against our child. One 
 day he found me sitting on my bed and suckling my 
 child. At that sight he quivered, and it seemed to 
 me that his harsh face softened. I threw myself at 
 his feet. 
 
 " Promise me that my child shall not be buried 
 forever in this dungeon, and I will forgive you," I 
 said to him. 
 
 He hesitated a moment, then, passing his hand 
 over his forehead, he said, " I promise it." 
 
 At his next visit he brought what was necessary to 
 clothe my child. Meantime I was fading away 
 visibly. One day Can tarello looked at me with an 
 expression of pity I had never before seen on his 
 face. 
 
 "You will never," he said, "have strength to 
 suckle that child." 
 
 " Ah ! " I replied, " you are right ; I feel that I am 
 almost extinct. It is air I want." 
 
 " Will you come out with me ? " asked Cantarello. 
 
 " Out ! and leave Luigi and my child ? " 
 
 " They will stay here to answer for your silence." 
 
 " Never ! " I said, " never ! " 
 
 Cantarello took up in silence his lantern which he 
 had placed upon the table, and went away. 
 
 I know not how many hours we remained without 
 speaking, Luigi and I.
 
 232 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 "You did wrong,"" said Luigi at last. 
 
 " Why should I go out ? " I asked. 
 
 " You could have seen where we are ; you would 
 have noticed where he took you ; you might have 
 found some way to reveal our existence and obtain 
 for us the pity of men. You did wrong, I tell 
 you." 
 
 " Very well," I answered, " if he speaks of it again 
 I will go." 
 
 And we dropped back into our habitual silence. 
 
 Eight days went by. Cantarello appeared ; be- 
 sides our usual provisions he brought a rather large 
 package. 
 
 " These are men's clothes," he said ; " when you 
 decide to come out, put them on ; I shall know what 
 that means and I will take you with me." 
 
 I did not answer ; but at his next coming Can- 
 tarello found me clothed as a man. 
 
 " Come," he said. 
 
 " One moment," I cried. " Will you swear to 
 bring me back ? " 
 
 " In one hour you will be here again." 
 
 " I follow you." 
 
 Cantarello walked before me, locked the first door, 
 and I saw we were in a corridor. In this corridor 
 was a second door, which he opened and then locked ; 
 we mounted ten or twelve steps and came face to 
 face with a third door. Cantarello turned to me, 
 drew a handkerchief from his pocket, and bandaged 
 my eves. I let him manage me like a child ; I felt 
 so completely in that man's power that even a remark 
 seemed to me useless.
 
 THE SPERONARA 233 
 
 After I was blindfolded he opened the third door, 
 and I knew that we were entering another at- 
 mosphere. We made forty steps on a pavement, 
 some of which resounded as if they covered cellars, 
 and I judged we were in a church. Then Cantarello 
 let go my hand and opened another door. This 
 time I felt by the impression of the air that we were 
 out of doors, and without giving time for Cantarello 
 to uncover my eyes, without reflecting on the conse- 
 quences that might come of my impatience, I tore 
 off the handkerchief. 
 
 I fell upon my knees, so beautiful did the world 
 seem to me ! It must have been about four in the 
 morning ; day was beginning to break ; the stars 
 were disappearing one by one in the sky ; the sun 
 was about to rise behind a chain of little hills. I 
 had before me a vast horizon ; to my left, ruins, to 
 my right, meadows and a river ; before me a town ; 
 beyond that town the sea. 
 
 I thanked God for having permitted me to see 
 once more these beautiful things which, notwith- 
 standing the twilight, dazzled me so much that I 
 was forced to close my eyes, so weakened was my 
 sight by the gloom of our dungeon. During my 
 prayer Cantarello closed the door. It was that of 
 a church, as I had thought ; but to me an unknown 
 church ; I was perfectly ignorant of the place I 
 was in. 
 
 No matter; I forgot not the slightest detail : and 
 this was easy, for the whole landscajxj was reflected 
 in my soul as in a mirror. 
 
 We waited till the sun had risen ; then we walked
 
 234 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 towards a village. On the way we met two or three 
 pei-sons who saluted Cantarello with an air of ac- 
 quaintance. On reaching the village we entered the 
 third house on our right. At the farther end of 
 the 7'oom, near the bed, sat an old woman spinning ; 
 near the window was a young woman, about my own 
 age, who w r as knitting ; a child, two or three years 
 old, was rolling on the floor. These women seemed 
 accustomed to see Cantarello ; yet I remarked that 
 not once did they call him by name. My presence 
 astonished them. In spite of my clothes, the young 
 woman recognized my sex, and made a few jokes 
 about it in a low voice to my conductor. " lie is a 
 young priest, 11 he said in a stern tone, "a young 
 priest, a relative of mine, who is moped at the semi- 
 nary ; and from time to time I take him out with me 
 to amuse him." 
 
 As for me, I must have seemed besotted to those 
 who looked at me. A thousand confused ideas were 
 jostling in my mind ; I asked myself whether I had 
 better cry out for help, tell all, and denounce Can- 
 tarello as thief and murderer. Then I checked my- 
 self, reflecting that every one seemed to know and 
 respect him, while I was unknown ; I should be 
 .taken for some madwoman escaped from a cell, and 
 no attention would l)o paid to me; or, if it happened 
 otherwise, Cantarello might flee, might rush through 
 the church and cut the throats of my husband and 
 child. He had said they should answer for my con- 
 duct. Besides, how could I find them without him? 
 The door through which we had left the church 
 might be so secret, so well hidden that it would be,
 
 THE SPERONARA 235 
 
 perhaps, impossible to discover it. I resolved to 
 wait; to take counsel with Luigi, and decide with- 
 out rash haste what we had better do. 
 
 After a few minutes, Cantarello took leave of the 
 two women, passed his arm under mine, went down 
 a little alley to the hanks of a stream, followed it 
 for a mile along its course which brought us out 
 near to the church ; then, making a circuit, he took 
 me under the porch through which we had come out. 
 There he blindfolded me, opened the door, and closed 
 it behind us. Again I counted forty steps. Then 
 the second door opened ; I felt the cold, damp im- 
 pression of an underground place. I went down 
 twelve steps ; we reached the third door ; then the 
 fourth ; it creaked on its hinges ; Cantarello pushed 
 me, still blindfolded, into the cellar and closed the 
 door behind me. I tore off the bandage and found 
 myself again with Luigi and my child. 
 
 I wanted to tell Luigi at once all that I had seen ; 
 but he made me a sign with his finger on his lips 
 that Cantarello might be listening behind the door 
 to hear what we should say. I sat down on the 
 mattress that served as my bed and nursed mv child. 
 
 Luigi was not mistaken ; at the end of an hour 
 or thereabouts, we heard steps departing softly. 
 Weaned by our silence, Cantarello had doubtless 
 decided to wait no longer. Nevertheless, in spite of 
 this appearance of solitude we did not think ourselves 
 safe as vet; we waited several hours longer, and then 
 I went to LuigPs side and in a low voice told him all 
 that I had seen, without omitting a single detail, or 
 forgetting a single circumstance.
 
 236 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 Luigi reflected a moment; then asking me in his 
 turn certain questions, to which I answered affirma- 
 tively, he said : 
 
 " I know where we are ; these ruins are those 
 of the Epipolae ; that river is the Anapus ; this 
 town is Siracusa ; and this chapel is that of the 
 Marchese di San Floridio." 
 
 " Oh, my God ! " I exclaimed, remembering the old 
 history of a Marchese de San Floridio who, in the 
 days of the Spaniards, had passed ten years in 
 a subterranean retreat so carefully hidden that his 
 most rabid enemies had never been able to dis- 
 cover it. 
 
 " Yes, that is it," said Luigi, comprehending my 
 thought. " Yes, we are in the vault of the Marchese 
 Francesco, and as much hidden from the eyes of men 
 as if we were in our tomb." 
 
 I then understood how fortunate it was that I had 
 not yielded to the impulse that prompted me to cry 
 for help. 
 
 " Well ? " said Luigi, after a long silence, " have 
 you any hope ? have you formed any plan ? " 
 
 " Listen," I said. " One of those two women, the 
 youngest, looked at me with interest ; it is she to 
 whom we must contrive to tell who we are and 
 where we are." 
 
 " How can that be done ? " 
 
 I went to the table and took two pieces of white 
 paper in which fruit was wrapped. 
 
 " We must," I said, " put aside and conceal all the 
 paper we can get hold of from this time on ; I will 
 write upon it our miserable story, and some day,
 
 THE SPERONARA 2.'37 
 
 when I am taken out I will give it to that young 
 woman. 1 ' 
 
 " But if, in spite of that, they cannot find the 
 entrance to the cellar, if Cantarello, being arrested, 
 keeps silence, we shall still remain buried in this 
 tomb." 
 
 " Would it not be better to die than to live 
 thus ? " 
 
 " But our child ?" said Luigi. 
 
 I gave a cry and darted to my child. God for- 
 give me ! I had forgotten it ; its father was the 
 one who remembered it ! 
 
 It was settled that I should follow the plan I 
 proposed ; only, I must be careful to forget nothing 
 that could guide a search. After this, we let time 
 elapse, but this time with impatience, for a gleam 
 of hope was on the hori/on, distant as it was. In 
 order not to awaken Cantarello\s suspicions, I was 
 forced to hide my ardent desire to go out again. 
 lie, on his side, seemed to have forgotten what 
 he had offered me. Four months went by with- 
 out my saying a word ; but I fell back into a 
 state of marasmus so evident that one day, finding 
 me lying on mv mattress without strength to move 
 and pale as death, he said : 
 
 " If you wish to go out in a week from now, get 
 yourself ready and I will take you." 
 
 I had strength enough not to show the joy I felt 
 at this proposal ; I merely made him a sign with 
 my head that I would obey him. 
 
 During the time that had elapsed since my first 
 out-going, we had put aside all the paper we could
 
 238 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 lay hands on, and there was now enough on which 
 to write the detailed history of our misfortunes. 
 
 On the day named Cantarello found me ready. 
 As on the first occasion, he walked before me to 
 the second door; there he bandaged my eyes. After 
 that all happened as before ; at the door of the 
 church I took oft' the bandage. We came out at 
 nearly the same hour as the first time; it was the 
 same scene, the same sight, and yet, strange to say, 
 I thought it less beautiful. We walked to the 
 village and entered the same house. The two 
 women were there as before, one spinning, the other 
 knitting. On a table was an inkstand and pens; I 
 leaned against the table and slipped a pen into my 
 pocket. During this time Cantarello talked with 
 the young woman in a low voice. It was of me 
 they spoke, because she kept looking at me in 
 speaking. I heard her say to him : " He does not 
 get used to the seminary, your young man ; for 
 he is sadder and paler than the last time you 
 brought him." 1 As for the old woman, she did not 
 say a word and never lifted her eves from the 
 spinning-wheel ; she seemed to be an idiot. 
 
 At the end of about ten minutes Cantarello put 
 my arm, as before, under his, took the same allev, 
 and went down to the bank of the little river. 
 While we followed this path I said to Cantarello 
 that I should like to have needles and cotton for 
 knitting; and he promised to bring them. As we 
 returned towards the church I noticed that we must 
 be nearly at the end of autumn ; the harvest was 
 over, so was the vintage. I understood then why
 
 THE SPERONARA 239 
 
 Cantarcllo had not taken me out for four months. 
 He waited till the labourers had quitted the fields. 
 
 At the door of the church he bandaged my eyes. 
 I entered, led by him and making no resistance. 
 I counted the forty steps and then \ve stopped. I 
 comprehended that during this pause Cantarello 
 was searching in his pocket for the key. I heard 
 him feeling along the wall for the lock ; I knew his 
 back must be turned to me; I lifted my bandage 
 quickly and as quickly replaced it. It was but a 
 second, but that second sufficed. We were in the 
 chapel to left of the altar ; the door in the wall 
 must be between the two pilasters. 
 
 That is where the entrance must be looked for 
 until it is found ; for it is precisely and positively 
 there. 
 
 Cantarello saw nothing. The two doors opened 
 successively before us, and as the third closed behind 
 me I found myself again in our dungeon. Luigi and 
 I preserved the same silence as before ; and it was 
 not till I thought it impossible that Cantarello 
 should still be there that I drew the pen from my 
 pocket and showed it to Luigi. He made me a sign 
 to hide it, and I slipped it under my mattress. Then 
 I sat down beside him and whispered every detail of 
 my excursion. The discovery I had made of the 
 position of the secret door in the church was a 
 precious circumstance, and with the precise informa- 
 tion I was now able to give, it was certain that a 
 searcher could find the lock, and the lock once dis- 
 covered the way was direct to us. 
 
 I let one day pass without attempting to write.
 
 24-0 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 but I took one of our tin cups, and in it I diluted in 
 water some of the black soot that remained on the 
 calcined wall ; then I dipped my pen in the mixture 
 and found to my great joy that it served me well 
 in place of ink. 
 
 The next day, after invoking God and the 
 Madonna, I began to write this manuscript, which 
 contains an exact recital of our unhappy fate, and 
 the very humble, very urgent prayer to any Chris- 
 tian into whose hands it may fall, to come as soon as 
 possible to our rescue. 
 
 In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
 Spirit, so be it ! " 
 
 [A cross was drawn below these words; after which 
 the manuscript continued ; but the form of the nar- 
 rative was changed ; it was now of the present and 
 not of the past. In place of the recollections of six 
 or eight years, it was a daily record, notes and pass- 
 ing impressions jotted on the paper at the moment 
 thev were thought or felt.] 
 
 " To-day Cantarello came as usual ; besides the 
 ordinarv provisions he brought the cotton and the 
 knitting-needles which he had promised me. The 
 manuscript and the pen were hidden, the tin cups 
 were rinsed and clean upon the table. lie perceived 
 nothing. () my God ! protect us. 
 
 Three weeks have gone by ; Cantarello savs noth- 
 ing of taking me out again. Can he suspect some- 
 thing? Impossible. To-day he stayed longer than
 
 THE SPERONAUA 241 
 
 usual and he looked me in the face. I felt myself 
 redden as if he had read my hope upon my forehead ; 
 then I took my child in my arms and rocked it, sing- 
 ing, so troubled was I. 
 
 " Ha ! you sing," he said ; " you think yourself not 
 so badly off as I supposed you did."" 
 
 " It is the first time I have done so since we have 
 been here." 
 
 " Do you know how long you have been in this 
 subterranean place ? " 
 
 " No," I answered ; "the first two or three years I 
 kept count of the days ; but I saw it was useless and 
 I ceased to take the trouble." 
 
 " You have been here nearly eight years," said 
 Cantarello. 
 
 I sighed ; Luigi uttered something like a roar of 
 rage. Cantarello turned round, looked at him with 
 contempt, and shrugged his shoulders. Then, with- 
 out a word about taking me out, lie went away. 
 
 So it is eight years that we have lived locked up 
 in this cellar. O my God ! my God ! you heard it 
 from his own lips. Eight years ! What have we 
 done to suffer thus ? Nothing ; you know that well, 
 my God ! 
 
 Santa Maria del Rosario, pray for us ! 
 
 Oh ! listen to me, hear me, you, whose name I do 
 not know ; you, my only hope ; you, woman like me, 
 mother like me, have pity on my sufferings, hear me, 
 listen to me ! 
 
 Cantarello has just gone out. Two months and a 
 half have gone by since he spoke to us ; but to-day 
 
 Iti
 
 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 he offered to take me out n week hence ; I agreed. 
 In eight days he will come and take me ; in eight 
 days my fate will be in your hands ; your eyes, your 
 words, your whole person seemed to show interest in 
 me. My sister in Jesus Christ, do not abandon me ! 
 
 You will find this history near you after I leave 
 vour room. On my eternal salvation, on the grave 
 of my mother, on the head of my child, I swear it is 
 the truth, the pure truth, that which I shall tell to 
 God when he calls me to him ; and to each of my 
 words the angel who accompanies my soul to the foot 
 of his throne will say, shedding teal's of pity : 
 
 " Lord God, it is "true ! " 
 
 Listen to me therefore. As soon as you have read 
 this manuscript, go to the judge ; tell him that a 
 mile away from him, three miserable beings have been 
 buried alive for eight years a husband, a wife, a 
 child. If Cantarello is your relation, your ally, your 
 friend, say nothing more than that to the judge, and 
 I swear to you, on the Madonna, that once out of 
 this tomb not a word of accusation shall pass my 
 lips ; I swear it on this cross which I draw, and may 
 God punish me in my child if I fail to keep my 
 sacred promise ! 
 
 Tell him nothing but this : " Three human Ix'ings, 
 more miserable than any creatures ever were before, 
 are close beside us ; we can save them ; take level's, 
 crowbars ; there are four doors, four massive doors 
 to break through before we can reach them. Come, 
 I know where they are, come ! " And if he hesitates, 
 fall at his knees as I fall now at yours, and implore 
 him as I am now imploring you. Then he will come,
 
 THE SPERONARA 243 
 
 for where is the man, where is the judge who will refuse 
 to save three of his fellow-beings, especially when 
 they are innocent ? He will come ; you must walk 
 before him and lead him straight to the church. 
 
 You must open the door ; you must lead the judge 
 to the chapel on the right, that in which there hangs 
 above the altar a Saint Sebastian pierced with arrows. 
 When you reach the altar listen to me there are 
 two pilasters to your left ; the door must be be- 
 tween those two pilasters. Perhaps you cannot find 
 it at first ; it is wonderfully hidden, so it seemed to 
 me ; perhaps on striking against the wall the wall 
 may not reveal an opening, for remember this 
 the wall itself forms the entrance to these subter- 
 ranean caverns ; but the entrance is there, be sure of 
 it, and do not allow yourselves to be disheartened. 
 If the door escapes your search, light a torch, put it 
 close to the wall ; I tell you that you will end by 
 finding some imperceptible lock, some invisible chink, 
 which is there. Rap, rap ; perhaps we shall hear 
 you, know you are there, and that will give us the 
 courage of hope. You will know that we are behind 
 that wall awaiting you, praying for you ; yes, for 
 you, for the judge, for all our liberators whoever 
 they may be yes, I will pray for them all the 
 days of my life as I am praying now. 
 
 It is quite clear, is it not, all that I have told 
 you above ? In the church of the Marchese di San 
 Floridio, the chapel to the right, that of Saint 
 Sebastian, between the two piL'isters. Oh ! mv 
 God, my God ! I tremble so in writing this to my 
 deliverer, that I know not if it can be read-
 
 244- JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 I would I knew your name, to repeat it again and 
 again in my prayers. But God, who knows all, 
 knows that it is for you I pray, and that is all that 
 is needed. 
 
 Good God ! something has happened such as 
 never happened before since we have Ixxni here. 
 Cantarello came two days running. Has he been 
 followed? Does he suspect anything ? Has any one 
 a suspicion of our existence? Is search being made 
 for us ? Oh ! if there be some succour, some human 
 being who is helping us, help him, O Lord ! come to 
 his aid ! 
 
 Cantarello entered at a moment when we least 
 expected him. Happily these papers were hidden. 
 He entered and looked about him on all sides; he 
 struck the walls ; then, feeling sure that all things 
 were in their usual state he said to me : " I have 
 returned Ixrause I think I forgot to tell you that, 
 if you wish, I will take you out with me next week."" 
 
 " I thank you," I replied, "you told me so." 
 
 " Ah ! I told you, did I ? " said Cantarello, with 
 an absent air, " very good ; I took unnecessary pains 
 in coming back." 
 
 Then he looked about him again, sounded the wall 
 in two or three places, and went away. We heard 
 him go to the other door and lock it. Then, ten 
 minutes later, or thereabouts a species of detonation 
 was heard, like that of a pistol or musket shot. Is 
 it a signal made to us ? Can it be, as we have hoped, 
 that some one is watching over us ?
 
 THE SPERONARA 245 
 
 For four or five days nothing new has happened ; 
 as far as I dare to trust my own calculation, to- 
 morrow Cantarello will fetch me ; to-morrow this 
 paper will reach your hands, O my deliverer ! Prob- 
 ably I shall add nothing to this narrative, nothing 
 to this last supplication that I address to you do 
 not abandon us to our despair ! 
 
 O, charitable soul ! have pity upon us ! 
 
 My God ! my God ! what has happened ? Either 
 I am mistaken and it is impossible I should be 
 mistaken by two whole days or the day when 
 Cantarello always comes has passed, and Cantarello 
 has not come. I judge, moreover, by our provisions, 
 which he never failed to replenish on every eighth 
 day ; they are finished, and he comes not. My God ! 
 are we reserved for something even worse than we 
 have suffered up till now ? My God ! I dare not 
 say even to you what I fear, such terror have I lest 
 the echoes of this abyss should answer : Yes ! 
 
 Oh ! my God, are we destined to die of hunger ? 
 
 Time goes by time goes by he comes not ; not 
 a sound is heard. My God ! we consent to stay 
 here eternally, never to see again the light of heaven ; 
 but our child ! He promised to release my child, 
 my poor child ! 
 
 Where is he, that man whom I never saw without 
 horror, and whom I now long for as a saviour god ? 
 Is he ill ? O Lord, restore him to health ! Is he 
 dead without having time to leave to others the hor-
 
 246 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 rible secret of our tomb ? Oh ! my child, my poor 
 child ! 
 
 Happily my child has my milk and suffers less 
 than we do but without food, my milk will dry ; 
 only one bit of bread remains to us, one only. 
 Luigi says he is not hungry and gives it to me. Oh ! 
 my God, be witness that I eat it for my child my 
 child, to whom I will give my blood when my milk 
 fails. 
 
 Oh ! something worse ! something more dread- 
 ful still ! the oil is exhausted, our lamp is going out ; 
 the darkness of the tomb before our death ! the 
 lamp, the light that was life ; darkness that will be 
 death and agony besides ! 
 
 Oh ! now, since there is no more hope for our 
 bodies, you, whoever you be that will descend into 
 this awful tomb God ! the lamp is going out ! 
 pray, pray for our souls." 
 
 The manuscript ended there ; the last four words 
 were written crookedly ; they must have been added 
 in the dark. What happened after, no one knows 
 but God ; the death struggle must have been 
 awful. 
 
 The piece of bread given by Luigi to his wife 
 prolonged her life by nearly two days, for the doctor 
 declared there must have been an interval of thirty- 
 six to forty hours between the death of the husband 
 and that of the wife. This prolongation of the life
 
 THE SPERONARA 247 
 
 of the mother had prolonged that of the child ; thus 
 of these three hapless beings the weakest alone 
 survived. 
 
 The reading of this manuscript was done in the 
 vault itself, mute witness of the deaths of Luigi and 
 Teresa. It left no doubt or obscurity whatever on 
 the events that had taken place ; and when Don 
 Ferdinando had added his testimony, the whole 
 matter became clear and intelligible to the minds 
 of all. 
 
 On his return to the village Ferdinando found the 
 child already better; he immediately sent a mes- 
 senger to Feminamorta to learn what had become 
 of the first child of Luigi and Teresa. It was still 
 with the worthy couple to whom it had been in- 
 trusted ; and its board had been punctually paid by 
 some unknown person, doubtless, Cantarello. Don 
 Ferdinando, with the consent and approval of his 
 father, declared that henceforth his family would 
 take charge of the two unfortunate orphans and 
 provide for them and also for the obsequies of Luigi 
 and Teresa; besides which, the Marchese di San 
 Floridio, who was proud of his son's brave enterprise, 
 established a perpetual fund for masses for the repose 
 of their souls.
 
 VIII 
 
 A SHARK. PANTELLARIA 
 
 WE had now seen in Syracuse all that Syracuse 
 offered of interest ; we had only to make 
 provision of the necessary wines, to which important 
 acquisition we devoted the evening ; at the close of 
 which we sent our casks on board the speronara, 
 following them ourselves after embracing our learned 
 and amiable count, who at parting gave us letters 
 for Palermo. 
 
 We found our ship's company, as usual, joyous, 
 nimble, and ready to sail ; all of them, even our 
 cook, had profited by the two days 1 rest to recover 
 themselves. Cama awaited us on deck, anxious to 
 cook our supper ; for the poor devil, it must be said, 
 was full of good-will, and as soon as he could stand 
 upon his legs he made for his saucepans. Unfor- 
 tunately, we had dined with Gargallo, which left 
 us no possibility of profiting by his eagerness as to 
 supper. Upon our refusal, he fell back on Milord, 
 who, always ready, now swallowed, with suitable ad- 
 mixture of bread and potatoes, the succulent maca- 
 roni intended for Jadin and me. 
 
 We had left the captain suffering somewhat from 
 rheumatism in the loins ; willing or unwilling, I was 
 forced to play doctor, and I ordered friction with 
 camphorated brandy. The captain had used that
 
 THE SPERONARA 249 
 
 remedy once, and, whether it was imagination or 
 reality, he declared that he felt better and promised 
 to continue the prescription. 
 
 The weather was magnificent. I have already 
 said that nothing is finer, nothing more poetic than 
 night on the coasts of Sicily, between that sky and 
 that sea which seem two sheets of azure embroid- 
 ered with gold. So we stayed rather late upon deck 
 playing at some sort of game invented by the crew, 
 in which the loser was compelled to drink a glass of 
 wine. Needless to say that after two or three les- 
 sons we became more skilful than our masters, and 
 that they lost perpetually ; Pietro especially was 
 desperately unlucky. 
 
 Towards midnight we retired to our cabin, leaving 
 the deck to the captain, who had arranged a species 
 of platform on which he lay flat on his stomach to 
 give more facility to Giovanni in executing the pre- 
 scription I had given him for rheumatism. We were 
 scarcely in bed before we heard a piercing cry. We 
 rushed, Jadin and I, to the door, arriving in time to 
 see the deck covered with flames ; and out of those 
 flames came a species of devil, all fire, who, with one 
 bound, sprang over the bulwark and was lost in the 
 depths of the sea; while a companion devil, whose 
 arm alone was burning, rushed about the deck howl- 
 ing like a soul in torment and calling for help. For 
 an instant we stood, like the crew, comprehending 
 nothing of this scene ; then Nun/Jo's head appeared 
 above the cabin and gave the order : 
 
 " Down sail, and wait the captain ; he is in the 
 sea." 1
 
 250 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 The order was executed instantly, and with that 
 passive exactitude which is the peculiar characteristic 
 of the obedience of sailors. The sail glided down 
 the mast and lay on the deck ; instantly the little 
 vessel stopped, like a bird with a broken wing, and 
 we heard the voice of the captain calling for a rope ; 
 a moment later, thanks to that article, he appeared 
 on board. Then all was explained. 
 
 For the greater efficacy of my remedy Giovanni 
 had warmed the camphorated brandy, and armed 
 with a flannel glove he was rubbing the captain's 
 loins, when his hand, in making its journey from the 
 dish that held the liquid to the spinal column of the 
 captain, caught fire at the lamp which was lighting 
 the operation ; the flame was instantaneously com- 
 municated from the hand of the operator to the 
 neck of the patient, and from the neck of the 
 patient to all the other parts of his body moistened 
 bv the specific. The captain felt himself burning 
 with the same fires as Hercules, and to put them 
 out rushed to the nearest bulwark and plunged into 
 the sea. It was he who had uttered the cry we 
 had heard, and it was he whom we had seen shoot 
 past like a meteor. As for his companion in misfor- 
 tune, poor Giovanni, whose arm, imprisoned in its 
 flannel bag, burned from the tips of the nails to its 
 elbow, he was rushing about the deck wildly and 
 yelling like a maniac. 
 
 Inspection made of the injured parts, it was seen 
 that the captain's back was fried, and Giovanni's 
 hand half-roasted. All the carrots on board were 
 instantly grated, a circular compress of the pulp was
 
 THE SPERONARA 251 
 
 made for Giovanni's fist, and a cataplasm three feet 
 long for the captain's back ; then the latter lay 
 down to sleep on his stomach, Giovanni on his side, 
 we as we pleased, the crew as they could, and order 
 was restored. 
 
 When we awoke we were doubling the promon- 
 tory of Passero, once Cape Pachinum, the sharpest 
 angle of ancient Trinacria. This was the first time 
 I had found Virgil in fault. His alt an cautett pro- 
 Jectaque saxa Pachini were not there; on the con- 
 trary, we saw a low coast sloping gradually down 
 into the sea. Since the day that the author of the 
 vEneid wrote his third canto, it is true that /Etna 
 has made so many scenes that the levelling which 
 contradicts the harmonious hexameter of the poet 
 may very likely have been her work ; this supposi- 
 tion, be it said, is made without offence. 
 
 The wind had fallen; the men were rowing; the 
 speronara hugged the shore at a distance of half 
 a mile, which enabled us to follow with our eyes 
 its ups and downs and all its sinuosities. From 
 time to time we were distracted from our contem- 
 plation by some passing gull, at which we fired a 
 shot, or by some dory rising to the surface of the 
 water, at which we flung the harpoon. The sea was 
 beautiful and so transparent that the eye could 
 plunge to an almost infinite depth. Now and 
 then in that a/ure abyss a silvery flash would sud- 
 denly shine; 'twas a fish of some kind striking the 
 water a blow with its tail and disappearing, fright- 
 ened, at our passage. One only, that seemed about 
 the si/e of an ordinary pike, followed us at an
 
 252 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 incalculable depth, almost without movement, as 
 if rocked by the water. I had kept my eves on 
 this fish for nearly ten minutes when Jadin, seeing 
 my close attention, joined me, to know what caused 
 it. I showed him my finny friend, which at first 
 he had some difficulty in perceiving; after that, he 
 saw him as plainly as I did. Presently there hap- 
 pened what happens in Paris when any one stops 
 on a bridge and looks into the river. Pietro, who 
 was passing with half a do/en cutlets destined to 
 be the solid dish of our breakfast, stopped, came 
 up to us, and following the direction of our eyes 
 succeeded in seeing the object that attracted them ; 
 but, to our great astonishment, the sight seemed 
 to make so disagreeable an impression upon him 
 that I hastened to ask him what fish it was that 
 followed us so obstinately. Pietro contented himself 
 with wagging his head. After remarking, "That's 
 a bad fish," he continued his way to the kitchen 
 and disappeared down the hatchway. As that 
 reply was far from satisfying us, we called the 
 captain, who was just then appearing on deck, 
 and without taking time to inquire for his rheuma- 
 tism, we repeated our question. He looked for an 
 instant, and then, with a gesture of disgust, he said : 
 " C 'e un cane marine," and made a motion to go 
 away. 
 
 " llie deuce, captain,'" I said, " you look dis- 
 gusted. Un cane rnarino? but that's a shark, 
 isn't it?" 
 
 "Not precisely," replied the captain, "but a fish 
 of the same species."
 
 THE SPERONARA 253 
 
 "Then this must be the diminutive of a shark," 
 said Jadin. 
 
 " lie is not as large as they are sometimes," 
 replied the captain, "but he's six or seven feet 
 long." 
 
 " You are joking, captain ! " cried Jadin. 
 
 " That is the exact truth." 
 
 " Tell me, captain," I said, " is n't there some way 
 to fish him?" 
 
 The captain shook his head. 
 
 " Our men would not do it," he replied. 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " That 's a bad fish." 
 
 " All the more reason to get rid of him." 
 
 "No ; we have a Sicilian proverb, that every ship 
 that takes a shark from the sea gives a man to the 
 sea." 
 
 " But, at least, could n't we see him a little 
 nearer ? " 
 
 "Oh! that's easy enough; throw him something 
 and he '11 come." 
 
 "But what?" 
 
 "Anything you like; he's not proud; from a 
 bundle of candles to a veal cutlet, he'll take it." 
 
 "Jadin, don't lose sight of that animal; I'll be 
 back." 
 
 I ran to the kitchen, and in spite of Giovanni's 
 outcries, I took a chicken he had just plucked and 
 trussed for our dinner. As I put my foot on the 
 ladder to return I heard deep sighs, and looking 
 round, saw Cama, again the victim of seasickness. 
 Hearing that a shark was following us, he imagined,
 
 254 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 with the superstition of the race, that he was after 
 his dead body. I tried to reassure him, but seeing 
 that I lost my time, I returned to my dog-fish. 
 
 He was still in the same place, but the captain had 
 quitted his and gone to talk to the pilot, leaving the 
 field free to us, curious as he must have been to see 
 what would happen between ourselves and the 
 shark. The four rowers had left their oars and were 
 leaning on the bulwark at a few steps from us, ap- 
 parently discussing the important affair that was 
 going on. 
 
 The shark was still motionless and kept himself at 
 about the same depth. I fastened a stone of our 
 ballast to the neck of the chicken and flung it into 
 the water in the direction of the shark. The chicken 
 sank slowly, and reached a depth of about twenty 
 feet before the fish appeared to take the slightest 
 notice of it; then I thought I saw him visibly en- 
 large. As the chicken went down he was rising to 
 meet it. At last, when they were only a few feet 
 from each other, the shark turned over on his back 
 and opened his jaws, into which the chicken disap- 
 peared incontinently. As for the stone I had at- 
 tached to its neck to carry it down, that did not 
 seem to inconvenience our guest ; on the contrary, 
 he continued to rise and therefore to enlarge. At 
 length he came to within a few feet of the surface of 
 the water, and we could see the truth of what the 
 captain told us; our fancied pike was nearly seven 
 feet long ! 
 
 Then, in spite of the captain's representations, the 
 desire seized me to catch that shark. I called Gio-
 
 THE SPERONARA 255 
 
 vanni, who, thinking we were impatient for our 
 breakfast, appeared at the top of the ladder, cutlets 
 in hand. I explained to him that the matter was 
 something very different, and I asked him to go and 
 get his harpoon, promising him a louis if he managed 
 to eatch that fish. But Giovanni merely shook 
 his head, put our eutlets on a chair, and departed 
 saying : 
 
 " Oh ! Excellency, that \s a bad fish." 
 I knew my Sicilians too well by this time to hope 
 to conquer a repugnance universally manifested ; but 
 not venturing to trust my own skill in throwing a 
 harpoon, and not having a fly on board of sufficient 
 size to catch such a monster, I determined to have 
 recourse to our guns. Leaving Jadin on the watch, 
 telling him if the shark showed signs of going away 
 to entice him with the cutlets (near to which Milord 
 was sitting, glancing at them sideways with an air 
 of concupiscence impossible to describe), I hurried 
 into the cabin to change the charge in my gun, slip- 
 ping two cartridges into each barrel ; as for the 
 carbine, it was already loaded with slugs. Then I 
 returned to the deck. All was in the same state ; 
 Milord watching the cutlets, Jadin watching the 
 shark, and the shark appearing to watch us. 
 
 I gave the carbine to Jadin, and kept the gun for 
 myself. Then we called to Pietro to throw a cutlet 
 to the shark, intending to profit bv the moment 
 when he came to the surface of the water to fire at 
 him ; but Pietro answered that it was offending God 
 to feed dog-fish with veal cutlets when we gave 
 nothing but bones to poor Melor. As this reply
 
 256 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 was equivalent to a refusal, we resolved to do the 
 thing ourselves. I moved the dish from the chair 
 to the bulwark, and we agreed to fling one cutlet as 
 a bait, and not to fire until a second was thrown, so 
 that the fish, being thoroughly enticed, should have 
 no distrust of us ; the play then began. 
 
 It all went off as we expected. Scarcely had the 
 first cutlet touched the water when the shark came 
 towards it with a single motion of his tail, and, 
 renewing the manoeuvre which had succeeded so well 
 in regard to the chicken, he turned up his silvery 
 l)ellv, opened his large jaws furnished with two rows 
 of teeth, and absorlx?d the cutlet with a gluttony 
 which proved that if he had a habit of eating raw 
 meat he did not despise it cooked when occasion 
 offered. 
 
 The crew were watching our performances with 
 feelings of pain, visibly shared by Milord, who had 
 followed the dish from the chair to the bulwark, and 
 was now standing on the bench gaxing over it. We 
 had gone too far by this time to hold back, so, in 
 spite of the general disapprobation, which the respect 
 felt for us alone restrained from being openly mani- 
 fested, I took the second cutlet, and measuring the 
 distance so as to have the shark ten feet away with 
 his side towards me, I flung it into the sea, in- 
 stantly returning my hand to the trigger of my gun 
 to be ready to fire. 
 
 But hardly had I accomplished this movement when 
 Pietro gave aery, and we heard the sound of a heavy 
 Ixxlv falling into the sea. It was Milord, who had 
 not supposed that his respect for cutlets was to
 
 THE SPERONARA 
 
 extend beyond the dish ; and seeing that we gave 
 such largesse to an individual who, in his opinion, 
 had no greater claims than himself, he flung himself 
 overboard to dispute the pri/e with the shark. 
 
 The scene changed ; the shark, motionless, seemed 
 to hesitate between the cutlet and Milord; during 
 this time Pietro, Filippo, and Giovanni sprang to 
 the oars and beat the water with them to frighten 
 the creature. At first we thought they had succeeded, 
 for the shark dove down several feet; but then, 
 passing a fathom or so under Milord, who, not 
 troubling himself in the least about him, continued 
 to swim, puffing loudly, towards his cutlet, which he 
 never lost sight of, the shark reappeared behind 
 him, coming almost to the surface of the water ; then 
 with a single motion he dashed, turning on his back 
 as he did so, towards the dog which he regarded as 
 his prey. At that instant our guns went off, and 
 the shark, with one violent blow of his tail, which 
 splashed the water up into our faces, plunged deep 
 into the sea and disappeared, dangerously wounded 
 no doubt, for the surface of the water, until now of 
 a beautiful a/.ure, was clouded with a faint tinge 
 of blood. 
 
 As for Milord, without paying any attention to 
 what was happening behind him, he snatched his 
 cutlet, which he scrunched triumphantly as he made 
 his way back to the speronara ; but there a great 
 difficulty faced him ; it was easier to jump into the 
 sea than to scramble on board again. But, as we 
 know, Milord had a friend in Pietro ; in an instant 
 the boat was in the water, and Milord in the boat. 
 
 IT
 
 258 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 It was there that he finished scrunching, with British 
 phlegm, the last morsel of bone in the cutlet that 
 had just missed costing him so dear. 
 
 His return on board was a veritable ovation ; Jadin 
 was inclined to thrash him, in order to put a stop to 
 his taste for hunting cutlets ; but I begged off from 
 everything that could mar the joys of his triumph, 
 which he bore with his usual modesty. 
 
 The whole day was spent in commenting on the 
 event of the morning. Towards three o'clock we 
 found ourselves in the midst of half a dozen little 
 islands, or rather, large reefs .which they call the 
 Formic-he. The crew proposed to me to land upon 
 one of these rocks and dine there ; but I had already 
 set my mind on a pretty little island which I saw about 
 three miles off, and to which I gave the order to steer ; 
 it was named on my map as the island of Porri. 
 
 This was a day of repugnances ; hardly had I 
 given the order before a long conference took place 
 between the captain, Nunzio, and Vicenzo ; then the 
 captain came to tell us that they would steer, if we 
 continued to require it, to the point I mentioned, 
 but he ought to inform us that three or four months 
 earlier they had found on that island the body of a 
 sailor which had been washed ashore there by the 
 sea. I asked him what had become of the body ; he 
 said that he and his men had dug a grave and buried 
 it properly as became Christians ; after which they 
 had heaped upon the grave all the stones they could 
 find on the island, which made a little mound, that 
 we could see from where we were. Besides which, 
 as soon as they returned to the village Delia Pace,
 
 THE SPERONARA 259 
 
 they had caused a mass to be said for him. As the 
 body could certainly claim nothing further, I kept 
 to my order, and appetite beginning to make itself 
 felt, I requested our men to take their oars. In- 
 stantly six rowers were at their posts, and we advanced 
 almost as rapidly as under sail. 
 
 During this time, Nun/io's head appeared above 
 the cabin roof; this was usually a sign that he had 
 something he wished to say to us. We went nearer, 
 and he told us that before the taking of Algiers this 
 little island was the haunt of pirates, where they 
 stationed themselves on the watch, swooping down 
 like birds of prey on all the vessels that passed them. 
 One day when he, Nun/io, was out fishing he had 
 seen a party of these Uarbary pirates capture a little 
 yacht belonging to the Prince of Paterno, on which 
 was the prince himself. 
 
 This event brought about an act which will show 
 the character of the great Sicilian nobles. 
 
 The Prince of Paterno was one of the richest men 
 in Sicily. The Barbary pirates, who knew with 
 whom they had to do, treated him with the utmost 
 care, and taking him to Algiers, sold him to the dey 
 for 100,000 piastres, 600,000 francs a mere nothing. 
 The dey did not haggle, knowing very well that he 
 could earn on his outlay ; he paid the 100,000 pias- 
 tres, sent for the Prince of Paterno, and negotiated 
 with him as power to power. But, at the first word 
 he said about his object, the prince replied that he 
 never attended to money mutters, and that if the 
 dey had anything of that kind to settle with him he 
 must arrange it with his steward.
 
 260 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 The Dcy of Algiers was not proud ; lie dismissed 
 the prince and sent for the steward. The discussion 
 was long, but finally it was agreed that the prince's 
 ransom and that of his suite should be fixed at 
 600,000 piastres, that is to say, nearly four millions of 
 francs, payable in two instalments : 300,000 piastres 
 at the expiration of the time necessary for the steward 
 to go to Sicily and return with that sum, and 300,000 
 more in six months. It was settled also, that on the 
 payment of the first instalment the prince and his 
 suite should be set at liberty ; the second payment 
 had for security merely the prince's word. 
 
 As every one sees, the Dey of Algiers had made a 
 pretty good speculation ; he had won 3,500,000 francs 
 at one stroke. 
 
 The steward departed and returned with his 
 300,000 piastres ; the Dey of Algiers, on his side, 
 faithfully keeping his sworn word, had no sooner got 
 the money than he declared the prince free, returned 
 him his yacht, and for greater security gave him a 
 safe-conduct. 
 
 The prince arrived safely in Sicily to the great joy 
 of his vassals, who loved him much, and to whom he 
 gave a fete on which he spent another million and a 
 half, or about that. Then he gave an order to his 
 steward to collect the 300,000 piastres that he still 
 owed to the Dey of Algiers. 
 
 The second 300,000 were collected and about to be 
 sent to their destination, when the Prince of Paterno 
 received a stamped paper, which he sent, as usual, to 
 his steward. This proved to be an injunction from 
 the King of Naples to pay the sum intended for the
 
 THE SPERONAUA 2C1 
 
 Dey of Algiers into the treasury of his Neapolitan 
 majesty. 
 
 The steward announced this news to the Prince of 
 Paterno, and the Prince of Paterno asked his steward 
 what that meant. The steward informed the prince 
 that the King of Naples having declared war, two 
 weeks earlier, against the Dey of Algiers, he consid- 
 ered that it would be bad policy to allow his enemy 
 to be enriched ; and he also considered that it would 
 be good policy to enrich himself. Hence the order 
 to the Prince of Paterno to pay the rest of his ran- 
 som into the coffers of the State. 
 
 The order was imperative, and there were no means 
 of evading it. On the other hand, the prince had 
 given his word and would not break it. The steward, 
 being questioned, declared that the coffers of his 
 Excellency were empty, and could not lie replenished 
 before the next harvest. 
 
 The Prince of Paterno, as a faithful subject, paid 
 into the hands of his sovereign the 300,000 piastres 
 already collected for the rest of his ransom ; then he 
 sold his diamonds and silver-ware for 300,000 more, 
 and the Dey had his money at the time agreed upon. 
 Some persons remarked that the greatest pirate of 
 them all was not the one who lived south of the 
 Mediterranean. 
 
 As for the Prince of Paterno, he gave no opinion 
 on that delicate question, and whenever people spoke 
 to him about his adventure he always replied that he 
 felt himself happy and honoured in being able to do 
 a service to his sovereign. 
 
 While talking with Nun/io we were Hearing the
 
 262 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 island. It may have been about one hundred and 
 fifty feet in circumference, entirely bare of trees, but 
 covered with tall grasses. We cast anchor at a dis- 
 tance of two or three cable-lengths and lowered the 
 boat into the water; then hundreds of birds that 
 covered the shore flew away, screaming loudly. I 
 sent a shot after them, and two fell. 
 
 We got into the boat, which began bv putting us 
 ashore, then it returned to the speronara for the 
 various articles necessary for our dinner. A species 
 of hollow rock, which had evidently served for this 
 purpose, was turned into a chimney ; and a few 
 minutes later it presented a magnificent bra/ier, 
 before which a spit, well garnished, was comfortably 
 turning. 
 
 Daring these preparations we picked up our birds 
 and examined the island. The birds were a species 
 of gull ; one of them had only a broken wing. Pietro 
 amputated the injured limb and immediately removed 
 the patient to the speronara, where the crew declared 
 it could soon be tamed. 
 
 The boat that took it brought back Cama. Every 
 time the vessel stopped, the j>oor devil recovered a 
 little strength and got upon his legs as well as he 
 could. lie had seen the island, and as that was only 
 half infringing the order not to let him land Pietro 
 had pity on him and sent him ashore, a saucepan in 
 each hand. 
 
 During this time we made an inventory of our 
 island. The pirates who inhabited it had undoubt- 
 edly a strong predilection for onions, for the tall 
 herbs we had seen from a distance, and through which
 
 THE SPERONARA 2G.'3 
 
 we now made our way with difficulty, were nothing 
 else than that succulent vegetable gone to seed. 
 Scarcely had we advanced fifty steps into this species 
 of kitchen garden before we were nil in tears. This 
 was paying too dear for an investigation which 
 promised little that was new for science. We re- 
 turned therefore to our fire, before which the captain 
 had set up a table and some seats. We profited by 
 that attention, Jadin to touch up some sketches, and 
 I to write letters to friends. 
 
 Aside from those wretched onions, I retain few 
 memories more picturesque than that of our dinner 
 beside the grave of the poor drowned sailor. The 
 sea was magnificent, and the air so limpid that we 
 could see for eight or nine miles on the mainland the 
 smallest details of the landscape. Towards nine 
 o'clock a delightful bree/e sprang up, blowing oft' 
 shore; this was just what we wanted; nothing could 
 be better. As the coast of Sicily from Cape Passero 
 to Girgenti offers nothing of much interest, I had 
 told the captain that if it were possible, I desired to 
 touch at the island of Pantellaria, the ancient Cos- 
 syra. Chance now served us well, and the captain 
 requested us to hurry on board. We lost no more 
 time than was necessary to set fire to the dried onion 
 stalks that covered the island, which in a moment 
 was a sheet of flame. 
 
 Lighted by that huge pharos the speronara set sail 
 and as she did so, we saluted with two gun-shots the 
 lonely grave of the poor lost mariner. 
 
 When we woke the next morning the coasts of 
 Sicily were scarcely visible. As the wind con-
 
 264 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 tinned favourable we had made nearly forty-five 
 miles during the night, that being a third of the 
 distance we had to go. If the weather did not change, 
 there was every probability that we should arrive 
 very early the next morning at Pantellaria. 
 
 Towards three in the afternoon while we were 
 lying on our mattresses smoking in great Turkish chi- 
 bouques the excellent Sinai* tobacco that Gargallo 
 had given us, the captain called us. As we knew 
 that he never disturbed us unless for some important 
 reason, we rose at once and went to join him on deck. 
 Then he showed us, at a distance of about a mile and 
 a half, a little to our right and forward, a jet of water 
 that rose like a gushing spring to a height of a do/en 
 feet or so above the sea. We asked him the cause 
 of that phenomenon. It was all that remained of 
 the famous Julia Island, the fantastic history of 
 which I have already related. I begged the captain 
 to make us pass as near as possible to this species 
 of waterspout. Our desire was transmitted to Nun/io, 
 who steered towards it, and in half an hour we were 
 not more than a couple of hundred feet off. Even 
 at that distance the air was impregnated with a 
 strong odour of bitumen, and the sea was visibly 
 boiling. I had some water drawn in a bucket and 
 it was warm. I begged the captain to go nearer to 
 the centre of the ebullition, and we went about a 
 hundred feet closer ; but once there, Nun/io seemed 
 to wish to go no farther. As his wishes had usually 
 the force of laws, we deferred to them at once and 
 leaving the ex-island Julia to our right we lay down 
 again and finished our pipes, while the speronara,
 
 THE SPERONAHA 265 
 
 diverted a moment from her course, was once more 
 headed for Pantellaria. 
 
 Towards seven in the evening we saw land before 
 us ; our sailors declared it was the island, and we 
 went to bed with that assurance. They had not 
 deceived us. We were roused towards three o'clock 
 by the noise of our anchor going down ; I put my 
 nose out of the cabin and saw that we were lying in 
 a species of port. 
 
 In the morning there were, as usual, a thousand 
 difficulties to be met before we could step ashore. 
 There was much question of cholera just then, and 
 the Pantellariots saw cholera patients everywhere. 
 They took our papers with tongs, they soused them 
 in vinegar, they examined them with telescopes; at 
 last, however, it was recogni/ed that we were in a 
 satisfactory state of health, and the authorities per- 
 mitted us to set foot ashore. 
 
 It would be difficult to see anything more poverty- 
 stricken, more miserable than the species of hamlet 
 straggling along the shore that surrounded with a 
 l)elt of dirty and decrepit houses the little harbour 
 in which we had anchored. An inn to which they 
 took us was so repulsive in dirt that on a promise 
 from Pietro to cook us a good breakfast in the style 
 of the people of the region, we started on our ex- 
 plorations fasting. 
 
 The principal curiosities of the place are two 
 grottoes which arc found on the mountain at a dis- 
 tance of about a mile and a half from the village. 
 One, called the Fornella (stove), is so hot that we 
 could scarcely stay in it ten minutes, and even then
 
 266 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 our clothes were impregnated with sulphur. The 
 other, called the Giacchio, is, on the contrary, so cold 
 that in less than a half an hour a bottle of water 
 freezes solid. It is needless to say that doctors have 
 sei/ed upon these grottoes as a double good fortune, 
 and kill there annually, some by heat, others by cold, 
 a certain number of patients. 
 
 As we left the Fornello, we saw Pietro in the act 
 of skinning a kid which he had just bought for ten 
 francs. Two trunks of olive-trees transformed into 
 fire-dogs, and a spit of oleander, aided by a Cyclopean 
 fire built in the angle of a rock, were to bring the 
 whole animal, not cut up, to a state of satisfactory 
 cooking. On a flat stone lay dried raisins, figs, and 
 chestnuts which in default of truffles, were meant for 
 the stuffing of the roast. Cama, who desired to cut 
 up the kid into cutlets, legs, haunches, and filets, had 
 been suppressed, and now, all the while deploring the 
 inferiority of his position, was helping Pietro. 
 
 We walked on towards the glacier grotto, which 
 we entered after having, by the advice of our guide, 
 taken care to cool off' previously. That precaution 
 was not unnecessary ; the temperature within being 
 never higher than eight or ten degrees below zero. 
 I came out very quickly, but I gave orders to keep 
 our wine and water there till wanted. A few ques- 
 tions which we put to our guide as to the geological 
 causes that led to this double phenomenon remained 
 unanswered, or received such answers that I did not 
 take the trouble to write them in my note-book. 
 
 On leaving the cold grotto our guide asked us 
 whether we did not intend to ascend the highest
 
 THE SPERONARA 267 
 
 mountain on the island, on the top of which we per- 
 ceived a sort of little church. We asked him what 
 we could see from there; he said Africa. This 
 assurance, joined to a certainty that breakfast could 
 not be ready for at least two hours, made us reply 
 affirmatively. Instantly, from the group of persons 
 who surrounded us and had followed us from the vil- 
 lage ga/.ing at us with semi-savage curiosity, a man 
 about thirty years of age detached himself, and glid- 
 ing among the rocks disappeared behind a bit of 
 rising land. As this disappearance, which immedi- 
 ately followed our consent, took my attention, I 
 asked our guide who the man was who had just left 
 us. He replied that he did not know him ; he was 
 probably some shepherd. I tried to question two 
 other Pantellariots ; but those worthy people talk 
 such a strange patois, a mixture of Arabic and 
 Italian, that after ten minutes of reciprocal conversa- 
 tion, neither side had understood a single word of 
 what had been said. 
 
 The summit of the mountain, which is volcanic 
 though its crater is now extinct, rises two thousand feet 
 above the level of the sea. A path, very distinctly 
 marked, and quite practicable, especially for those 
 who had just climbed /Etna, showed that the little 
 church I mentioned was a frequented spot of pil- 
 grimage. Two-thirds of the way up, I saw a man 
 whom I thought I recognized as the one who had so 
 hastily quitted us, and who was now running across 
 torrents, rocks, and ravines. I pointed him out to 
 Jadin, who merely replied : 
 
 "The gentleman seems in a hurry."
 
 2G8 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 Our attendant cortege continued to follow us, al- 
 though, evidently, it expeetcd no largesse from us. 
 So, as it asked for nothing, and we had to endure no 
 other importunity than the annoyance of being ga/ed 
 at as curious wild beasts, we made no opposition to 
 the honour done to us. Thus our escort arrived when 
 we did at the summit of the mountain on which 
 stood the little chapel. By the sill of the door, was 
 a man in the garb of a monk, evidently awaiting us, 
 and mopping his forehead. At the first glance I rec- 
 ognized my skipper of rocks ; then all was made clear ; 
 he had rushed on ahead to don his religious garb, 
 and he now came forward, offering to say mass for us. 
 As the mass, in my opinion, derives its value from 
 itself, and not from the officiator who says it, I made 
 a sign that I was ready to hear it. We were in- 
 stantly ushered into the church. In a second the 
 preparations were made; two of our escort offered 
 themselves as choir-boys, and the service began. 
 
 Religion is so great a thing in itself that, what- 
 ever may be the ridiculous veil in which superstition 
 or cupidity wraps it, it always succeeds in freeing 
 the sublime head with which it looks to heaven, and 
 the two hands with which it blesses earth. As for 
 myself, I know that at the first sacred words he said, 
 the speculating monk had disappeared, giving place, 
 though himself was unaware of it, to a minister of 
 the Lord. My mind turned back upon myself; I 
 thought of my present isolation, lost, as I was, on 
 the highest summit of an almost unknown island 
 Iving as a sort of post-house between Europe and 
 Africa, at the mercy of men whose language I could
 
 THE SPERONARA 269 
 
 not understand, and having no means of recovering 
 communication with the world but a frail vessel, 
 that God in the midst of a storm had already suc- 
 coured with one hand, while with the other he had 
 shattered around us, like glass, frigates and three- 
 deckers. For the quarter of an hour that the mass 
 lasted I found myself in contact with all the beings 
 I loved and who loved me, whichever corner of earth 
 they inhabited. I saw in a way my whole life pass 
 before me, and as it slowly unrolled before my eves, 
 all the beloved names vibrated one by one within my 
 heart. I felt at one and the same time a deep mel- 
 ancholy and a sweet joy in thinking that I prayed 
 for them while they were all unconscious of the part 
 of the world in which I was. From this state of 
 feeling it resulted that, when mass was over, the 
 monk, to his great astonishment and that of the 
 assembly who had attended divine service gratis, 
 saw, in place of the two or three carl'inoa he expected 
 to receive, a piastre fall bodily into his bag. It was 
 the first time, certainly, that he was ever paid for a 
 mass at that rate. 
 
 On leaving the little chapel, I looked about me. 
 To left stretched Sicily like a mist. Beneath our 
 feet was the island, lapped on all sides by the Med- 
 iterranean, calm and transparent as a mirror. Seen 
 thus, Pantellaria had the form of an enormous tor- 
 toise sleeping on the water. As the island is not 
 more than thirty miles in circumference, the eye 
 can take in all details and, if need bo, count the 
 houses. The part that seemed to me most fertile 
 and most populated is that which is known on the
 
 270 JOURN 7 EYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 island itself by the name of Oppidolo, on the north- 
 west shore. 
 
 However, as hunger was beginning to make itself 
 felt, my eyes, after wandering at random for some 
 length of time, fixed themselves finally on the spot 
 where breakfast was preparing. Though we stood at 
 a distance of nearly two miles above that spot, the 
 air was so limpid that we could see every motion of 
 Pietro and his acolyte. He, on his side, saw, no 
 doubt, that we were looking at him, for he began to 
 dance a tarantella interrupting it in the middle of 
 a figure to look after the roast. Doubtless the kid 
 was nearing its cooked point, for, after a conscientious 
 examination of the animal, he turned round and 
 beckoned to us to come down. 
 
 We found our table laid in a charming little bos- 
 quet of axerolas and oleanders interlaced with vines. 
 The table consisted simply of a cloth stretched 
 on the ground ; above it rose a fine palm-tree, its 
 long branches drooping like plumes. Our iced wine 
 awaited us ; pomegranates, oranges, honcvcomb, and 
 grapes formed a symmetrical and appetizing dessert, 
 to the centre of which Pietro came bearing, on a 
 plank covered with the large leaves of aquatic plants, 
 our kid, roasted to a turn, and exhaling a marvel- 
 lously appcti/ing odour. 
 
 As a kid weighs from twenty-five to thirty pounds, 
 and as, no matter what our hunger, it was impossi- 
 ble to devour it between us, we invited Pietro to 
 give part to the company who from the moment 
 of our landing had done us the honour to follow us. 
 As may well be supposed, the offer was accepted
 
 THE SPERONARA 271 
 
 without more ceremony than that with which it 
 was made. We reserved for ourselves a suitable 
 portion, as much of the meat as of the accessories 
 with which it was stuffed ; and the rest, accompanied 
 with half a do/en bottles of Syracuse wine was 
 offered to our suite. An Homeric repast of a most 
 picturesque nature resulted ; and that nothing might 
 be lacking, the shepherd who sold us the kid, with- 
 out remorse for having eaten it, played on a species 
 of bagpipe, to the sound of which, while we smoked 
 voluptuously our long Turkish pipes, two Pantella- 
 riots, by way no doubt of thanks, danced for our 
 pleasure their national jig, which was something 
 between the Neapolitan tarantella and the Anda- 
 lusian bolero. After this we each took a cup of 
 boiled, not filtered, coffee, that is to say, Turkish 
 coffee, and went down to the village. 
 
 c> 
 
 Arriving there, we saw the captain talking with 
 a sort of warder of convicts, the island being used 
 by the Italian government as a penal colony, the 
 citadel being the prison. The man was in charge 
 of four convicts, and as we approached we noticed, 
 to our great astonishment, that the captain was 
 speaking with a sort of respect to his companion 
 and calling him " Eccellen/a/ 1 The warder, on his 
 side, received these marks of consideration as being 
 his due, and it almost seemed as though when the 
 captain left 'him to join us, he was about to give 
 him his hand to kiss. It will be easily understood 
 that this little circumstance excited mv curiosity; 
 1 asked the captain who the respectable old man 
 was with whom he had the honour to be conversing
 
 272 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 when we interrupted him. He replied that he was 
 his Excellency the Signore Anga, commandant of the 
 guard at Syracuse. 
 
 Now, how did Signore Anga from commandant 
 of the guard at Syracuse become a prison warder at 
 Pantellaria? The history was a curious one, and 
 here it is : 
 
 During the years 1810, 1811, and 1812 the 
 streets of Syracuse were suddenly infested by bandits, 
 so adroit and yet so audacious that no one could 
 set foot out of his own house after dark without 
 being robbed and sometimes murdered. Soon these 
 nocturnal attacks were not confined to plunder- 
 ing those who ventured by night into the streets, 
 the bandits gained entrance into the best-guarded 
 houses and even into the most carefully closed 
 apartments, so that the forest of Bondy of discredi- 
 table memory was a place of safety in comparison 
 with the poor town of Syracuse. 
 
 And all this went on in spite of the watchfulness 
 of Signore Anga, commandant of the guard ; to 
 whom, however, no blame could be laid, except that 
 of arriving generally five minutes too late; for no 
 sooner was a house pillaged than he was on the 
 spot to get a description of the thieves. Hardly 
 had the poor unfortunates been robbed before Si- 
 gnore Anga was there, with his patrol, to take the 
 description of the robbers ; scarcely had some one, 
 still more unfortunate, been murdered before he was 
 on the spot to raise him, receive his last confession, 
 if he still breathed, and draw up a pmch verbal of 
 the terrible event. Thus every one admired the
 
 THE SPERONARA 273 
 
 prodigious activity of Signore Anga, while deploring, 
 as I have said, that so active a magistrate did not 
 push activity far enough to arrive ten minutes 
 earlier, instead of invariably arriving five minutes too 
 late. The whole city congratulated itself no less 
 on being so carefully guarded, and nothing in the 
 world would have induced it to accept any other 
 commandant than the Signore Anga. 
 
 But still the robberies continued with ever increas- 
 ing effrontery. A young officer, who lodged in the 
 convent of Saint Francois, had just received some 
 back-pay in Spanish piastres ; he deposited his little 
 treasure in a drawer of his secretary, put the key 
 in his pocket, and went out to dinner, reiving on the 
 double security of the sacredness of the place where 
 he lodged and the care he had taken to lock up his 
 three hundred piastres. 
 
 On returning at night he found the lock of his 
 secretary broken and the drawer empty. Moreover, 
 as it rained that evening in torrents, and nothing 
 is so repugnant to Sicilians as to get wet, the robber 
 had taken the umbrella of the young officer. 
 
 The latter, in despair, rushed at once to see 
 Captain Anga, whom he found just returning, in 
 spite of the abominable weather, from one of his 
 nocturnal expeditions, so devoted but, unfortunately, 
 so unfruitful. In spite of his fatigue and though 
 he was wet to the bone and muddy to the knees, he 
 would not make the complainant wait; he took his 
 deposition on the spot and promised that on the 
 morrow he would send his whole brigade in pursuit 
 of those piastres, the umbrella, and the robbers.
 
 274 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 Three months went by and nothing was heard of 
 robbers, umbrella, or piastres. 
 
 At the end of that time, one day when the weather 
 was as bad as the day on which the robbery had 
 taken place, the young officer, now the proprietor 
 of a new umbrella, was crossing the great square 
 of Syracuse, when he thought he saw an umbrella 
 so exactly like the one he had lost that the fancy 
 sci/.ed him to make acquaintance with the person 
 who was carrying it. Consequently at the turn 
 of the next street, he accosted the individual and 
 asked him his way ; the latter told him with much 
 politeness. The officer then asked the name of him 
 who had shown him such courtesy, and learned in 
 reply that he was no other than the confidential 
 servant of the Signora Anga, wife of the comman- 
 dant of the guard. 
 
 This discovery was the more serious because the 
 young officer had acquired a positive proof that the 
 umbrella was actually his own. As he talked with 
 the servant he had seen his initials engraved on a 
 little silver shield that adorned the handle of the 
 umbrella ; evidently the robber had not wished to 
 deprive his pri/e of that ornament. 
 
 The officer hastened by the shortest way to the 
 house of the man's master ; the Signore Anga was 
 absent on official business. The officer then asked 
 for madame, and told her that she had a thief, 
 or at any rate a receiver of stolen goods, in her ser- 
 vice. The Signora Anga exclaimed loudly and swore 
 that the thing was impossible ; but just then the 
 servant came in, and the young officer getting im-
 
 THE SPERONARA 275 
 
 patient at denials that tended to nothing less than 
 making him out a fool or an impostor, sei/ed the 
 servant by the ear, took him to his mistress, snatched 
 from his hands the umbrella that lie still held, showed 
 her the shield, and forced her to see that the initials 
 were his. There was no answer to make to that; 
 mistress and servant were both much embarrassed, 
 when the door opened and Signore Anga appeared 
 in person. 
 
 The officer at once renewed his accusation, declar- 
 ing that, the piastres having been stolen at the same 
 time as the umbrella, and the umbrella having now 
 been found, the piastres could not be far off'. The 
 Signore Anga, surprised at first by so plain a dilemma, 
 seemed troubled, but soon recovering himself he 
 answered the officer insolently and turned him out 
 of his house. 
 
 That was a mistake : the signore's anger gave to the 
 one robbed suspicions he would never have had with- 
 out it. lie rushed to the English colonel who com- 
 manded the garrison in the town ; the colonel sent 
 for the judge, the judge, accompanied by a clerk 
 and a commissary of police, made a descent on the 
 Signore Anga, who, to his great humiliation, was 
 forced to allow an examination of his premises. 
 
 The whole house had been searched without pro- 
 ducing any result, when the young officer, who, as 
 the interested party, was assisting the others, ob- 
 served in crossing the ground-floor that it was par- 
 queted, a very rare thing in Sicily. He struck it 
 with his foot and it seemed to him to sound more 
 hollow than an honest floor should sound. He
 
 276 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 called the judge and told him his doubts; the judge 
 sent for two carpenters. They lifted the floor and 
 found, one after another, four cellars filled, not 
 with umbrellas only, but with precious vases, mag- 
 nificent stuff's, silver-ware bearing the arms of its 
 owners, in short a complete bazaar. 
 
 Thus, all was explained, and the long immunity of 
 the robbers needed no further comments. Signore 
 Anga was at once the leader and the receiver for 
 these traders. The sub-prior of the convent where 
 the young man lodged was his associate. The busi- 
 ness of that worthy monk was, above all, the sale 
 of the articles stolen. Signore Anga was really a 
 remarkable man who had organized his commerce 
 on a large scale ; he had establishments at Lentini, 
 Calata-Girone, and Caltanissetta ; that is to say, in 
 the towns where great fairs were held ; and yet, in 
 spite of this active business, Signore Anga operated 
 on so large a scale that his cellars when discovered 
 were full to overflowing. 
 
 The monk, who was arrested, escaped, through 
 ecclesiastical privilege, the secular arm of the law 
 and was made over to his bishop. As no one ever 
 saw him again, it is to be presumed that he was 
 buried in some in pace, and that his skeleton will be 
 found some day in a wall. 
 
 As for Signore Anga he was condemned to the 
 galleys for life. Sent at first as an ordinary convict 
 to Vallano, from there at the end of five years of 
 good conduct, he was transferred to Pantellaria, 
 where, having given no ground of complaint during 
 another five years, he was raised to the rank of
 
 THE SPERONARA 277 
 
 warder, which he has now occupied honourably for 
 twelve years, with the hope of rising before long to 
 the rank of garde-chimirme guard of the galleys. 
 
 That was the wish our captain expressed to him 
 as they took leave of each other. 
 
 Before quitting Pantellaria I was curious to try 
 an experiment. I put into the post letters I had 
 written to my friends, all of which were dated from 
 the island of Porri. They reached their destination 
 exactly one year after my return to Paris : I can add 
 nothing to that.
 
 IX 
 
 GIRGENTI THE MAGNIFICENT 
 
 IT was seven o'clock in the evening when we again 
 set sail ; with extreme good luck, the wind, 
 which for the last two days had blown from the 
 eastward, now turned southerly. But this good luck 
 was not without certain drawbacks ; the wind, wholly 
 .African, came laden with hot puff's from the Libyan 
 desert ; it was cousin -german to that famous sirocco 
 of which we had had a specimen at Messina, and, 
 like its relation, it brought extreme depression into 
 the whole physical organization. 
 
 We had our mattresses carried to the deck ; the 
 cabin had become suffocating. A dust of red ashes 
 floated between us and the sky, and the sea was so 
 phosphorescent that it seemed to roll in waves of 
 flame ; our wake for a mile behind the speronara 
 looked like a train of burning lava. 
 
 When things were thus, the entire crew disap- 
 peared, and the vessel, abandoned to Nunzio, whose 
 iron body could resist everything, seemed to sail bv 
 herself. Yet I ought to say that at the slightest 
 call of the pilot five or six heads came out of the 
 hatchways, and the most languid arms recovered their 
 vigour at need. 
 
 Though we were less sensitive than the Sicilians to 
 the influence of this wind, we felt, none the less, a
 
 THE SPERONARA 279 
 
 certain discomfort, the effect of which was to take 
 away our appetite; the night was therefore spent 
 in sleeping a bad sleep, and the day in drinking 
 lemonade. 
 
 The second day after our departure from Pantel- 
 laria, while we were still twenty-five to thirty miles 
 from the coast of Sicily, the wind fell, and we had to 
 return to the oars ; but as each man had in his arms 
 a remains of the sirocco, we did not accomplish 
 more than fifteen miles in the course of the morning. 
 Towards five in the afternoon a little southwest 
 bree/e sprang up ; the pilot made the most of it by 
 hoisting sail, and the speronara, full of good-will, 
 began to hasten in a manner that gave us hope of 
 arriving that evening in the harbour of Girgenti, or 
 rather, to give its local and ancient name, the Porto 
 Empedocle. 
 
 The hope was justified. At nine that evening we 
 cast anchor in a little roadstead, at the farther end 
 of which we saw the lights of a few houses ; but this 
 operation was hardly completed before we were 
 hailed from the fortress called the Salute, and told 
 to go to another station. Like all orders of the 
 Neapolitan police, this one admitted of neither delay 
 nor explanation ; it was necessary to obey on the 
 instant. We began to raise our anchor, but in the 
 hurry of execution all the precautions, it seems, were 
 not taken, and the cable parted. Instantly a buoy 
 was thrown out to mark the spot, and as the officer 
 of the Salute, paying no heed to the cause of our 
 delay, continued to hail us, we went with full force 
 of oars to take the place assigned to us.
 
 280 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 This affair kept us afoot until midnight ; then, 
 weary with the crossing we had just made, we slept 
 an unbroken sleep until nine the next morning. 
 The day was beautiful, and the water in the harbour 
 so calm that Cama, already up, was making ready to 
 go ashore; first, to recover completely, like Anttcus, 
 on touching Mother Earth, next to buy fish from 
 the little boats we saw coming in laden with them. 
 Inspection made of the two or three houses that, 
 with the help of a sign, called themselves inns, I 
 thought the precaution of our worthy cook was not 
 unwise, and that it would be better to breakfast on 
 board than to risk starvation on land. In conse- 
 quence, Cama, whom I authorized to do what he 
 thought best in regard to food, risked himself on a 
 plank laid between the speronara and the adjoining 
 boat and the ace to the shore. A moment later 
 I saw him return with a basketful of fish on his 
 head. 
 
 I went to announce this news to Jadin, who in 
 such circumstances, always levied a certain tax on 
 our still life in the interests of his art. This time I 
 had seen from afar some gigantic red mullet, which, 
 suitably composed with a ray and a golden dory, 
 would afford a fine contrast of colour. Whatever 
 desire he may have had to be lazy for another half- 
 hour, Jadin was so afraid his fish might escape him 
 that he hurried into his strapped trousers. While 
 he was accomplishing that operation I showed him 
 Cama advancing with his basket and setting foot 
 upon the plank, when, with a loud cry, fish, basket, 
 and cook disappeared as through a trap-door. The
 
 THE SPERONARA 281 
 
 still uncertain feet of poor Cama had failed him, and 
 he had fallen into the sea ; instantly, with a move- 
 ment more rapid than thought, Pietro sprang after 
 him. 
 
 I ran to the side where the accident happened and, 
 to my great ama/ement, beheld Pietro, who, instead 
 of rescuing Cama, was collecting the scattered fish 
 with the greatest care and replacing them one by 
 one in the basket which was floating in the water; 
 the idea that Cama could not swim had never 
 occurred to him ; consequently, supposing that the 
 cook would take care of himself, he took care of 
 the fries, the loss of which may have seemed to him 
 the more deplorable of the two. 
 
 At this instant we saw poor Cama rising to the 
 surface of the water, not swimming, but beating the 
 sea with both hands like a drowning man. Time 
 was precious ; he did nothing but appear and dis- 
 appear. I threw off my coat to spring after him, 
 but before I could do so Filippo was overboard in 
 his shirt and trousers with a header straight into the 
 spot where Cama had gone down ; five or six seconds 
 later he reappeared holding his man by the collar of 
 his white jacket. We wanted to throw him a rope, 
 but he made a disdainful sign that he did not need 
 it, and pushing Cama to the ladder he contrived to 
 put one rung of it into his hands. Cama clung to 
 that rung like a drowning man, and then, with a 
 mighty effort, he managed to scramble on board. 
 All this happened so rapidly that he had no time 
 to lose consciousness ; he had swallowed some pints of 
 sea- water, which it was necessary lie should return to
 
 282 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 its own element, but as the weather was suffocatingly 
 hot his bath did him no other harm than the little 
 evacuation just mentioned, which, in the opinion of 
 the crew, would be very beneficial to his health. 
 
 The captain, having fulfilled all formalities, and 
 our passports being deposited with the police, noth- 
 ing opposed our making our excursion ashore ; we 
 therefore risked ourselves on the trembling plank 
 that had nearly proved fatal to Cama, and, luckier 
 than he, we landed safely. 
 
 We had scarcely set foot ashore when a man, who 
 had been watching us for over an hour, came up and 
 offered himself to be our guide. Three or four others 
 who were hovering round, no doubt with the same 
 intention, did not attempt to put themselves in com- 
 petition when they saw him take from his pocket a 
 medal which he showed us. This medal bore on one 
 side the arms of Agrigentum, which are three giants 
 each bearing a castle with this device : Signet Agri- 
 gentum miralnl'is aula gigantwn, and on the other 
 side the name of Antonio Ciotta. In fact, Signore 
 Antonio Ciotta was the official guide of the region, 
 and he immediately began his functions by walking 
 in front of us and telling us to follow him. 
 
 Girgenti itself stands at a distance of five miles 
 from the shore. It is readied bv a rather rapid rise 
 which takes the traveller from the start to nearly a 
 thousand feet above sea-level. All along the road 
 we met mules laden with sulphur which a few years 
 later was to lead to the famous suit between Naples 
 and England in which the King of the French was 
 appointed umpire. The road smelt of the trade of
 
 THE SPERONAIIA 283 
 
 which it was the artery. As the sacks containing the 
 commodity were not well closed, a little of their con- 
 tents escaped now and then, so that the road along 
 the whole way was covered with a layer of sulphur, 
 which in some places was three or four inches thick. 
 As for the muleteers who accompanied the sacks, 
 they were absolutely yellow from head to foot, 
 which gave them a most singular aspect. 
 
 We had not yet entered the town before we knew 
 what to think of the epithet which, with emphatic 
 pride, Sicilians have added to its name. Girgenti the 
 Magnificent is nothing but a dirty mass of houses built 
 of reddish stone, with narrow streets through which 
 no carriages can pass ; these streets communicate 
 with one another by stone stairways up which, on 
 pain of the most disagreeable consequences, it is nec- 
 essary to step in the middle. As it was evident that 
 the rest of the day would not suffice to visit the ruins, 
 we went in search of an inn in which to pass the 
 night. Unfortunately, an inn is not an easy thing 
 to find in Girgenti il Magnifico. Our friend Ciotta 
 took us to two hovels that insolently called them- 
 selves by that name ; but after a long conversation 
 with mine host of one and the hostess of the other, 
 we discovered that although they might possibly find 
 us something to eat, they could not give us beds. At 
 last, a third hostelry fulfilled both those conditions, 
 required by us to the stupefaction of the Agrigen- 
 tines, who could not conceive of such exacting de- 
 mands. We hastened, therefore, to secure the chamlwr 
 offered to us with the two miserable pallets that fur- 
 nished it, and after ordering our dinner for six oYlock
 
 284 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 we shook off the fleas that covered our trousers, and 
 set forth to visit the ruins of the city of Cocalus. 
 
 I say Cocalus, trusting to Diodorus Siculus ; let 
 this be clearly understood ; for when one comes in 
 contact with the ultramontane savants one must dot 
 one's ?s. An error of date, a fault of topography are 
 of such serious consequence in the land of Virgil 
 and Theocritus that one must needs pay attention to 
 avoid them. A poor inoffensive traveller puts, with- 
 out thinking harm, an a for an o, or a 5 for a 6, 
 and lo ! he disappears, and no one ever hears of him 
 again ; his family grows uneasy, government inquires, 
 and he is found buried under a mass of in-folios, 
 like Tarpeia beneath the bucklers of the Sabines. 
 If they pull him out living he escapes as fast as his 
 legs will carry him ; more frequently he is dead, unless 
 he is strong enough, like Enceladus, to shake /Etna. 
 So I say Cocalus, just as I should say anvthing, 
 without the slightest pretension to be authoritative. 
 
 Cocalus reigned in Agrigentum when Daflalus 
 took refuge there with all the treasures he brought 
 from Crete. Those treasures were so considerable 
 that the celebrated architect asked permission of his 
 host to build a palace in which to place them. 
 Cocalus, who had plenty of waste land, told him to 
 choose the site that suited him best and build what 
 he liked upon it. The maker of labyrinths chose a 
 precipitous rock, accessible at one point only, and 
 fortified it in such a manner that four men sufficed 
 to defend it against an army. 
 
 This occurred some years before the Trojan war. 
 But, like those brooks that bury themselves under-
 
 THE SPERONARA 285 
 
 ground on leaving their springs, to rise ngnin as rivers 
 some leagues farther on, so the nascent city disap- 
 peared for two or three centuries in the obscurity of 
 time, to rise again, "the most beautiful city of 
 mortals,"" in Pindar's verse. In those days, if we 
 believe Diogenes Laertius, it had a population of 
 eight thousand souls, and, if we believe Empedocles, 
 that population, among other defects, carried those 
 of gluttony and pride to such lengths that they ate, 
 he says, as though they were to die on the morrow, 
 and built as if they were to live forever. So, as 
 Empedocles was a philosopher, that is to say, a per- 
 sonage in all probability very unsociable, he left this 
 city of cooks and masons to go and instal himself on 
 Mount /Etna, where he lived on roots in a little tower 
 that he built for himself. It is well known that one 
 fine morning, disgusted no doubt with his new resi- 
 dence as he had been with his old one, he suddenly 
 disappeared, and nothing was ever found of him but 
 his slipper. 
 
 One hundred years earlier, as is also well known, 
 Phalaris, charged by his fellow-citi/ens to build a 
 temple to Zeus Polieus, used the enormous sums in- 
 trusted to him for that purpose to raise an army and 
 surprise the Agrigentines. This liberticidal scheme, 
 put in execution during the feasts of Demeter, drove 
 the Agrigentines to despair. They made some at- 
 tempts to get rid of their tyrant, but he, being a man 
 of imagination, commanded an artist of that epoch 
 to make him a brass bull, twice the si/e of life, the 
 tail end of which could be opened by means of a key. 
 At the end of three months the bull was finished ; in
 
 286 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 another month a revolt broke out. Phalaris arrested 
 . the leaders, ordered a great quantity of dry wood to 
 be piled between the legs of his animal, set fire to it, 
 and when it was red-hot opened the monster, put in 
 the rebels, and locked them up. As he had been 
 careful to order the mouth of the bull to be kept open, 
 the rebellious people who were present at the execu- 
 tion could hear through that issue the cries and moans 
 of the victims, sounding like the roar of the bull 
 himself. That style of execution, renewed about five 
 or six times in the course of eighteen months, had the 
 most satisfactory results. Revolts became more and 
 more rare, until at last they ceased altogether and 
 Phalaris reigned, thanks to his ingenious invention, 
 tranquil and respected, for a period of thirty-one 
 years. After his death a few critics, jealous of his 
 fame, said his brass bull was only an imitation of the 
 wooden horse ; nevertheless, in spite of this accusa- 
 tion, which may have had a slight foundation of 
 truth, the glory of the invention has remained 
 throughout the ages entirely his own. 
 
 The epoch that followed the reign of Phalaris was 
 the brilliant era of Agrigentum. Her people vied 
 with one another in luxury and magnificence. A 
 private individual named Kxenetus, a victor in the 
 games, returned to the city followed by three hundred 
 chariots, each drawn by two white horses raised in his 
 pastures. Another, named Gel lias, had servants 
 stationed at all the gates of the city whose mission it 
 was to bring travellers arriving at Agrigentum to his 
 palace, where splendid hospitality awa'ted them. 
 Five hundred of Gelon's horsemen having to pass
 
 THE SPERONARA 287 
 
 through Agrigentum in the month of January and 
 being taken to Gellias by his servants, they were 
 lodged and fed by him for three days and each re- 
 ceived a cloak on his departure. Gellias was, more- 
 over, if we may believe tradition, a man of much wit, 
 which did not, as one can well believe, injure the 
 hospitality of his house. So the Agrigentines, hav- 
 ing some interests to settle with the little town of 
 Centuripae, sent him there to terminate the affair. 
 Gellias started at once and appeared before the 
 assembly of the said Centuripaeans. But as, it 
 appeal's, he was only four feet six inches tall and 
 his little figure was rather badly made, roars of 
 laughter greeted his apparition, and one of the per- 
 sons present, more impertinent than the rest, took 
 upon himself to ask him, in the name of the xVs- 
 sembly, if all his co-citi/ens were like him. " No, 
 gentlemen," replied Gellias ; " there are some very 
 handsome men in Agrigentum, but they are reserved 
 for great republics and illustrious cities ; to little 
 towns and republics of no consequence men of mv 
 si/e are sent." This answer so dumbfounded the 
 jesters that Gellias obtained from the Assembly all 
 he wanted and had the glory of settling the in- 
 terests of Agrigentum to the great advantage of 
 that city. 
 
 Meantime Carthage, on the opposite coast, seeing 
 that Agrigentum was increasing in wealth and popu- 
 lation, became aware that she must have her for 
 faithful friend or declared enemy in the long struggle 
 she was just undertaking against Home. But not 
 only did the Agrigentines refuse the proffered alliance
 
 288 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 with the Carthaginians, but they declared themselves 
 their enemy. Hannibal and Hamilcar immediately 
 crossed the sea and laid siege to the city. The Agri- 
 gentines then judged it wise to reform at least some- 
 thing of the luxury that had now become proverbial 
 the wide world round ; and they decided that the 
 soldiers on guard at the citadel should have but one 
 mattress, one covering, and two pillows. In spite of 
 this Lacedemonian rigour Agrigentum was forced to 
 surrender after a siege of eight years. 
 
 Then all its riches fell a prey to the victor : pic- 
 tures, statues, precious vases, all was sent to Carthage. 
 There was nothing, not even the famous brass bull 
 of Phalaris, that did not cross the seas to embellish 
 Dido's city. It is true that two hundred and sixty 
 years later when Scipio, in his turn, took and pillaged 
 Carthage, as Hamilcar had taken and pillaged Agri- 
 gentum, the brass bull returned over seas and was 
 sold to the Agrigentines, who had an affection for 
 him which it is difficult to account for when one ex- 
 amines the unpleasant relations Phalaris had forced 
 them to have with him. 
 
 In spite of this restitution and the protection that 
 Rome afforded her, Agrigentum never recovered 
 from her fall, but steadily decreased until she lost 
 even her name. To-day, Girgenti, poor beggarly 
 daughter of a royal race, coven* but a twentieth part 
 of the soil once covered by her gigantic ancestress, 
 and counts but thirteen thousand souls vegetating 
 with difficulty where once a million of inhabitants 
 lived and flourished ; which does not prevent, as I have 
 already said, that between Messina the Noble and
 
 THE SPERONARA 289 
 
 Palermo the Happy she pompously styles herself 
 Girgenti the Magnificent. 
 
 The first thing that struck us on leaving the town 
 was the gate through which we passed, which was 
 evidently a Saracenic construction. I resolved to 
 begin, in presence of this monument of the Arab 
 conquest, to put to proof the licensed knowledge of 
 our guide; so I asked him if he could tell me to 
 what period the gateway belonged ; but the worthy 
 Ciotta merely replied that it was very old, and as it 
 looked badly architects were going, by order of the 
 intendant, to pull it down and replace it by another 
 in the Greek Doric style. I asked the name of the 
 worthy intendant, and was told that he called him- 
 self Vaccari. May God forgive him ! 
 
 We passed on our left the Rupe Atenne, the Rock 
 of Athene, the highest of the hills that overlooked 
 ancient Agrigentum, on the summit of which the 
 temple of the goddess once stood. We thought for 
 an instant of going up there, but our guide assuring 
 us there was nothing to be seen but a rather fine 
 panorama, we postponed the ascension and went on 
 to the eastern slope of the same hill, on which stood 
 the temple of Persephone, to whom the Agrigentines 
 vowed a special devotion. This temple is nearly as 
 invisible as that to Athene, except that on its old 
 foundations a little church has been erected. A 
 hundred yards farther on flows a JiumlceUo which, 
 after calling itself the Acragas, and the Dragon, now 
 styles itself modestly the River Saint-Blaise : it is the 
 one, however, that in the days of antiquity, separated 
 ancient Agrigentum from Neapolis, or the new city. 
 
 19
 
 290 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 We followed the circuit of the walls, still quite 
 visible, and soon found ourselves at the angle of the 
 rampart on which was built the temple of Juno La- 
 cinia, which rises, supported by thirty-four Doric 
 columns of the best order, above an almost perpen- 
 dicular precipice. A tradition, believed by Fazzello, 
 asserts that this is the temple to which Gellias with 
 his family and his treasures retreated when Agrigen- 
 tum was taken. According to the same tradition, 
 the ruddy tint that colours the stones came from fire 
 set bv Gellias that burned him up, him and all his 
 family. It is true that Diodorus Siculus, who relates 
 the same act, says that it was done in the temple of 
 Zeus-Atabyrius. 
 
 In this temple hung the famous picture of Hera, 
 painted by Zeuxis, mentioned by Pliny, sung by 
 Ariosto, for which the artist had taken as models the 
 five most beautiful virgins in Sicily, choosing them 
 from one hundred others who passed before him in 
 their nude beautv. Consequently, the figure of the 
 goddess was the quintessence of all the different per- 
 fections united in one form. At any rate, as Zeuxis 
 had taken a fancy to this mode of working, he re- 
 newed the experiment for his Helena of Crotona and 
 his Aphrodite of Siracusa. 
 
 In spite of the truly African sun, the stabs of 
 which fell plumb upon our heads, Jadin sat down to 
 make me a drawing of the temple, while I went in 
 search of pomegranates. I soon found a bush in the 
 middle of which there still remained a few magnifi- 
 cent fruits ; but just as I was about to plunge in my 
 hand I fancied I heard a hissing, and looking closer
 
 THE SPERONARA 291 
 
 I saw an oscillating head illumined by two ardent 
 eyes. It was indeed a snake, which had wound itself 
 around the stein of the shrub, and, like another 
 dragon of the Hesperides, was preparing to defend 
 the fruits I coveted. The blow of a stick on the 
 shrub made him quit his post to seek refuge in the 
 tall grasses which grew at a little distance, but be- 
 fore he could reach them, Milord, who had followed 
 me, sprang upon him and broke his back with one 
 clip of his jaws. Though mortally wounded, he 
 again reared himself as if to bite Milord, and I blew 
 his brains out with a pistol-shot. We measured him, 
 Ciotta and I, and found him over five feet long. The 
 worthy guide declared, no doubt to flatter me, that 
 it was one of the largest he had ever seen. I gath- 
 ered my pomegranates and carried them in triumph 
 to Jadin, with Ciotta behind me, dragging the serpent 
 by the tail. 
 
 From the temple of Juno Lacinia we passed on to 
 that of Concord, the finest and least damaged of the 
 two. A stone found among the ruins, and now pre- 
 served in the town-hall of Girgenti, gave this temple 
 its name. Here is the inscription it bore, which I 
 copied from the stone itself, leaving the words in 
 their arrangement : 
 
 CoXCOUin.E AORIGKXTI- 
 
 NOKUM SACIU'M. 
 RESPUBLICA I.YUIUTAXO- 
 
 ur.\i DKDICAXTIBUS 
 M. HATKUIO CAXDIDO Puoros 
 ET L. COKXKLIO MAKCKU.O Q. 
 PR. PR.
 
 292 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 We began by examining the interior of this build- 
 ing, which is truly magnificent ; it is one of the best- 
 preserved temples of antiquity. We entered by an 
 open door in the centre of the pronoas. The cella, 
 thirty feet wide and ninety feet long, is perfectly 
 preserved ; two staircases are built into the corner 
 walls, by one of which I went up easily to the 
 top. 
 
 In 1620, the temple of Concord was converted into 
 a Christian church and dedicated to San-Gregorio 
 della Rupe, bishop of Girgenti. It was then that 
 the six arched doors that open on the peristyle were 
 made ; but towards the end of the eighteenth century 
 this wedlock of mythology and Christianity was re- 
 garded as a double profanation, artistic and religious ; 
 all trace of the modern church was removed, and if 
 the god of antiquity should ever return, he will find 
 his temple pretty much as it came from the hands 
 of its unknown architect. 
 
 When I came down from the top I found Jadin 
 still at work. I profited by his stay to let myself 
 slide down to the foot of the ramparts and visit the 
 tombs that were hollowed in the walls ; these were 
 receptacles for warriors, whom the Agrigen tines 
 buried in this way, that they might, though dead, 
 still protect the town. During the siege the Car- 
 thaginians opened them and flung the ashes to the 
 winds ; but shortly after, the plague having appeared, 
 and Hannibal, their leader, being dead, Hamilcar 
 attributed the appearance of the scourge to this 
 profanation, and to appease the Greek gcxls he sacri- 
 ficed a child to Kronos [Saturn] and several priests
 
 THE SPERONARA 293 
 
 to Poseidon. The gods were satisfied with this 
 reparation and one fine morning the plague went off 
 as it had come. 
 
 I wanted to return by the way I came down, hut 
 the thing was impossible. I was obliged to skirt 
 the ramparts for nearly five hundred yards and to 
 re-enter through an opening that still retains the 
 name of the Porto Aurea, which is situated between 
 the temple of Heracles and that of Zeus. As it was 
 getting dark I postponed my visit to those two 
 marvels until the morrow. Half-way back to the 
 temple of Concord I met Jadin, who had folded his 
 baggage and was coming to meet me. We entered a 
 street of the old city that was lined with tombs 
 and started for Girgenti, about a mile and a half 
 distant. 
 
 With the change of light the town itself had 
 changed aspect ; the sun, about to sink to the horixon, 
 was setting behind Girgenti, seated at the top of her 
 rock and vigorously defined on the fiery heavens, 
 like those Babylonian cities of which Martin the 
 painter dreams. To left was the African sea, calm, 
 azured, vast ; behind us the temples of Juno Lacinia 
 and Concord, beneath our feet the antique way, 
 still preserving the ruts of the chariot-wheels ; the 
 same ancient road trodden two thousand years ago 
 by a vanished people whose tombs we were passing. 
 
 As we approached the town, the grandiose faded 
 away, and Girgenti reappeared to us such as she is 
 really, that is to say, as a confused mass of dirty and 
 badly built houses. But even so, at three hundred 
 steps from the gate, another illusion awaited us.
 
 294 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 Young girls of the people were coming out to draw 
 water from a fountain, and bearing on their heads 
 those beautiful jars of a long shape such as we find 
 in the drawings of Herculaneum and the relics of 
 Pompeii. They were, as I have said, daughters of 
 the people, in rags, but those rags were draped in a 
 manner both simple and grand ; the gesture with 
 which they supported the amphora? was powerful. 
 Such as they were, half naked, not from coquetry but 
 from poverty, they were still the daughters of Greece, 
 degenerated, bastardized no doubt, but in whom, 
 nevertheless, it was easy to discern some traces of the 
 maternal tvpe. Two among them, on our invitation 
 conveyed through Ciotta, good-naturedly posed for 
 Jadin, who made two sketches of them which 2iiight 
 well be thought copies of antique paintings. 
 
 We found awaiting us at the hotel another Gellias, 
 who, having heard of our arrival, had come to offer 
 us hospitality. He was the architect of the city, 
 Signore Politi, a very agreeable man, whose whole 
 life is devoted to the study of the antiquities in the 
 midst of which he lives. Whatever desire we had to 
 profit by his offer, we refused it, not wishing to hurt 
 our landlord, who had evidently been making great 
 preparations to receive us ; but we declared to 
 Signore Politi that in all other respects we would 
 gladly claim his kindness. He answered by putting 
 himself at our entire disposal. We took instant 
 advantage of his speech by asking him for informa- 
 tion as to how we could Ix^st reach Palermo. 
 
 There were two ways, he said, by which to do so : 
 the first to follow the coasts in the spcronara ; the
 
 THE SPERONARA i295 
 
 second to cut diagonally across Sicily from Girgenti 
 to Palermo. The first necessitated fifteen to eighteen 
 days' sailing; the second three days only on mule- 
 back ; moreover it would show us the interior of 
 Sicily in all its solitude and bareness ; there was no 
 doubt as to saving of time, or gain of the picturesque. 
 We chose the second. One only unpleasantness was 
 attached to it, so said Signore Politi. The road 
 was infested with robbers, and fifteen days earlier an 
 Englishman had been murdered between Fontana- 
 Fredda and Castro-Novo. We looked at each other, 
 Jadin and I, and laughed. 
 
 Ever since we had been in Italy, we had heard 
 incessant talk of bandits without ever perceiving so 
 much as the shadow of one. At first, I own, the 
 terrible tales of travellers stripped, held for ransom, 
 or assassinated, told to us by the drivel's of carriages 
 who did not want to drive by night, or by the 
 masters of inns to induce us to take an escort on 
 which they levied a percentage, did produce upon us 
 a certain impression. In consequence, the first few 
 times we prudently stopped where we were ; after 
 that we went on with some fear ; until finally, seeing 
 that the danger talked of was never reali/ed, we had 
 ended by laughing and travelling at all hours with- 
 out taking other precautions than that of never 
 going anywhere without our weapons. Later, at 
 Naples, we were positively assured that we could not 
 quit Sicily without meeting that which we had vainly 
 sought elsewhere; but since we had been in Sicily, 
 as at Naples, as at Home, as in Florence, we had 
 never, so far, met any highway robbers, except the
 
 296 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 innkeepers. It is true that they did the thing 
 conscientiously. 
 
 The fear expressed by Signore Politi seemed to 
 me therefore exaggerated, and I told him that what 
 he presented as an obstacle was, on the contrary, an 
 attraction the more, and that we chose deliberately 
 the land journey. As this answer, not to seem 
 braggadocio, necessitated explanation, I told him 
 of all the warnings given to us, the luck we had 
 had in meeting with no bad adventures, and the 
 desire we had to make acquaintance with some 
 bandit, if only to give the charm of emotion to our 
 journey. 
 
 " Pardieu ! " exclaimed Signore Politi, " if that is 
 all you want, I know of the very thing for you." 
 
 " What, really ? " 
 
 " Yes ; only, the man is a retired robber ; an 
 absolved bandit, as one might say. He is a muleteer 
 in Palermo, and has just arrived here with some 
 English people. If you would like to bike him, he 
 has two good mules, and with him you will have one 
 advantage: if you should meet brigands you can 
 negotiate with them. Being an old comrade they 
 will give him advantages they woukl not give to 
 others." 
 
 " Is this honest man in Girgenti ?" I cried. 
 
 "He was here this morning, and unless he has 
 just started, which I doubt, we can send for him." 
 
 44 Send at once, I lx-g of you." 
 
 Signore Politi called the waiter and told him to 
 go and find Giacomo Salvatore, tell him that he, 
 Signore Politi, wanted him, and bring him immedi-
 
 THE SPERONAHA 297 
 
 ately. Ten minutes later the waiter reappeared 
 followed by the required individual. 
 
 He was a man from forty to forty-five years of 
 age, who still preserved beneath the costume of a 
 Sicilian peasant a certain military bearing. He 
 wore upon his head a gray woollen cap, Phrygian 
 in shape and embroidered in red ; as for the rest of 
 his accoutrement, it consisted of a blue velveteen 
 waistcoat, through the armholes of which came the 
 sleeves of a coarse linen shirt, the cuffs being also 
 embroidered in red like the cap ; a woollen sash of 
 several colours that girt his waist ; a pair of short 
 breeches of blue velveteen like the waistcoat ; and a 
 species of top-boots, open at the sides. The whole 
 stood out against the background of a reddish cloak 
 embroidered in green, which, being flung over one 
 shoulder only, hung down behind and gave to his 
 appearance something very picturesque. 
 
 Signore Politi had requested us to make no allu- 
 sion to the former profession of Signorc Salvatore, 
 and to content ourselves at this first interview 
 with discussing charges and making our agree- 
 ment. We promised him to keep within the strictest 
 propriety. 
 
 As Politi had supposed, the muleteer, on arriving 
 that morning with two foreigners, had said to him- 
 self that he should not lose his time if he waited 
 awhile. It is true that sometimes, as he afterwards 
 owned, he was mistaken in his calculation, and had 
 met with timorous souls who preferred, for their 
 three days' trip through the wilds, other company 
 than that of an ex-robber; then again, under other
 
 298 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 circumstances, such for instance as those in which we 
 met him, he was well compensated for his time and 
 trouble. On the whole, he was nearly sure of his 
 customer when the traveller was English or French ; 
 the chances were even when the traveller was Ger- 
 man ; but if he was Italian it was not worth while 
 even to present himself and offer his services ; he 
 knew beforehand they would be refused. 
 
 The discussion was not long. In the first place, 
 Salvatore, proud as a king, had the habit of impos- 
 ing conditions, not of accepting them. As these 
 conditions were confined to two piastres for each 
 mule, and two piastres for the muleteer, comprising 
 the mule for the baggage, in all, eight piastres, these 
 arrangements seemed to us so reasonable that we 
 immediately engaged mules and muleteer for the 
 morning of the next day but one ; to bind which 
 agreement Salvatore paid us two piastres as earnest- 
 money. Here, by the bye, is a notable fact : 
 throughout Italy it is the vettnrim who give earnest 
 money to travellers and not the travellers who give 
 it to the vetturin't. 
 
 Sign ore Politi then asked Salvatore if he thought 
 there was any danger for us on the road. Salvatore 
 replied that as for danger there was none, and he 
 would answer for that. At one place, perhaps, 
 about five or six miles Ixjyond Castro-Novo, we 
 might have some negotiations to make with a band 
 who had chosen to make that neighbourhood their 
 headquarters ; but, even in that case, Salvatore would 
 answer for it that the toll demanded of us, supposing 
 it was demanded at all, would not exceed ten or a
 
 THE SPERONARA 299 
 
 dozen piastres. That was, as will be seen, a mere 
 nothing, not worth the trouble of thinking about. 
 
 This point settled, we offered a glass of wine to 
 Salvatore and all of us drank to the prospect of a 
 fortunate trip ; after which it became necessary to 
 inform Captain Arena of our resolution and tell 
 him to go round the western end of Sicily with the 
 speronara and rejoin us at Palermo. Consequently, 
 I found a messenger who for half a piastre agreed 
 to take my despatch to the harbour. It contained 
 an invitation to our good captain to come and see 
 us the next morning at nine o'clock, and to bring 
 with him certain designated articles of bare necessity 
 for our trip across the island and for the time we 
 might have to wait in Palermo for the rest of our 
 roba. 
 
 This done, Signore Politi, seeing that we seemed 
 very anxious to go to bed, took leave of us, offering 
 to be our guide himself on the following day, and 
 begging us to inform the landlord that we should 
 dine with him and not at the inn. Thanks to this 
 discretion, which enabled us to go to bed early, 
 we were early afoot the next morning and ready 
 to follow him when he came to fetch us at six 
 o'clock. The heat, reflected from the bare rocks 
 on which we trod, had been so suffocating the pre- 
 vious day that we had resolved to escape it as much 
 as possible by starting very early in the morning. 
 
 We left the city by the same gate through which 
 we had entered it, accompanied by Signore Politi, 
 and followed by our friend Ciotta, whom we would 
 fain have got rid of; but he, like the gardener
 
 300 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 in the " Nozze di Figaro," was not such a fool as to 
 dismiss such good masters. While awaiting the 
 opportunity to give us proofs of his erudition, he 
 gave us marks of his good-will by carrying Jadin's 
 stool, umbrella, and colour-box. 
 
 The first traces of antiquity that we came to were 
 tombs hollowed in the rock itself, such as I had 
 already seen at Aries and in the village of Baux ; 
 I left Jadin to plunge with Signore Politi into a 
 profound scientific discussion, and I walked on with 
 Ciotta to a square little building of rather elegant 
 construction, standing on a sub-base and adorned 
 with four pilasters. After vainly trying with my 
 deepest archaeological knowledge to make out the 
 antique purpose of the little edifice, I was forced 
 to have recourse to Ciotta's erudition, and I asked 
 him if he had any opinion as to that ruin. 
 
 "Why, certainly, signore," he replied; "that is 
 the Chapel of Phalaris." 
 
 " Chapel of Phalaris ! " I exclaimed, astonished 
 at that singular conjunction of words. " Do you 
 believe it?" 
 
 " I am sure of it, Eccellenza." 
 
 " But which Phalaris ? ** I asked ; for after all, 
 there might have been two, and the reputation of 
 the one might have obscured the credit of the other. 
 
 " Why ! " replied Ciotta, evidently surprised at the 
 question. " I mean the famous tyrant who invented 
 the brass bull." 
 
 " Ah ! ah ! pardon me ; I had no idea he was so 
 devout." 
 
 " He had remorse, Eccellenxa, he had remorse ;
 
 THE SPERONARA 301 
 
 and as the place he lived in was only a few steps 
 distant, he built this chapel so as not to have to go 
 far to hear mass."" 1 
 
 " Pardon me, Signore cicerone, but your explana- 
 tion seems to me so judicious that I ask leave to 
 write it at once in my note-book. " 
 
 " Do so, Eceellenxa, do so." 
 
 At this moment Jadin joined me. As I did not 
 wish to deprive him of the luminous explanation 
 given me by Ciotta, I left the two together and 
 walked on with Signore Politi to visit the Temple 
 of the Giants, while Jadin made in a few strokes 
 a pencil sketch of the Chapel of Phalaris. 
 
 The Temple of the Giants is, at the present time, 
 a mass of ruins, and if, according to Biscari, a tri- 
 glvph had not been found among them it would 
 have been difficult to say to what order of 
 architecture the edifice belonged. According to all 
 probability, this temple, that seemed built for eter- 
 nity [in the fifth century before Christ] was over- 
 thrown by the barbarians. In 1401, Fa/iello, the 
 chronicler of Sicily, says that he saw still standing 
 three of the giants who formed the caryatides. 2 It is 
 
 1 The building docs really go by the name of the " Ora- 
 torium of Phalaris." It was originally a Greek Sanctuary; in 
 1()S<>, when the town was taken by the Normans under Roger 
 I., Agrigentum was made into a bishopric and the building 
 became a Norman chapel. Tu. 
 
 a It is curious that Dumas does not give its ancient name. 
 Temple of Zeus, or mention the minute description of it by 
 Diodorus Siculus, who tells, from sight, of the vast columns 
 twenty feet in circumference, with flutings so deep that a man 
 could stand in the depths of one. The colossal Telamones or 
 Atlantes mentioned above stood above them holding up the
 
 302 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 these three giants that modern Girgenti, proud 
 daughter of her race, has taken for her arms. Some- 
 time later an earthquake threw them down, and 
 to-day, of all that " court of colossals," as the motto 
 of the city calls them, nought remains but one poor 
 giant, whose broken parts have been brought together 
 as he lies upon the ground; so that he still gives, 
 with a section of the famous columns in the flutings 
 of which a man could hide, a faint idea of the gran- 
 deur of the building. 
 
 We measured that stone giant : he was twenty- 
 four to twenty-five feet in height, including the arms 
 bent above his head. The outlines of the figure are 
 much defaced, these caryatides, according to all prob- 
 ability, having been covered with stucco, and their 
 hind sides resting against pilasters or walls. Our 
 friend Ciotta had set up on this figure a theory 
 not less ingenious than the one he had propounded 
 to me respecting the Chapel of Phalaris ; he thought 
 that this great giant was one of the ancient inhabi- 
 tants of Sicily, who, having had the imprudence to 
 fall into a petrifying fountain, had been preserved 
 intact until the day when, the fountain having gone 
 dry owing to an earthquake, he was found such as he 
 is to-day. 
 
 From the Temple of the Giants we had only the an- 
 tique way to cross before reaching that of Heracles; 
 which has lx>en even more maltreated than its neigh- 
 bour. [The stones of both these temples were in 
 
 entablature. The metopae on the east side represented the 
 wars of the gods with the giants, those on the west side 
 the Trojan war. Ta.
 
 THE SPERONARA 303 
 
 modern times carried down the antique way to 
 build the Molo of Girgenti, now called the Porto 
 Empedocle.] One column alone remains standing. 
 This is the temple which Cicero says, apropos of the 
 famous painting of Alcmene by Zeuxis, was so mag- 
 nificent that it was difficult to see anything finer : 
 Qiio non facile dixerim quidquid vldease pulchriii.1. 
 So, when Verres, who found it ready to his hand, 
 attempted to steal that picture and the statue of 
 Heracles by night, the inhabitants of Agrigentum 
 rose in rebellion and drove away with stones the 
 messengers of the Roman proconsul. 
 
 These ruins visited we went down through the 
 Porta Aurea, to the plain without the walls, where 
 we presently reached a small square building, which 
 some call the tomb of Theron [descendant of 
 Telemachus, conqueror of Him era, and beauti- 
 fier of Acragas] ; others say it LS that of a famous 
 courser. Each side gives such powerful proofs in 
 support of its assertion that our guide, embarrassed 
 between the two, told us, by way of conciliating both, 
 that the tomb was that of an ancient Agrigentine 
 king who had himself buried there with a courser 
 that he loved. 
 
 Three hundred steps farther on are two columns 
 encased in the walls of a little casino ; they are 
 all that remains of a temple to .Ksculapius. The 
 plain in which they stand is still called the Campo 
 Romano. This was the spot where, according to 
 Polybius, a part of the Roman army camped dur- 
 ing the first Punic war. 
 
 As the sun, with whom we had made so inti-
 
 304 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 mite an acquaintance the day before, was begin- 
 ning again to do us the honours of the town 
 which Pindar says he did not disdain to sing him- 
 self we deprived ourselves of seeing the temples of 
 Hephaistos, Castor and Pollux, and the Piscine made 
 by the Carthaginian prisoners in the valley of 
 Acragas. Ciotta tried to insist on taking us 
 there, but we promised to pav him as if we had 
 gone ; which brought him around instantly to our 
 sentiments. 
 
 On reaching the hotel we found Captain Arena 
 waiting for us with our cook. We were surprised 
 by this infraction of the commands of the Neapolitan 
 police, who forbade, it will be remembered, that Cama 
 should set foot on land. But the poor devil had so 
 implored that he should be taken from an element 
 on which he did not have a moment's rest, and which 
 had come so near being fatal to him the evening lx>- 
 fore, that the captain, touched by his supplications, 
 brought him to us to ask whether, in spite of the in- 
 junction against him, we would take it upon us to 
 carry him bv land to Palermo. The victim awaited 
 our decision with so piteous a face that we had not 
 the courage to refuse his request. At the risk of 
 what might happen, Cama was, to his great satis- 
 faction, reinstated on terra firma. Five minutes 
 later our landlord rushed in to ask if we were 
 dissatisfied with our dinner of the evening before. 
 As we had no wish to hull the feelings of the worthy 
 man, who had really done all he could, I told him 
 that far from complaining we were, on the contrary, 
 well satisfied ; then he Ix'gged me to come and put a
 
 THE SPERONARA 305 
 
 stop to what was going on in his kitchen, where 
 Caina was turning everything topsy-turvy. I ran 
 there at once, and found Caina in the middle of five 
 or six saucepans demanding with loud outcries some- 
 thing to put into them. It was this indiscreet de- 
 mand that wounded our landlord. I explained to 
 Cama that his requirements were exorbitant, and I 
 requested him to leave the cook of the hotel to cook 
 as he pleased the do/en eggs which with great diili- 
 culty he had managed to procure for us. Cama 
 retired grumbling, and I could comfort him only 
 by telling him he should have his turn during our 
 journey from Girgenti to Palermo. 
 
 The captain had brought all we had sent for, and 
 on the chance of our wanting them, a hundred or so 
 of piastres. But inasmuch as what Signore Politi 
 had told us of the road did not invite us to over- 
 burden ourselves with money, we begged him to 
 carry back the said sum to the speronara, where 
 it would be far safer than in our pockets. We had 
 between us, Jadin and I, about fifty once.t, that is to 
 say, seven or eight hundred francs, which seemed 
 to us all the more sufficient because the captain 
 promised to rejoin us in about ten days. lie had 
 feared for a moment that the accident of losing his 
 anchor might oblige him to remain some days at 
 (Jirgenti in order to replace it; but Filippo had* 
 dived so often and so well that he managed finally 
 to detach its iron tooth from the rock in which it 
 was caught, and at last, having dived seven times to 
 a depth of twenty-five feet, lie returned to the sur- 
 face of the water bringing the anchor. Then Pietro 
 
 20
 
 306 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 and Giovanni, who were awaiting him, plunged over- 
 board with a cable ; and that being passed through 
 the ring, the anchor was hoisted in triumph on board 
 the speronara. 
 
 All going on for the best, we took leave of our 
 captain, giving him rendezvous at Palermo. 
 
 Immediately after breakfast, which, as may be in- 
 ferred from the forecast given above of it, did not 
 keep us long, we set out in search of whatever re- 
 markable things modern Girgenti might offer. The 
 list was short : a shop of Etruscan vases, very empty, 
 each piece at a price nearly triple what it would cost 
 in Paris ; a small picture, called a Raffaelle, at best 
 a Giulio Romano, which had been stolen, then re- 
 turned by the medium of a confessor, and was now 
 in the keeping of the judge, who was likely to become 
 its ultimate possessor ; and, finally, the cathedral 
 church, deprived for the time being of its bishop, for 
 the reason that, the last prelate having died, the King 
 of Naples became possessed, provisionally, of his reve- 
 nues ; and as these amounted to some thirty thou- 
 sand onces (about 4,800,000 francs) his Majesty of 
 the Two Sicilies was in no haste to fill the vacant 
 benefice. 
 
 These different visits, insignificant though they 
 were, brought us, nevertheless, to the dinner hour, 
 and to a meal which was served to us with a profu- 
 sion we had found with our good Gemellaro at Nico- 
 losi, and never since. At dessert, the conversation 
 again fell upon robbers ; and this topic reminding us 
 naturally of our future guide Salvatore, I asked Si- 
 gnore Politi to give us some information as to how
 
 THE SPERONARA 307 
 
 the grace of God had touched him. Instead of reply- 
 ing to my inquiry our host proposed to tell us of an 
 incident which had happened some seven or eight 
 years earlier at Castrogiovanni. Not wishing to lose 
 reality for a shadow we accepted at once, and with- 
 out further preamble than to call for coffee and 
 give orders that we were not to be disturbed under 
 any pretext whatsoever, Signore Politi told us the 
 following tale.
 
 X 
 
 COLONEL SANTA-CROCE 
 
 ON the 20th of July, 1826, at six oY-lock in the 
 evening, not only was the court-room of Cas- 
 trogiovanni crowded with inquisitive persons, but the 
 neighbouring streets were blocked by a flood of men 
 and women who, unable to get a place in the justice 
 hall, were waiting outside to hear the verdict. This 
 verdict was of the utmost importance to the whole 
 population of central Sicily. The accused man, who 
 was now before the judges, made part, it was asserted, 
 of the band of the famous captain Luigi Lana, which 
 appearing sometimes on the road from Catania to 
 Palermo, sometimes on that from Catania to Girgenti, 
 and occasionally on both at the same time, scrupu- 
 lously robbed and stripped every traveller who had 
 the imprudence to take either of those routes. 
 
 Signore Luigi Lana was one of those bandit chiefs 
 that are found no longer except in Sicily and at 
 the Opera-Comique, robbers who rush to the high- 
 roads to redress the abuses of swiety, and restore 
 some equality between the favours and disfavours of 
 fortune. A score of persons had had personal deal- 
 ings with him ; but out of the twenty descriptions of 
 him given by those persons there were not two alike. 
 One said he was a fine, handsome young man of four 
 or five and twenty, with fair hair and the look of a
 
 THE SPERONARA 309 
 
 woman ; others declared he was a man of forty to 
 forty-five, with strongly marked features, olive skin, 
 and black and close-curling hair. Some said they 
 had seen him enter churches and say his prayers with 
 a compunction that put the most fervent monks to 
 shame ; others had heard him utter blasphemies fit 
 to rend the heavens, and held him to be a wicked and 
 lost reprobate. There were also some, but these, it 
 must be owned, were few in number, who said he 
 was a more honest man than those who sought to 
 catch him and hang him, and a more rigid observer 
 of a simple verbal promise than many commercial 
 persons are of written obligations ; those who thought 
 thus produced a fact which effectually proved that 
 Signore Luigi Lana never jested in matters concern- 
 ing his promised word. Here is the fact on which 
 they based the good opinion they had formed and 
 proclaimed touching this singular personage. 
 
 One day when he was being pursued, he found a 
 refuge in the house of a rich Sicilian noble named 
 the Marchese di Villalba. On leaving him Luigi, 
 being grateful, promised the marquis that he and his 
 should henceforth travel in Sicily in perfect safety. 
 Confiding in this promise, the marquis soon after 
 sent his man of business to make a payment at Cef- 
 alu ; but between l*oli//i and Collesano the steward 
 was stopped by a robber. In vain the poor devil 
 said that he belonged to the Marchese di Villalba 
 and that the said Marchese had a safe-conduct from 
 the captain for himself and all his people. The bandit 
 listened to none of these assertions and left the poor 
 steward as naked as a worm. Seeing the impossibil-
 
 310 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 ity of going farther, the steward returned on his 
 steps and asked shelter in the first house he came 
 to in Poli/zi ; thence he wrote to his master of the 
 misfortune which had befallen him and asked his 
 instructions. The marquis, who did not care to go 
 and summon Lana to keep the promise he had made 
 him and then had broken so immediately, was in the 
 act of writing to his poor steward to return to the 
 chateau, when he received two sacks brought by an 
 unknown man, who left them, saying they were sent 
 to the marquis by Captain Luigi Lana. The mar- 
 quis opened them. The first contained the money 
 taken from the steward, the second, the head of the 
 robber. At the same time the steward received at 
 the house where he had taken refuge, by another 
 unknown messenger, the clothes of which he had 
 been stripped. From that day forth no bandit ever 
 ventured to rub against the Marchese di Villalba, or 
 any of his household. 
 
 Well, as I have said, on the 20th of July, 1826, a 
 man was being tried in the court-room of Castrogio- 
 vanni on suspicion of belonging to the band of Luigi 
 Lana, and of having murdered an English traveller 
 two months earlier, that is to say, on the 18th of 
 May, between Centorbi and Paterno. As the Eng- 
 lishman died two days after the four stab-wounds 
 he had received, there was no opportunity of con- 
 fronting him with the supposed guilty partv. But 
 before expiring, the victim, who had maintained 
 throughout a coolness and self-possession worthy of 
 the land in which he was born, gave so precise a 
 description of his murderer that six weeks after the
 
 THE SPERONARA 311 
 
 Englishman's death they were able to capture the 
 guilty man. 
 
 When I say the guilty man, I ought to say simply 
 the accused man, for opinions were much divided as 
 to the guilt of the individual who was now before 
 Signore Bartolommeo, the judge of Castrogiovanni. 
 In fact, in spite of the testimony of the dying Eng- 
 lishman, and in spite of the identity of his descrip- 
 tion with the features of the accused man, the latter 
 maintained that he was the victim of a resemblance, 
 and that on the very day of the murder he was in 
 the harbour of Palermo, where, at the time, he 
 was working as a porter. Unfortunately, Signore 
 Bartolommeo, the judge, seemed to have sided with 
 the number of persons who were little inclined to 
 believe this denial, a fact which left, as can readily 
 be seen, very little hope for the poor devil, whose 
 only plea was an alibi he could not prove. 
 
 The matter stood thus, and the populace were 
 waiting, expecting every moment to hear the verdict, 
 when a handsome young man of twenty-eight to 
 thirty years of age, in the uniform of an English 
 colonel, followed by two servants, like himself on 
 horseback, rode into Castrogiovanni, coming from 
 the direction of Palermo, and stopped at the Albergo 
 dei Ciclopi, kept by the worthy Gaetano Pacca. As 
 travellers of that quality were rare in Castrogio- 
 vanni, Gaetano Pacca hastened himself to the door, 
 and yielded to no one the honour of holding the stran- 
 ger's bridle while the rider dismounted. The officer, 
 who, as I have said, was followed by two servants, 
 seemed at first opposed to this excess of politeness,
 
 312 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 then, observing that the landlord insisted, and not 
 wishing to refuse such a trifle, he dismounted \vith 
 much grace and entered the inn, flicking off as he did 
 so, with his riding whip, the dust on his boots 
 and trousers. 
 
 " I am the very humble servant of your Excel- 
 lency, 11 said the landlord, who, having flung the 
 bridle of the horse to his hostler, entered the inn 
 behind the stranger, " and I shall be eternally proud 
 that a gentleman of the rank of your Excellency has 
 stopped at the Albergo dei Ciclopi. Your Excel- 
 lency has no doubt taken a long ride, and a long 
 ride rouses the appetite. What shall I serve your 
 Excellency for dinner?"" 
 
 " My dear Signore Pacca," said the stranger, 
 speaking Italian with a strong Maltese accent, and 
 with a haughty air, which cut short the rather famil- 
 iar politeness of the landlord, " have the goodness, 
 in the first place, to reply to a question I wish to 
 ask you ; after which we will return to the proposal 
 you are kind enough to make to me." 
 
 "I-am at the orders of your Excellency."" 
 
 " Very good. I wish to know how many miles it 
 is from Castrogiovanni to the chateau of my friend 
 the Prince of Paterno;" 
 
 " Your Excellency surely does not mean to take 
 such a long ride to-day, and especially not at this 
 hour ? " 
 
 " Excuse me, my dear Pacca," said the stranger, 
 in the same rather scoffing tone noticeable already 
 in his manner and words, " but do you not perceive 
 that you are answering my question with another
 
 THE SPERONARA 313 
 
 question? I asked you how many miles it is from 
 here to the chateau of the Prince of Paterno ; do 
 you understand me ? " 
 
 " Seventeen miles, your Excellency."" 
 
 " Very good ; with my horse that is an affair of less 
 than three hours; if I leave at eight o'clock I shall 
 he there before midnight. So prepare my dinner, 
 and that of my servants, and feed our horses." 
 
 "Lord God!" exclaimed the innkeeper, "your 
 Excellency surely does not mean to travel by night ? " 
 
 " Why not ? " 
 
 " Your Excellency must know that the roads are 
 not safe." 
 
 The stranger laughed with a look of inexpressible 
 contempt ; then, after a moment's silence, " What 
 is there to fear?" he asked, continuing to flick the 
 dust from his trousers with his whip. 
 
 " What is there to fear ! Your Excellency asks 
 that ? " 
 
 " Yes, I do ask it." 
 
 " Has your Excellency never heard tell of Luigi 
 Lana ? " 
 
 " Luigi Lana ? who is he ? " 
 
 " He is the most terrible bandit, your Excellencv, 
 who ever appeared in Sicily." 
 
 " Really ? " said the stranger, in his bantering 
 tone. 
 
 " And especially at this moment whtyi he is much 
 exasperated," added the landlord. " 1 11 answer for 
 it, he wouldn't give quarter ty> any one." 
 
 " Why is he exasperated, my good Pacca ? Come, 
 tell me about it."
 
 314 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 " Because they are trying at this moment one of 
 his band." 
 
 " Where ? " 
 
 " Here, in the court-room, your Excellency." 
 
 " Of course the rascal will be condemned ? " 
 
 " I am afraid so. Excellency." 
 
 " Why are you afraid of it, Signore Gaetano ? " 
 
 " Why ? because, your Excellency, Luigi Lana is a 
 man who would set fire to all four corners of Castro- 
 giovanni to avenge himself." 
 
 The stranger burst out laughing. 
 
 *' May I know why your Excellency laughs ? " asked 
 the innkeeper, amazed. 
 
 " I laugh because one man of spirit can make 
 eight or ten thousand cowards like you tremble," 
 replied the stranger, with a more contemptuous air 
 than ever. " So," he continued, after a moment's 
 pause, " you think this man will certainly be 
 condemned ? " 
 
 " I have n't a doubt of it, Excellency." 
 
 " I am sorry I did not get here earlier," said the 
 stranger, as if to himself; "I .should like to have 
 seen the figure the fellow cut on being condemned." 
 
 "Perhaps there is still time," said Pacca; "and 
 if your Excellency would like to amuse yourself that 
 way while dinner is getting ready, I will write a line 
 to the Judge Bartolommeo, whose foster-brother I 
 have the honour to be ; and I do not doubt that 
 on my introduction he will place your Excellency on 
 the bench of lawyers." 
 
 " Thank vou, my friend," said the stranger, rising 
 and going to the door ; "thank you, but it is prob-
 
 THE SPERONARA 315 
 
 ably too late ; I hear a great noise of people in the 
 streets; the verdict has no doubt been given." 
 
 The crowd, which ten minutes earlier was press- 
 ing round the court-room, was now dispersing 
 through the streets with shouts of " Death ! death! 11 
 issuing from four or five thousand throats. The 
 prisoner, in spite of his reiterated denials, having no 
 witnesses on his behalf, was declared guilty and 
 sentenced to be hung. 
 
 The young colonel stood in the doorway till the 
 throng, which he gazed at frowning and gnawing his 
 moustache, had passed by ; then, when the street 
 had again become almost solitary, save for two or 
 three lingering groups here and there, he turned to 
 the innkeeper, who stood respectfully behind him, 
 standing on tiptoe in the effort to look over his 
 shoulder. 
 
 " When do you think that man will be executed, 
 friend Pacca ? " asked the stranger. 
 
 " Day after to-morrow morning, no doubt,"" replied 
 Pacca ; " to-day sentence, to-night confession, to- 
 morrow chapclk ardentc, next day gibbet." 
 
 " At what hour ? " 
 
 " Eight o'clock ; that's the usual time." 
 
 " Upon my word, I have a fancy ! " exclaimed the 
 colonel. 
 
 " And what may that be, Excellency ? " 
 
 " Why, as I missed seeing the fellow condemned, 
 I should like to see him hanged." 
 
 "Nothing easier; your Excellency can start to- 
 morrow morning, pay your visit to the Prince of 
 Paterno, and be back here to-morrow evening."
 
 316 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 " You speak like Saint John of the Golden Mouth, 
 my dear Pacca," replied the colonel, pulling out his 
 cambric shirt-frill from his British uniform ; " I will 
 do as you say. Therefore get ready my dinner and 
 my room ; try to have them, I '11 not say good, but 
 passable. I shall leave in the morning and return 
 at night. During that time get me a good place to 
 see the execution, a window for instance; I will 
 pay whatever is asked." 
 
 " I can do better than that, Excellency." 
 
 "How so?" 
 
 " Your Excellency knows that it is customary 
 for the judge to be present at executions, on a 
 platform." 
 
 " Ah ! the custom, is it ? No, I did not know it 
 no matter, go on." 
 
 " I will ask the judge, whose friend I have the 
 honour to be, to keep a place beside him for your 
 Excellency." 
 
 "Capital! And in return I promise you, if you 
 obtain that place for me, to pay your bill without 
 verifying the items. Now, while waiting for dinner, 
 which, I am afraid, will be long in coming, have you 
 nothing you can give me to read to pass the time ? " 
 
 " Yes, your Excellency, oh, yes ! " replied Pacca, 
 opening a cupboard where a few shabby and torn 
 books were mouldering. "Here is the 'Guide to 
 Travellers hi Sicily," 1 by that illustrious learned man, 
 Francesco Ferrara; here are two volumes of 'Gay 
 and Lively Poems, 1 by the Abbe Meli ; here's a 
 treatise on the Jettatura by Signore Nicola Va- 
 letta ; here ""s the ' History of the Terrible Bandit,
 
 THE SPERONARA 317 
 
 Luigi Lana, 1 adorned with his portrait painted from 
 life 1 ' 
 
 " Ah ! the devil ! my dear landlord, give me that; 
 I am curious to know what the man you threaten 
 me with looks like." 
 
 " There he is, Excellency, look at him. 1 " 
 
 " The deuce ! Well, he is a villanous-looking fel- 
 low, your friend Luigi Lana, with his big moustache, 
 his eyes sticking out of his head, his unkempt hair 
 under that sugar-loaf hat, and the pistols in his belt." 
 
 " But this picture of him, terrible as it is, is noth- 
 ing to the original ; I can assure your Excellency of 
 that." 
 
 " Have you ever seen him, my good Pa,cca ? "" asked 
 the young colonel, who sat tilting his chair and 
 looking at the innkeeper in his sarcastic way. 
 
 "No, Excellency ; no, I have not seen him ; but I 
 have lodged poor devils of travellers who have met 
 him to their sorrow, and they have described him to 
 me from head to foot."" 
 
 " Pooh ! fear troubled their sight ; they must 
 have been exaggerating. However, my dear land- 
 lord, as I have what I want, go and attend to my 
 dinner, while I see if the deeds of this terrible 
 personage correspond with his face." 
 
 "Immediately, your Excellency, immediately." 
 
 The traveller made a sign with his head, indicating 
 that he knew perfectly well what to expect of an 
 Italian's subito, and stretching himself out on two 
 chairs, he proceeded with truly Southern indifl'erence 
 to begin his reading. 
 
 Doubtless, in spite of the contempt with which he
 
 318 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 opened the book, the colonel found something in it 
 to interest him, for when the landlord returned in 
 half an hour he found him in the same attitude and 
 occupied in the same way. If the colonel had em- 
 ployed his time well, so had the landlord. After 
 talking with the master he had talked with the ser- 
 vants, and learned from them that the traveller 
 whom he had the honour of lodging was a young 
 Maltese, who, having a fortune of one hundred thou- 
 sand francs a year, had purchased a colonelcy in a 
 British regiment. The next thing was to know the 
 colonel's name. As for this, the proprietor of the 
 Albergo dei Ciclopi had a simple method of ascer- 
 taining it. He took his register, according to Italian 
 custom, for the traveller to sign. 
 
 The colonel raised liis eyes, perceived the landlord, 
 and seeing the register, guessed his object. Stretch- 
 ing out his hand he took the pen and wrote at the 
 place indicated by Gaetano's forefinger: "Colonel 
 Santa-Croce." 
 
 Gaetano, amply satisfied, now knew all he wanted 
 to know. 
 
 " If your Excellency would be pleased to sit down 
 to table," he said ; " the soup is served. 11 
 
 " Ah ! " said the young colonel, " why did not you 
 tell me sooner ? I would have spared you the trouble 
 of removing your table service." 
 
 " Removing my table service, your Excellency ! Is 
 it not arranged to your taste ? " 
 
 "Oh, yes, my dear host; oh, yes; but I have a 
 habit of wiping my fingers with Holland damask, 
 and eating off silver plate ; it is not that your nap-
 
 THE SPEIIONARA 319 
 
 kins are not clean, and your pewter forks quite 
 bright, but with your permission I will not use 
 them. Call my servant." 
 
 The landlord obeyed instantly, albeit rather humil- 
 iated at the affront put upon him by the colonel ; 
 but as the latter had promised not to verify his bill 
 he determined to wipe out the insult by its items. 
 
 Five minutes later the colonel's valet entered with 
 a case as large as a trunk, out of which he took silver 
 plates and dishes, knives and forks, and a silver-gilt 
 goblet, all marked with the colonel's arms. His 
 master then sat down to dinner with the disdainful 
 air of a prince, scarcely tasted each dish, and at the 
 close of the meal, seeing that the weather was fine 
 and the moonlight superb, he started to take a turn 
 through the town. Pacca offered to accompany him, 
 but the colonel replied that he preferred to be alone. 
 
 Nevertheless, as the landlord was by nature very 
 inquisitive, he left his inn ten minutes after his guest, 
 on pretence of taking a walk himself, but really in 
 the hope of meeting him. Now, although Castro- 
 giovanni has but two or three principal streets, the 
 expectation of the worthy innkeeper was balked; he 
 saw nothing that even resembled the haughty form 
 and bearing of the young colonel. As he passed 
 before the prison, he saw a poor Franciscan monk 
 entering it, a man of God, on his way to prepare 
 the criminal for death. 
 
 The colonel did not return to the inn till mid- 
 night. Gaetano Pacca longed to ask him what he 
 could find of interest in Castrogiovanni to keep him 
 out so late ; but as he opened his mouth to ask that
 
 320 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 question, the young man let fall upon him so dis- 
 dainful a glance, with an order to have him waked at 
 six in the morning, that the worthy Gaetano felt the 
 words die in his mouth, and he bowed in sign of 
 obedience without proffering a single word. 
 
 At seven in the morning the colonel, after swal- 
 lowing a cup of black coffee only, rode off', as he had 
 said, for the castle of the Prince of Paterno, taking 
 with him one valet, and leaving the other to look 
 after his baggage and remind Gaetano Pacca of his 
 promise to obtain from the judge a place beside him 
 from which to witness the execution. 
 
 An execution was not a common thing at Castro- 
 giovanni ; consequently, the day that preceded that 
 of the poor condemned man was one of agitation ; 
 everybody roamed the streets ; the bells were tolled ; 
 those who had news from the judge or the jailer were 
 in demand. It was thought that the criminal, hav- 
 ing no longer any hope of lessening the severity of 
 his punishment except by confession, would make 
 revelations, so that the people might know something 
 positive about the man and about his captain, the 
 terrible Luigi Lana. This hope was foiled ; not only 
 did the criminal make no revelation, but, on the con- 
 trary, he continued to protest his innocence, repeat- 
 ing incessantly that on the day of the murder he was 
 in Palermo, nearly one hundred and fifty miles from 
 the scene of the crime. The confessor himself could 
 draw nothing else from him, and the venerable monk 
 left the prison saying he feared that human justice, 
 intending to punish a guilty man, was really making 
 a martyr.
 
 THE SPERONARA 321 
 
 The day went by in vehement discussions as to the 
 guilt or innocence of the condemned man ; at dark 
 the windows of the mortuary chapel, where he was to 
 pass the night, were seen lighted up. At ten o'clock 
 that evening the Franciscan monk who had ministered 
 to him in his cell the day before, was taken to the 
 chapel and remained with the prisoner an hour and 
 a half. After his departure, the condemned man, 
 who had been much agitated during the day, ap- 
 peared more tranquil. 
 
 At midnight the colonel returned with his valet 
 to the Albergo dei Ciclopi, and finding the landlord 
 sitting up to receive him, he told him, first, to take 
 good care of his horses, who had made a long trip ; 
 then he inquired if his order about obtaining a seat 
 had been executed. Gaetano replied that his friend 
 the judge had been only too happy to do something 
 agreeable to his Excellency, and that on the morrow 
 he would give him the seat beside him on the plat- 
 form that he desired. 
 
 Throughout that night the bells were tolled to 
 remind good souls to pray for the man about to die. 
 
 At five in the morning the streets leading from 
 the prison to the place of execution were thronged 
 with people, the windows were a wall of heads, and 
 even the roofs cracked with the weight of spectators. 
 At seven o'clock the judge took his seat on the plat- 
 form with two clerks, the commandant of the guard, 
 and the commissary of police, and, as he had prom- 
 ised Gaetano, a seat was reserved beside him for the 
 colonel. At half-past seven the latter arrived ; he 
 thanked the judge very graciously, with the air of
 
 322 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 a great seigneur, for his kind attention, and, having 
 looked at a magnificent watch set round with dia- 
 monds to see if he should have to wait long, he sat 
 down in the place of honour among the public 
 authorities of Castrogiovanni. 
 
 At eight o'clock the bells began to ring with re- 
 doubled unction ; this was the signal that the con- 
 demned man was leaving the prison. A few minutes 
 later sounds of his approach were heard. The exe- 
 cutioner, who preceded him, appeared on horseback ; 
 then four guards, inarching behind that official ; then 
 the condemned man himself, mounted on an ass with 
 his face to the tail of the animal, thus proceeding 
 backward that he might keep in sight the coffin 
 which was borne by the Brothers of the Miseri- 
 cordia ; after them the whole population of Castro- 
 giovanni brought up the rear. 
 
 The condemned man seemed to listen in a very 
 absent manner to the exhortations of the monk who 
 accompanied him. It was said in the crowd that 
 this was because the monk was not the same as the 
 one who had ministered to him in prison ; the latter 
 had not come at the time expected, and they were 
 forced to send in haste for another that the con- 
 demned man might not die without the succour of 
 religion. However that may have been, the poor 
 devil, as we have said, seemed very uneasy and kept 
 casting right and left among the crowd glances that 
 plainly showed the anxiety of his mind. From time 
 to time, unlike the usual way of criminals, who spare 
 themselves the sight as long as possible, he turned 
 to look at the gibbet, calculating, perhaps, how long
 
 THE SPERONARA 323 
 
 he still h<od to live. Suddenly, on arriving before 
 the judge's platform and just as the confessor was 
 helping him to dismount from his ass, he gave a loud 
 cry, and motioning with his head, for his hands were 
 bound, at the colonel seated beside the judge, 
 
 " Father ! " he exclaimed, addressing the monk, 
 " father, there is a signore who can save me if he 
 will. 11 
 
 " Which one ? " asked the monk, in astonishment. 
 
 "That one next to the judge, father, the one 
 with the red uniform and the colonel's epaulets. 
 It is the good God himself who has brought him 
 in my way, father. Miracle ! miracle ! " 
 
 " Miracle ! miracle ! " echoed the crowd, without as 
 yet knowing what it meant. This, however, did not 
 prevent the executioner from approaching the pris- 
 oner in order to begin his duties. But the confessor 
 placed himself between them. 
 
 " Stop ! " he said, " in the name of God, stop ! 
 Judge," he continued, "the prisoner says that he 
 recognixes, sitting beside you, a witness who can 
 save his life by proving that he is innocent. Judge, 
 I adjure you to hear this witness." 
 
 "Who is he?" asked the judge rising from his 
 seat. 
 
 " Colonel Santa-Croce ! Colonel Santa-Croce ! " 
 cried the prisoner. 
 
 "I?" said the colonel in astonishment, rising 
 also. " I, my friend ? You are certainly mistaken ; 
 for though you know my name, I do not know 
 you." 
 
 " You do not know him, hey ?" asked the judge.
 
 324 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 " Not in the least," replied the colonel, after look- 
 ing with great attention at the prisoner. 
 
 " I thought .so," said the judge, shaking his head ; 
 " it is one of the usual tricks of these wretches." 
 
 Then he sat down, and made a sign to the execu- 
 tioner to continue his duties. 
 
 " Colonel ! " cried the prisoner, " colonel, don't 
 leave me to die thus when a word from you could 
 save me. Colonel, let me ask you a question." 
 
 " Yes, yes," cried the crowd, " that's only fair; let 
 the man speak, let him speak !" 
 
 "Judge," said the colonel, " I think that humanity 
 requires us to grant the request of this unfortunate 
 man. If he tries to deceive us, we shall soon per- 
 ceive it, and his death will only be delayed a few 
 moments." 
 
 " I can refuse nothing to your Excellency," replied 
 the judge ; " but really, it is scarcely worth while, be- 
 lieve me, colonel, to give him that satisfaction." 
 
 " I ask it for my own conscience 1 sake," said the 
 colonel. 
 
 " I have already told your Excellency, that I am 
 at your orders," replied the judge, rising; then he 
 added, " Guards, bring the prisoner here." 
 
 They brought the unfortunate man. He was pale 
 as death, and trembling in all his limbs. 
 
 " Well, you rascal," said the judge, " here you are 
 in presence of his Excellency ; speak out." 
 
 " Excellency," said the condemned man, " don't 
 you remember that on the 18th of last May you 
 landed at Palermo, coming from Naples?" 
 
 " I cannot fix the day as precisely as you do, my
 
 THE SPERONARA 325 
 
 friend ; but it is true that about that time I 
 landed in Sicily."" 
 
 " lint don't you remember, Excellency, the porter 
 who carried your trunks on a little hand-cart from 
 the quay to the Hotel des Quatres Saisons, where 
 you put up ? " 
 
 " I did certainly put up at the Hotel des Quatres 
 Saisons, 11 replied the colonel ; " but I must own I have 
 entirely forgotten the face of the man who conducted 
 me there. 11 
 
 " But what you can't have forgotten, Excellency, 
 is that in passing the door of a locksmith one of the 
 workmen came out carrying an iron bar on his 
 shoulder which struck me a blow on the head, 
 and made this wound See!" 
 
 And thrusting forward his head he showed a 
 wound, scarcely closed as yet, at the side of his 
 forehead. 
 
 " Yes, you are right, perfectly right, 11 said the 
 colonel. " I remember that circumstance as if it 
 happened yesterday. 11 
 
 " And in proof of it, 11 cried the prisoner, joyfully, 
 for seeing he was recognized he began to hope, " the 
 proof is that, generous signore that you are, instead 
 of the six carlinos I asked you, you gave me two 
 onces. 11 
 
 "All that is the exact truth, 11 said the colonel, 
 turning to the judge ; " but we can get better infor- 
 mation still. I carry with me a diary in which I 
 write down from day to day what 1 do. It will be 
 easy, therefore, to make sure that this man is not 
 giving us a false date. 11
 
 326 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 " Look for it, look for it, colonel ! " cried the 
 prisoner ; " now I am sure of my safety ! " 
 
 The colonel took out and opened his diary ; look- 
 ing it over until he came to the date mentioned, he 
 read the entry aloud, as follows : 
 
 " * May 18th. To-day I landed in Palermo at eleven 
 o'clock in the morning. Took on the quay a poor 
 devil who got wounded in carting my trunks. Lodged 
 at the Hotel des Quatres Saisons. 1 " 
 
 " There ! you see ! " cried the prisoner. 
 
 " I ' faith, judge," said the colonel, turning towards 
 the Signore Bartolommeo, "if the murder was 
 really committed on the 18th of May, I can on my 
 honour affirm that this poor man who is accused 
 of it was at Palermo on that day, where he was 
 wounded, as my note-book says, in my service. 
 Now, as he could not possibly be in Palermo and at 
 Centorbi on the same day, he is necessarily innocent.' 1 
 
 " Innocent ! innocent ! " cried the crowd. 
 
 " Yes, innocent, my friends, innocent ! " cried the 
 prisoner. " I felt sure that God would work a miracle 
 in my favour." 
 
 " Miracle ! miracle ! " cried the crowd. 
 
 "Well, then," said the judge, "we will send him 
 back to prison and proceed to another inquiry." 
 
 " No ! no ! free ! free this instant ! " shouted the 
 people. 
 
 At these words part of the crowd rushed upon 
 the platform, carried off' the prisoner, and unbound 
 his hands, while another part knocked down the 
 gibbet and pursued the hangman, pelting him with 
 stones.
 
 THE SPERONARA 327 
 
 As for the colonel, he was carried back in triumph 
 to the Alberto dei Ciclopi. 
 
 All that day there was festival at Castrogiovanni ; 
 and when the colonel quitted the town at midday 
 he and his horse forced a passage with difficulty 
 through the floods of people, who kissed his hands, 
 crving out : " Long live Colonel Santa-Croce ! the 
 saviour of the innocent ! " 
 
 As for the lately condemned man, as everybody 
 wanted to speak to him and hear from his own lips 
 the tale of his adventure, it was nearly dark before 
 lie got any freedom at all. But he profited instantly 
 by the little he got then to slip up a dark and nar- 
 row alley, and so to the gate of the town ; once 
 outside of the gate he ran with all his might to a 
 gorge in the mountains and disappeared. 
 
 The next morning the judge received a letter from 
 Luigi Lana in which the bandit chief thanked him 
 for his kindness in giving him a seat beside him on 
 his platform ; also he begged him to present his 
 compliments to his friend Gaetano Pacca, the land- 
 lord of the Albergo dei Ciclopi. 
 
 But, free as the condemned man now was, the 
 impression produced upon his mind by the sight of 
 the gibbet, which he had, so to speak, laid a finger 
 on, had been so real and so profound that he resolved, 
 in spite of the dissuasions of his comrades, to abandon 
 the life he had led so far, and be reconciled with 
 the police. The monk who had accompanied him 
 from the prison to the scaffold was the intermediary 
 between him and the authorities. His petition was 
 transmitted to the viceroy, and as the bandit merely
 
 328 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 asked that his life be spared, promising in future to 
 Ix? a model of honesty, his request, after certain 
 negotiations between the monk and the viceroy, was 
 granted, on one condition, namely : that he should 
 make honourable amends, bare-footed, with a rope 
 round his waist. This ceremony took place in Palermo, 
 to the great edification of all faithful souls. 
 
 That is what happened at Castrogiovanni on the 
 20th of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand, 
 eight hundred and twenty-six. 
 
 " And since then," I asked of Signore Politi, as 
 soon as he had finished his tale, "what has become, 
 please to tell me, of that newly honest man ? " 
 
 " He took the name of Salvatore, doubtless in 
 memory of the miraculous manner in which he was 
 saved ; he became a muleteer, in order to keep his 
 pledge of earning his living in an honourable manner, 
 and if what I have now told you does not give 
 you too great a distrust of him, he will have the 
 honour to be your guide to-morrow from Girgenti to 
 Palermo."
 
 XI 
 
 THE INTERIOR OF SICILY 
 
 THE next day, in spite of all diligence, we did 
 not succeed in getting off until nine in the 
 morning. I had ordered an extra mule for Caina, 
 but when he saw himself for the first time in his life 
 perched on a saddle with no other support than two 
 stirrups of unequal length, he declared that the 
 bridle seemed to him too insufficient a hold to dare 
 to trust to it the preservation of his person. Con- 
 sequently, with Salvatore's help, he descended to 
 earth and the mule was sent away. 
 
 During this time all our belongings were loaded 
 on the baggage mule. As this baggage was con- 
 siderable, Cama noticed that it provided a flat sur- 
 face on the back of the animal of three or four feet 
 in diameter. This terrace seemed to Cama a veri- 
 table heaven of safety, compared to the saddle, and 
 he asked to be allowed to establish himself accord- 
 ing to his fancy on the little platform. Salvatore, 
 on being consulted as to whether his mule could 
 carry this additional weight, saw no objection ; so 
 that in a minute more Cama found himself perched 
 in the midst of our baggage, seated after the manner 
 of tailors and rising pyramidically from the centre 
 of his domain.
 
 330 JOURN 7 EYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 We had been advised to visit the Maccalubas. 
 We therefore asked Salvatore to take the road that 
 led to them ; but he, accustomed to such requests, had 
 taken it of his own accord, and we were already a 
 mile and a half on our way there when we asked him 
 to take it. 
 
 The Maccalubas are neither more nor less than 
 little mud volcanoes, in number about thirty or 
 forty, that rise from a boggy plain. Each of these 
 miniature volcanoes is a foot to a foot and a half 
 high ; the matter that issues from these mole-hills is 
 a sort of pasty mud, rust colour, very cold, and, I 
 am told, very salt. When we were there these vol- 
 canoes were at rest ; that is to say, with great diffi- 
 culty, and with efforts that seemed to exhaust them, 
 they vomited their damp lava from their craters. 
 Salvatore assured us there were times when the mud 
 rose one hundred to one hundred and fifty feet high, 
 and the whole of the boggy plain heaved like the 
 surface of the sea. We saw nothing of that kind. 
 On the contrary, the plain was very quiet, and dry 
 enough to enable us not to sink-in more than two or 
 three inches when walking between the volcanoes. 
 As the place, in spite of advice, seemed to us of 
 moderate interest to any but those who were strong 
 enough in geology (which we were not) to study the 
 causes of this phenomenon, we made but a short stay 
 and continued our journey. 
 
 Towards eleven o'clock we came to the banks of a 
 small river. As the path we were on was intended 
 only for litters, mules, and foot-passengers, there was 
 no other way of crossing the stream than by ford-
 
 THE SPERONARA 331 
 
 ing it. I invited Salvatore to mount behind me ; 
 but as it was very warm he preferred to cross tran- 
 quilly, like his mule ; that is to say, through water 
 that was up to his waist. 
 
 A few steps beyond the river we came to a species 
 of little thicket of oleanders surrounding a fountain. 
 The place seemed made for a halt for breakfast, so 
 we jumped off our animals. Cama allowed himself 
 to slide from the top of his baggage ; Salvatore heat 
 the bushes to drive away two or three adders and a 
 do/en lixards, and we ate our breakfast. As we had 
 invited Salvatore to breakfast with us, an honour 
 that after certain preliminary affectations he elided 
 by accepting, he became towards the end of the meal 
 rather more communicative than he had been at 
 starting. Jadin profited by this beginning of socia- 
 bility to ask permission to make his portrait. Salva- 
 tore consented, laughing, draped his cloak over his 
 left shoulder, leaned on the pointed stick which he 
 used to jump over brooks and to prick his mules, 
 crossed one leg over the other, and stood before Jadin 
 with the immobility and self-possession of a man 
 accustomed to accede to such demands. 
 
 During this time I took my gun and beat up the 
 neighbourhood; an unfortunate rabbit that was out 
 of its hole and attempted to regain it instead of stay- 
 ing quietly in its form, where I should never have 
 noticed it, was the sole trophy of my expedition. 
 
 This was an occasion for Salvatore to ask jxrmis- 
 sion to examine our guns, which he had not vet dared 
 to tlo, notwithstanding his evident desire. He took 
 them and turned them about like a man to whom
 
 332 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 weapons are familiar ; but as these were guns of the 
 Lefaucheux pattern, the mechanism was perfectly 
 unknown to him. I was not sorry to show him, 
 while seeming to satisfy his curiosity, that at any 
 reasonable distance I should not miss my man ; so I 
 changed my cartridges, flung two piastres into the 
 air, and touched both. Salvatore went and picked 
 up the coins, saw the mark of the lead upon them, 
 and nodded his head in worthy appreciation of the 
 shot I had made. I proposed to him to do the 
 same thing ; he answered quite simply that he had 
 never been a good shot on the fly, but if my compan- 
 ion would lend him his carbine he would show us 
 what he could do at a mark. As the carbine was 
 loaded with ball, Jadin put it at once into his 
 hands. Salvatore took for a mark a little white stone 
 the she of an egg, which lay about a hundred steps 
 away from us in the middle of the path, and after 
 aiming with an attention that showed the impor- 
 tance he attached to success, he fired his shot and 
 broke the stone to atoms. 
 
 This caused Jadin and me to make the moderately 
 reassuring reflection that, on occasion, Salvatore also 
 would not miss his man. 
 
 As for Cama, he thought of nothing else than of 
 wrapping his rabbit in leaves that he gathered by 
 the fountain, in order to keep it fresh until the din- 
 ner hour. 
 
 We resumed our way. The miserable little fiumi- 
 cello that we had just crossed made more twists and 
 turns than the famous Meander. We met it a dozen 
 times in less than nine miles, and each time we
 
 THE SPERONARA 333 
 
 forded it as l)efore. During this whole day we saw 
 no cultivated land, only immense plains covered with 
 tall herbage burnt by the sun, in the midst of which 
 rose, now and then, like a verdant isle, a little cabin 
 surrounded by cactus, pomegranates, and oleanders. 
 For two or three hundred feet around the cabin 
 the soil would be cleared, and we saw a few vege- 
 tables raising their heads out of the ground ; and 
 these, in all probability, were the sole food of the 
 unfortunate people living in those solitudes. 
 
 We advanced until five in the afternoon, seeing 
 from time to time a species of village perched on 
 some rocky eminence, the path by which it could be 
 reached being quite indistinguishable. At last, from 
 the top of a little hill Salvatore pointed out to us a 
 farmhouse directly on our way, and told us that it 
 was there we must pass the night. A league or so 
 beyond this farmhouse and to right of the path, on 
 the slope of a mountain', was a town of some impor- 
 tance called Castro-Novo. We asked Salvatore why 
 we could not go on to that town instead of stopping 
 at some miserable wayside inn where we should find 
 nothing to eat. Salvatore merely replied that it 
 would take us too far out of our way. As longer 
 insistence might make our guide think we distrusted 
 him, which would have been very ridiculous after our 
 voluntary choice of his services, we said no more ; 
 resolving, inasmuch as we had taken him, to leave 
 matters whollv to him, merely asking that we might 
 at least know where we were going to pass the night 
 the name of that hovel. He answered that it was 
 called Fon tana-Fred da.
 
 334. JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 It was really the most magnificently cut-throat 
 place I ever saw in my life, isolated in a little gorge, 
 without an inclosing wall, or a single door or window 
 that could be shut. As for those who inhabited it, 
 our presence apparently did not seem to them an 
 event worthy of curiosity, for we stopped at the door, 
 got off our mules, and entered the first room without 
 seeing a soul. It was only on opening a side door 
 that I saw a woman rocking a child on her knees and 
 singing a slow, monotonous ditty. I spoke to her; 
 she answered, without moving, in so strange a patois 
 that I renounced all attempt at conversing with her 
 and returned to Salvatore, who, in default of a stable- 
 boy, was unloading his mules himself. I asked him 
 to attend in person to our dinner and our lodging. 
 He answered, shaking his head, that we must not 
 count much on either one or the other, but he would 
 do his best. 
 
 Returning to the first room I found Cama in de- 
 spair. He had made a search and found neither 
 saucepan, nor gridiron, nor spit. I invited him to 
 first get something to boil, roast, or broil, and we 
 would talk about the utensils later. 
 
 After tying his mules to the manger Salvatore 
 made his appearance and went to the inner room, 
 but returned an instant later to say that the master 
 of the house having gone to Secocca, and his wife 
 being half idiotic, we should have to do for ourselves 
 as if the house were deserted. Provisions were 
 limited, he informed us, to a flask of rancid oil and 
 a few chestnuts ; as for bread, there was none. 
 
 If this language was not reassuring, at any rate it
 
 THE SPERONARA 335 
 
 was perfectly clear. Each of us began an independ- 
 ent search, collecting what he could. Jadin, after 
 half-an-hour's hunt among the rocks returned with a 
 species of dove ; Salvatore had twisted the neck of 
 an old lien ; I had found in a shed at the back of the 
 house, three eggs ; and Cania had ransacked the 
 garden and brought in two pomegranates and a do/en 
 prickly-pears. All this, joined to the rabbit, fortu- 
 nately put to death while Jadin was taking Salvatore's 
 likeness, presented, more or less, the appearance of a 
 dinner. The thing was now how to cook it. Find- 
 ing no saucepan, and being driven to use the rancid 
 oil in place of butter, we determined that our menu 
 should consist of chicken soup, roast game, and three 
 boiled eggs for entree, and, for dessert, pomegranates 
 flanked by prickly-pears ; the chestnuts roasted in the 
 ashes took the place of bread. 
 
 All this discomfort would have been nothing, ah- 
 
 O 7 
 
 solutely nothing at all, if it had not been for the 
 odious filth of the hovel in which we were. Hardly 
 had we set to work before two children in rags, gaunt, 
 pallid, and fevered, issued like gnomes from heaven 
 knows where, and came and crouched on each side 
 of the fireplace, following the transformation of our 
 few provisions with hungry eyes. We tried at first 
 to drive them away, merely to relieve ourselves of 
 this disgusting sight, but the harangue I made them 
 and the kick with which, to my invat regret, Cama 
 
 . O O 
 
 accompanied my words, produced nothing but low 
 growls like those of a young wild boar when vou try 
 to force him out of his den. I then turned to Salva- 
 tore, asking what was the matter with them and what
 
 336 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 they wanted, and Salvatore answered me, casting a 
 glance of unspeakable pity upon them : " What do 
 they want ? they arc hungry and want something 
 to cat."" 
 
 Alas ! that is the cry of the people of Sicily ; I 
 heard nothing else during the three months I lived 
 there. There are hapless beings on that island whose 
 hunger will never have been appeased from the day 
 when they began to suck the half-dried breast of their 
 mother to the day when, lying on their bed of death, 
 they expire trying to swallow the sacred wafer which 
 the priest lays upon their lips. 
 
 From that moment those poor children had rights 
 to the greater part of our dinner ; our hunger may 
 have remained, but theirs at least was satisfied. How 
 horrible it is to think that there are miserable beings 
 to whom one good meal is the memory of a lifetime ! 
 
 Dinner over, we began to think of our lodging. 
 Salvatore discovered for us a species of chamber 
 on the ground-floor, on the earth of which were two 
 troughs in which were straw mattresses without any 
 sheets ; these were our beds. Such as they were, 
 joined to the vermin that already covered the 
 legs of our trousers and crawled with impunity 
 along the walls, they did not promise much sleep ; 
 therefore we determined to postpone attempting 
 it as late as possible, and went out, guns on our 
 shoulders, for a tramp about the country. 
 
 Nothing was ever sweeter, calmer, more tranquil 
 than this solitude; 'twas the silence and the poesy 
 of the desert. The burning air of the day had given 
 place to a little breeze that brought with it a briny
 
 THE SPERONARA 337 
 
 savour full of voluptuous freshness; the sky was a 
 vast dais of sapphire starred with gold; huge 
 meteors were noiselessly crossing space, sometimes 
 like an arrow flying to its aim, at other times like 
 globes of fire descending from the heavens upon the 
 earth. Now and again a belated grasshopper began 
 a chirp, suddenly arrested and then renewed; the 
 fire-flies, live stars, sparkled, like those ephemeral 
 flashes that children like to stir among the half- 
 extinguished embers on a hearth. 
 
 It would have been sweet indeed to spend the 
 night in this way, but on the morrow we had 
 forty miles to do, and to-day we had done twenty- 
 five, so that here, as everywhere, as always, when the 
 soul said yes, the body said no. We returned at 
 ten o'clock, and threw ourselves, dressed as we were, 
 upon our beds. At first fatigue carried all before it 
 and I fell asleep ; but in an hour's time I woke up 
 pricked by ten thousand pins ; after that I might as 
 well have tried to sleep in a bee-hive. I moved, I 
 changed my position, I turned and re-turned 
 impossible to go to sleep again. 
 
 As for Jadin, whether his fatigue was greater or 
 his skin less sensitive than mine, he slept like 
 Epimenides. 
 
 I then remembered the shed full of straw where I 
 discovered the eggs, and it seemed to me a region of 
 bliss compared with the hell in which I was. Conse- 
 quently, as nothing prevented me from doing what I 
 pleased, I took my gun which lav beside my mattress, 
 opened the window gently, jumped down, and went 
 to stretch myself out on that much desired straw.
 
 338 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 I had been there perhaps half an hour and was 
 beginning to enter the state between waking and 
 sleeping when I fancied I heard talking not far off. 
 For a few moments I doubted, and was trying to fall 
 more deeply asleep, when the sound became so dis- 
 tinct that I opened my eyes completely and saw by 
 the starlight three men standing together at the cor- 
 ner of the house. My first thought was to make sure 
 that my gun was beside me. I felt it at the spot 
 where I had laid it, and then, more tranquil, I 
 fixed my eyes upon the three individuals. 
 
 As I was hidden by the shadow thrown by the 
 roof of the shed they could not see me; while I, 
 on the contrary, could, as my eyes grew accustomed 
 to the darkness, distinguish them perfectly. They 
 were wrapped in long cloaks ; one of them had a 
 gun ; the others were armed only with sticks. 
 
 After some minutes, during which time they 
 remained motionless, speaking in low voices, the 
 one who had the gun went to the window through 
 which I had lately come out, opened the shutter, and 
 put his head through cautiously, but far enough to 
 look into the room. As we had left a lighted lamp 
 on the chimney-piece he could see that one of our 
 mattresses was occupied, the other empty. No doubt 
 this circumstance disturbed him, for he returned at 
 once to his companions and spoke to them excitedly. 
 All three then approached the window. I thought 
 the moment had come ; I rose on one knee and 
 cocked both triggers of my gun. As the inten- 
 tions of three rascals who enter a window at mid- 
 night cannot be doubtful, my resolution was taken;
 
 THE SPERONARA 339 
 
 at the first act of breaking-in which they attempted 
 I should fire two shots, and if the third man did not 
 run away, Jadin, awakened by the noise, had his 
 carbine. 
 
 At this moment the window of the barn opened 
 and I saw Salvatore's head appear. 
 
 At this apparition I own that I thought our guide 
 had returned to his former calling, and that we had 
 four bandits on our hands instead of three. But 
 before this doubt had time to change into certainty, 
 I heard a voice asking imperiously in Sicilian : 
 
 " Who are you ? what do you want ? " 
 
 " Salvatore ? " said all three men together. 
 
 " Yes, Salvatore. Wait ; I 1 m coming out." 
 
 Ten seconds later the door opened and Salvatore 
 appeared. He walked straight to the three men 
 and began a conversation which, low as their 
 voices were, seemed to me none the less vehement. 
 For ten minutes they seemed to be disputing, the 
 three men insisting upon something, he replying 
 firmly. Presently the men retired to a little dis- 
 tance as if to take counsel with one another; Salva- 
 tore remained where he was, his arms crossed, his 
 eyes fixed steadily on the others. Finally the man 
 with the gun left the group, returned to Salvatore, 
 shook him by the hand, and, rejoining his comrades, 
 went away with them. In less than five minutes 
 they disappeared in the darkness, and I heard 
 nothing further than the sound of their steps on 
 the shrivelled herbage. 
 
 Salvatore stood still for nearlv a quarter of an 
 hour, at the same place, in the same attitude ; then,
 
 340 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 as if certain that the nocturnal visitors had really 
 departed, he returned to the barn and shut the door 
 behind him. 
 
 The reader will understand that the scene I had 
 just witnessed had taken away from me, at least for 
 the moment, all desire to sleep. I remained for 
 half an hour motionless as a statue in the attitude I 
 had taken, with a finger on the trigger of my gun ; 
 then, at the end of the half-hour, as nothing hap- 
 pened and I heard no sounds, I resumed a less uncom- 
 fortable posture. Another half-hour had not gone 
 by before, such is the extraordinary power of sleep, 
 I was already in the arms of it. 
 
 The chill of the morning woke me. However 
 beautiful the weather in Sicily may be, there always 
 falls, just before the sun rises, a fine dew, icy and 
 piercing. Happily the roof under which I was pro- 
 tected me somewhat, but I felt none the less the 
 matutinal discomfort so well known to all travellers. 
 
 I was about to re-enter the room by the way I had 
 left it when Jadin opened the window ; he had just 
 waked up and not seeing me on my mattress felt 
 some uneasiness and was coming in search of me. 
 I told him what had happened ; he had heard noth- 
 ing. This did honour to his powers of sleep, for 
 not only had he been victimized by the vermin, but, 
 I being absent, he had evidently paid for both. At 
 least, so it seemed on a simple inspection of his 
 person. He was tattooed from head to foot like a 
 New Zealand savage. 
 
 We called Salvatore, who answered from the stable 
 where he was saddling his mules ; then, inasmuch as
 
 THE SPERONARA 341 
 
 there was, of course, no question of breakfast, and 
 no town on our route till we came to Corleone where 
 we expected to get some sort of a meal, we laid in 
 a stock of chestnuts to amuse our appetites on the 
 way. As for the bill, to our great astonishment it 
 amounted, I know not how, to three piastres. I gave 
 them, but I requested Salvatore to hand them over 
 as alms not as payment. 
 
 We resumed our way in the same order as before, 
 except that I walked for some distance, and for two 
 reasons : first, to warm myself up ; secondly, to have 
 a little talk with Salvatore as to what had happened 
 during the night. At the first word I said, he 
 began to laugh ; then, perceiving that I had taken 
 part in the little drama from the rising of the cur- 
 tain to its descent, he said : 
 
 " Yes, yes ! they are old comrades who work by 
 night instead of by day. If you had taken any 
 other guide than me, it is probable there would have 
 been trouble, and, after what you have just told me, 
 matters would have gone hard with them ; but you 
 saw that, although I had to pull their ears a bit, 
 they left the battle-field to us. Now we shall have 
 no further trouble until we cross the Mezzoj uso." 
 
 " What of the Mezzojuso ? " 
 
 " That remains to be seen." 
 
 " Can't you have the same influence over those we 
 meet there that you had over those of last night ? " 
 
 "Dame!" responded Salvatore, with that Sicilian 
 gesture that no words can render, " that "s a new 
 troop lately formed. v 
 
 " And you don't know them ? "
 
 342 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 " No, but they know me."" 
 
 We readied the bank of a torrent which, after 
 turning the wheel of a mill called the Oliva, flowed 
 in a rather gentle course so that we were able to 
 ford it. Salvatore asked permission to mount be- 
 hind me, which I granted, and together we made 
 the crossing satisfactorily, though, in spite of all pre- 
 cautions we were wet to the knees. Jadin came 
 next and reached the bank safely ; not so poor Cama, 
 who was evidently destined to serve as our scape- 
 goat. Hardly had his mule reached the middle of 
 the stream when, badly guided by its rider, it deflected 
 a few steps and sank into a hole. Cama uttered a 
 shriek ; we turned round and beheld him up to his 
 waist in the water, while as for his mule nothing 
 was visible but her head. The face of the luckless 
 one was so grotesque, for in all the fatal events that 
 happened to him he was intensely comical, that we 
 could not help shouting with laughter. 
 
 This untimely hilarity reacted upon Cama, who 
 tried to make his mule return to the way from which 
 he had pulled her, but in spite of the efforts the 
 animal herself made, she stepped on a stone and 
 stumbled ; the violence of the shock broke the girths, 
 and instantly we saw Cama and our baggage float- 
 ing away on the surface of the stream. Useful as 
 the first and necessary as the second were to us, we 
 ran ourselves to rescue the cook, while Salvatore ran 
 after the baggage. In ten minutes man and property 
 were both out of the water, but so wet, so stream- 
 ing, that there was no possibility of continuing our 
 way without stopping to dry off. So we lighted a
 
 THE SPERONARA 343 
 
 great fire with the dried herbage and dead olive- 
 brunches. We ourselves really needed it, for the 
 morning air had chilled us, and we took an unspeak- 
 able pleasure in the free gigantic blaze such as 
 woodsmen light in the forests and shepherds on the 
 mountains ; besides which, we roasted a dozen or 
 more chestnuts. That was our breakfast. 
 
 While we were making this forced halt we saw a 
 litter, carried on two mules, make its appearance, 
 led by a conductor and escorted by four camplcn. 
 Within was a worthy prelate, fat and rosy, who, 
 more prudent than ourselves, it seemed to me, had 
 all the air, judging by the look of contempt that he 
 cast on our collation, to be carrying his provisions 
 with him. The four cam pier i, being wrapped in 
 cloaks and armed with guns, gave a picturesque 
 aspect to the procession. In spite of the difficulties 
 that we had encountered, he crossed the little river 
 without accident, thanks to the skill of his conductor. 
 
 At the end of an hour we broke camp, but no 
 persuasion could induce Canm to remount his mule. 
 Salvatore profited by this refusal to instal himself in 
 the cook's place, and again we started, Canm follow- 
 ing behind on foot. 
 
 The plain we crossed, if indeed such rough and 
 tumbled surface could call itself a plain, presented a 
 most grandiose aspect. Each time that we reached 
 the summit of a little hillock we saw, before and 
 behind us, vast and fantastic distances, such as one 
 sees in dreams, so whimsically coloured bv the sun 
 that they seemed to lead to one of those fairy lands 
 to which the feet of man cannot attain. Here and
 
 344 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 there we could see upon the plain, along which it 
 undulated like a snake of verdure, some rivulet dried 
 up by the dog-days, its sinuosities defined by a line 
 of oleanders, still thriving on the remains of the 
 moisture ; also, here and there, an isle of verdure, 
 such as I have already described, rising in the desert 
 of discoloured herbage, where millions of discon- 
 tented grasshoppers were shrilling. 
 
 After a six or eight hours' march, under a sun so 
 hot that the leather of our boots burned our feet, we 
 saw the town where we expected to dine. It was 
 only two or three rows of houses, one storv high, 
 built at equal distances one from another, looking 
 at a little distance like children's toys. 
 
 On dismounting at the door of the principal inn, 
 we noticed with pleasure that the establishment pos- 
 sessed certain cooking implements that did not seem 
 wholly worthless. But Salvatore damped the joy 
 this sight had given us by inviting us to make as 
 much haste as possible, for the hour lost in drying 
 ourselves in the morning had to be taken out of our 
 dinner time, in order not to arrive too late at the 
 rocks of the Me/zojuso. Hungry as we were, we 
 understood the importance of this advice, and we 
 urged the landlord to be as quick as possible. Nev- 
 ertheless, we were forced to lose two hours in 
 getting an execrable dinner. 
 
 We started again towards five oVlock. As the 
 defile we were obliged to pass through was not more 
 than six miles from Corleone (where we dined), we 
 began to perceive it about a quarter past six. It 
 was simply a passage between two mountains, one
 
 THE SPERONARA 345 
 
 perpendicular, the other with a very steep slope, 
 covered with rocks that had rolled from the summit 
 and Ix-cn stopped in their downward course at vari- 
 ous points. We expected to get there by seven 
 o'clock ; that is to say, in broad daylight. Salva- 
 tore showed us the pass with the pointed end of his 
 stick ; then, looking at us as if to see what effect his 
 words would produce, he said : 
 
 " If there is anything to fear, it will be there."" 
 
 " Let us hasten, then," I answered ; " for if there is 
 really any danger, letter meet it in broad daylight, 
 rather than wait till it overtakes us at night." 
 
 " On, then ! " said Salvatore ; and resting his hand 
 on the pommel of my saddle, he spurred the mules 
 by his voice, and they started forward at a trot. 
 
 We approached the defile quite rapidly. Cama, 
 not to delay us, had resumed his perch upon the 
 baggage and followed us, clinging to the ropes that 
 fastened the pack. lie had heard a few words of 
 Salvatore's fears and was very uneasy. I proposed to 
 him, as Jadin had a carbine and I a double-barrelled 
 gun, to take my pistols in order to give us a helping 
 hand if need were ; but this offer made him almost 
 tumble from his perch with fright. So Jadin kept 
 the pistols in his holsters. 
 
 At a distance of three hundred steps or there- 
 abouts from the pass, Salvatore halted my mule. 
 As it was she who led the procession, the two others 
 halted likewise ; then, telling us to remain where we 
 were, because he had just detected the nuix/lc of a 
 gun behind a rock, Salvatore left us and walked 
 straight to the point he had indicated.
 
 346 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 \Ve profited by this little halt to see that our 
 weapons were all in good condition. I had two balls 
 in each barrel of my gun ; Jadin had the same in 
 the one ban-el of his carbine, also in those of his 
 pistols. As the pistols were double-barrelled, that 
 gave us seven shots to fire, without counting that my 
 gun was of a pattern that enabled me to reload it, 
 in case of need, so rapidly that a second discharge 
 would follow the first almost immediately. 
 
 We followed Salvatore with our eyes and an atten- 
 tion that can easily be understood. He walked with 
 a firm and rapid step that showed not the slightest 
 hesitation ; presently we saw the form of another 
 man loom up in an angle of the rocks ; Salvatore 
 went up to him, and both, after exchanging some 
 words, disappeared behind the rock itself. 
 
 At the end of ten minutes Salvatore reappeared 
 alone and came towards us. In vain we tried to 
 read on his face from afar the news he brought us ; 
 it was quite impossible. At last, when he was only 
 a few steps off, I said : 
 
 " Well, what of it ? " 
 
 " Just what I expected ; they will not let us 
 pass." 
 
 " How do von mean, they will not let us pass?" 
 
 *' That is to sav, unless you pay your way." 
 
 " Are they very exacting?" 
 
 "Oh, no! In consideration of me they demand 
 only five piastres." 
 
 " Ila ! " said Jadin, laughing, " that 's good ! what 
 reasonable rascals ! I prefer having to do with them 
 rather than with the innkeepers."
 
 THE SPERONARA 347 
 
 " How many arc there ? " I asked. 
 
 " There are two." 
 
 "What! two in all?" 
 
 " Yes, the others are on the road between Ar- 
 mian/a and Polizzi." 
 
 " What do you say, Jadin ?" 
 
 " Well, I say that as there are hut two, and we 
 are four, it is our place to make them pay us five 
 piastres." 
 
 "My dear Salvatore," I said, "have the kindness 
 to go back to those gentlemen and tell them we 
 advise them to keep quiet." 
 
 " Or else," added Jadin, " I will make Milord eat 
 them won't you, Milord ? Want to eat a robber, 
 don't you, old fellow ? Hey ? " 
 
 Milord gave two or three joyous bounds, in token 
 of consent. 
 
 " Is that your last word ? " asked Salvatore. 
 
 "The last." 
 
 " Well, you arc right. Only dismount, and walk 
 on the other side of the mules ; so that if in a fit of 
 ill-temper they should take a fancy to fire at us, you 
 will give them as little chance to aim as possible." 
 
 The advice was good ; we followed it immediately. 
 As for Salvatore, whether he thought he had noth- 
 ing to fear or that he despised the danger, he walked 
 on, whistling, four steps in advance of the first 
 mule; while we were behind ours and completely 
 sheltered by their bodies. 
 
 Presently we saw the pointed hats of our bandits 
 loom up above a breast of rock ; we saw the miix/lcs 
 of their guns aiming in our direction ; but although
 
 348 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 the track passed less than sixty paces from the spot 
 where they lay in ambush, their hostility was con- 
 fined to this demonstration, which was, perhaps, 
 more defensive than offensive. At the end of an- 
 other ten minutes we were out of range. 
 
 " Well, Cama," I said, turning towards our unfor- 
 tunate cook, who, pale as death, was muttering prayers 
 and kissing an image of the Madonna that he wore 
 round his neck, " what do you think now of journeys 
 by land?" 
 
 " Oh ! monsieur," he cried, " I prefer the sea ; on 
 my word of honour I do.". 
 
 " Well," I said to Salvatore, " you are a brave 
 man ; here are five piastres with which to drink our 
 health." 
 
 Salvatore kissed my hand and we remounted the 
 mules. 
 
 An hour later we arrived without further accident 
 at the inn of San Loren/o, where we obtained supper 
 and beds that were detestable, for which they asked 
 us on the following day four piastres. Decidedly 
 Jadin was right. The real robbers in Sicilv, those 
 from whom there are no means of escaping, are the 
 innkeepers.
 
 XII 
 
 PALERMO FELICE. SEGESTA 
 
 MORE favoured by heaven than Girgenti, Pa- 
 lermo still deserves the name given to her 
 twenty centuries ago ; she is to-day as she was then, 
 Palermo the Happy. 
 
 In fact, if there is a city in the world that 
 unites all conditions for happiness, it is this careless 
 daughter of the Phoenicians called Palermo Felice, 
 whom the ancients represented seated like Venus in 
 a golden shell. Built between Monte Pellegrino, 
 which shekel's her from the tramontuna^ and the 
 chain of the Bagherias which protects her from the 
 sirocco; lying on the shores of a gulf that has no 
 rival but that of Naples ; clasped by a verdurous 
 girdle of orange and lemon trees, pomegranates, 
 myrtles, aloes, and oleanders, which cool her with 
 their shade and make her fragrant with their per- 
 fume ; heiress of Saracens who left her their palaces, 
 of the Normans who left her their churches, of the 
 Spaniards who left her their serenades, she is at one 
 and the same time poetic as a sultana, graceful as 
 a daughter of France, and amorous as an Andalusian. 
 So her own peculiar happiness is one of those that 
 come from God, which men cannot destrov. The 
 Romans occupied her, the Saracens conquered her, 
 the Normans possessed her, the Spaniards have
 
 350 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 scarcely quitted her, and to all -these different mas- 
 ters, whom she made her lovers, she smiled the same 
 smile, soft wanton, she who has had no vigour 
 except for endless pleasure. 
 
 Love is the principal business of Palermo ; else- 
 where people live, work, think, meditate, discuss, 
 combat ; in Palermo they love. The city felt the 
 need of celestial protection. Men do not think 
 always of God ; but they sorely need some hidden 
 power that shall think for them. Do not imag- 
 ine that the Palermitans chose for this power a 
 morose, exacting, scolding saint, stern, wrinkled, 
 and disagreeable. Not at all ; they took a beautiful 
 virgin, young, indulgent, a flower of earth, a star of 
 the sky, and made her their patron saint. Why so ? 
 Because a woman, chaste and saintly though she be, 
 has always a little of the Magdalen in her; because 
 a woman, though she die a virgin, comprehends love ; 
 because it was of a woman that God said : " Much 
 shall be forgiven because she loved much." 
 
 So that when, after a rough, fatiguing, endless 
 journey through solitudes burned by the sun, laid 
 waste by floods, convulsed by earthquakes, without 
 trees to shade by day, without lodging to sleep in at 
 night, we beheld, on reaching the summit of a moun- 
 tain, Palermo seated on the shores of her bay, ga/ing 
 at herself in that a/ure sea, like Cleopatra in the 
 streams of Cyrenaica, it will be believed that we 
 uttered a cry of joy : at the mere sight of Palermo 
 one forgets all. Palermo is a goal ; it is spring after 
 winter, it is rest after fatigue, it is day after night, 
 shade after glare, the oasis after the desert.
 
 THE SPERONARA 351 
 
 At that first sight of Palermo all our weariness 
 disappeared ; we forgot the hard trot of the mules, 
 we forgot the inns where hunger and thirst were the 
 least of our troubles ; we forgot those so-called roads 
 where every angle, every rock, every quarry, hid a 
 bandit watching for us, we forgot it all in looking 
 at Palermo, in breathing in that sea-breeze that 
 seemed rising to meet us. 
 
 We went down to the city along a road bordered 
 on one side by enormous reeds and bathed on the 
 other by the sea ; the harbour was full of ships at 
 anchor, the bay full of tiny sail-boats. About a 
 league before reaching Palermo, villas covered with 
 vines showed themselves, palaces shaded by palm- 
 trees stood forth to meet us ; and all had an atmos- 
 phere of joy delightful to see and feel we had 
 fallen into the middle of the fetes in honour of 
 Santa Rosalia, the patron saint of the city. 
 
 As we approached the town we hastened our steps. 
 Palermo attracted us like that mountain in the 
 "Arabian Nights" that vessels could not flee. After 
 showing us from afar her domes, her towers and 
 cupolas, which disappeared one by one as we ad- 
 vanced, she now opened to us her suburbs. We 
 walked along a species of promenade overlooking the 
 sea until we came to a gateway of Norman construc- 
 tion ; the sentinel, instead of stopping us, saluted us, 
 as if to say to us that we were very welcome. 
 
 In the middle of the square called the Marina a 
 man came to us. 
 
 "These gentlemen are French ?"" he asked. 
 
 " Born in the heart of France,'" replied Jadin.
 
 352 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 " It is I who have the honour to be useful to the 
 young gentlemen of your nation who visit Palermo." 
 
 " In what way do you serve them ? " I asked. 
 
 " In all ways, Excellency."" 
 
 " The deuce ! you must be a valuable man. What 
 is your name ? " 
 
 " I have many names, Excellency ; but as a general 
 thing I am called il Signore Mercurio" 
 
 " Ah ! I understand. Thank you." 
 
 " Here are the recommendations of the last French 
 gentlemen who employed me ; you can sec that they 
 were perfectly satisfied with my services." 
 
 So saying the Signore Mercurio showed me three 
 or four very circumstantial and very indiscreet certifi- 
 cates which he had obtained from the gratitude of 
 our compatriots; I glanced them over and passed 
 them to Jadin, who read them. 
 
 " You gentlemen see that I am quite in due 
 form." 
 
 " Yes, mv good friend, but unfortunately I have 
 no need of you." 
 
 " But you have, Excellency ; gentlemen are always 
 in need of me ; if not for one thing, then for another : 
 if you are rich, I will show you how to spend your 
 money ; if poor, I will help you to economize ; are 
 you artists, 1 11 show you pictures ; are you men of 
 society, I'll put you up to all the arrangements of 
 social life in Palermo. I am all things, Excellency ; 
 guide, valet, antiquary, merchant, buyer, historian 
 and above all ... r 
 
 " Ruffiano" said Jadin. 
 
 " <Vi, signorc? replied our strange interlocutor, with
 
 THE SPERONARA 353 
 
 an expression of proud confidence of which the reader 
 can form no idea. 
 
 " You seem satisfied with your calling ?" 
 
 "Satisfied, your Excellency ! I am the happiest 
 man on earth." 
 
 " The deuce ! " exclaimed Jadin in French ; " that 's 
 pleasant for decent men ! " 
 
 " What does your friend say, Excellency ? " 
 
 " He says that virtue is its own reward. I beg 
 your pardon, my friend, but it is rather hot to 
 be talking here in the sun; besides, we have just 
 arrived, as you see, and are very tired." 
 
 " These gentlemen are going to the Hotel des 
 Quatre-Cantons ? " 
 
 " I believe so." 
 
 " I shall go there to pay my respects to these 
 gentlemen." 
 
 " Thank you, that is useless." 
 
 " Otherwise I should be failing in my duty ; be- 
 sides, I love Frenchmen, Excellency." 
 
 " The deuce ! that 's very flattering for our nation." 
 
 " I shall go to the hotel." 
 
 " Do as you choose, Signore Mercurio ; but you 
 will probably waste your time, I warn you." 
 
 " That is my affair." 
 
 " Adieu, Signore Mercurio." 
 
 " Au revoir, Excellency." 
 
 " What a scoundrel !" said Jadin. 
 
 We continued our way to the Hotel des Quatre- 
 Cantons. As I have said, Palermo wore a festal 
 air which gave one pleasure to sec. Flags floated 
 fiom all the windows, great bands of brilliant stuff's 
 
 23
 
 354 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 hung from the balconies, porticoes and wooden pyra- 
 mids garlanded with flowers bloomed from end to end 
 of every street. Salvatore took us round in a circuit 
 and we passed in front of the episcopal palace. 
 There was a huge machine of four or five storeys, 
 forty-five to fifty feet high, shaped like those porce- 
 lain pyramids on which are served bonbons at des- 
 sert ; this was in blue taffeta with silver fringes, and 
 on it was the figure of a woman, holding a cross and 
 surrounded by angels. It was the chariot or car of 
 Santa Rosalia. 
 
 We reached the hotel ; it was crowded with 
 foreigners. By Salvatore's influence we obtained 
 two little chambers which the landlord was reserving, 
 he told us, for two Englishmen who were to arrive 
 from Messina and had engaged them in advance. 
 Perhaps this was only a trick to make us pay 
 treble what they were worth ; but such as they 
 were and at the price they cost, we were only too 
 lucky to get them. 
 
 We now settled our account with Salvatore, who 
 asked for a recommendation, which we gave him with 
 all our hearts. I added as a gift two piastres to the 
 five I had already given him after safely issuing from 
 the pass of Mezzojuso, and we parted mutually en- 
 chanted with one another. 
 
 We questioned the landlord as to the best use we 
 could make of the day ; there was nothing to be 
 done, he said, till five in the afternoon but bathe 
 and sleep. At five o'clock there was promenade 
 on the Marina ; at eight, fireworks on the seashore ; 
 throughout the evening illumination and dances at
 
 THE SPERONARA 355 
 
 the Flora ; at midnight, Cor.io. We asked for two 
 baths, ordered our beds made ready, and hired a 
 carriage. 
 
 At four they came to tell us that the table d'hote 
 was served ; we went down and found a table around 
 which were collected specimens of all the peoples of 
 the earth, French, Spaniards, English, Germans, 
 Poles, Russians, Wallachians, Turks, Greeks, Tunis- 
 ians. We approached two of our compatriots, who, 
 recognizing us on their side, came up to us. They 
 were Parisians, men of society, and, above all, of 
 intelligence, Baron de S - and the Vicomte de 
 
 R . They had already been a week in Palermo, 
 
 and as it is one of the claims of us Frenchmen to 
 know every city at the end of a week as well as if 
 we had lived there all our lives, this meeting was for 
 us a perfect godsend. 
 
 After the dinner, which we found remarkably good, 
 they told us our carriage was ready ; these gentlemen 
 had theirs, and as we did not wish to separate alto- 
 gether, we divided ; Jadin drove with the Vicomte 
 de R , and Baron de S - with me. 
 
 The Marina is the promenade for carnages and 
 horsemen, as the Flora is that of persons on foot. 
 
 There, as at Florence, as at Messina, every one 
 who has or can get an equipage is obliged to come 
 and make his or her giro between six and seven 
 o'clock in the evening ; it is a very pleasant obli- 
 gation ; nothing can be more charming than this 
 esplanade of the Marina, lined on one side with 
 palaces, on the other side by the bay communicating 
 with the open sea that stretches away in front of the
 
 356 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 city, her girdle of mountains inclosing and pro- 
 tecting her at the back. Then, that is to say, from 
 six in the evening till two in the morning, blows the 
 greco, a cool breeze from the northeast, which gives 
 vigour to a whole population, who seem destined to 
 sleep by day and live by night ; for those are the 
 hours when Palermo wakens, breathes, and smiles. 
 Collected almost to a man on this beautiful quay, 
 without other light than that of the stars, carriages, 
 riders, and walkers pass and repass each other ; talk- 
 ing, chattering, singing like a bevy of joyous birds ; 
 exchanging flowers, rendezvous, kisses ; and all in 
 haste for love or pleasure ; drinking life in full 
 draughts, caring little for that half of Europe which 
 envies them, or for that other half which pities them. 
 
 Naples tyrannizes over Palermo, it is true; per- 
 haps because Naples is jealous. But what cares 
 Palermo for Neapolitan tyranny ? Naples may take 
 her money, Naples may lay waste her land, Naples 
 may demolish her walls, but Naples cannot take 
 away from her her Marina, bathed by the sea, her 
 greco breeze that cools the night, her palm-trees that 
 shade the morning, her orange-trees that perfume all 
 things, and her loves ; her loves that cradle her 
 with dreams when they do not waken he* with their 
 reality. It is said, " See Naples and die," but I 
 should rather say, " See Palermo and live." 
 
 At nine o'clock a rocket went up, and the fete 
 stopped short ; carriages, horsemen, and foot-passen- 
 gers stood still, for this was the signal for the fire- 
 works, -which are always displayed before the Palazzo 
 Butera, The Prince of Butera is one of the great
 
 THE SPERONARA 357 
 
 seigneurs of the last century who have left many 
 popular memories in Sicily, where, as everywhere else, 
 such seigneurs are becoming few. 
 
 The fireworks over, there was division among the 
 promenaders ; some remained on the Marina, others 
 departed towards La Flora. We were among the 
 latter, and in five minutes' time we had reached the 
 gate of that promenade, which is thought to be one 
 of the finest botanical gardens in the world. It was 
 magnificently illuminated, lanterns of a thousand 
 shades of colour hung from the trees, and in the 
 spaces where the roads crossed each other were bands 
 of music, with burghers and people dancing to them. 
 
 We stayed in the Flora until ten o'clock ; at ten 
 the doors of the Cathedral opened to allow of the 
 exit of fraternities, corporations, shrines of saints, 
 and relics of martyrs who go to pay visits on one 
 another. We were anxious not to miss this spec- 
 tacle, and we made our way to the Cathedral, which 
 we reached with great difficulty on account of the 
 crowd. 
 
 The Cathedral, or church of Santa Rosalia, is a 
 magnificent edifice of the twelfth century, its archi- 
 tecture half Norman half Saracen, full of ravishing 
 details of miraculous finish, dentellcd, scalloped, 
 open-worked like a marble embroidery. The doors 
 were open to every one; and the chancel, illuminated 
 from top to bottom by lustres hanging from the 
 roof, suspended one above another, cast a dazzling 
 light ; I have never, anywhere, seen anything to 
 equal it. We walked around three or four times, 
 stopping now and then, to count the eighty columns
 
 358 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 of oriental granite that support the roof, and exam- 
 ine the splendid sarcophagi of porphyry, where sleep 
 the great King Roger, his daughter Constance, and 
 her husband, Henry VI. ; also his illustrious grand- 
 son Frederick II., whose sarcophagus, the finest of 
 all, is borne on four lions. In 1781, these tombs were 
 opened to verify the presence of the royal bones 
 they were supposed to contain. The bodies of Henry 
 and Constance were greatly decomposed, but that of 
 Frederick, wrapped in sumptuous robes bearing Ara- 
 bic inscriptions, with the crown, the imperial apple, 
 and his sword beside him, was intact and scarcely dis- 
 figured. We consumed an hour and a half in this 
 investigation ; then, as midnight was ringing, we got 
 into our carnages and were driven to the Corso, 
 which begins at midnight and takes place in the Via 
 del Cassero. 
 
 This is the finest street in Palermo, and it runs 
 from end to end of the city, being one mile and a 
 half long from one extremity to the other. When 
 the Arabian emirs settled in Palermo they chose 
 for their residence an old castle at the eastern end of 
 the town, which they fortified, giving to it the name 
 of El Cassaer, hence the modern name Cassero ; the 
 street is also, in imitation of Naples, called the 
 Toledo. This street is crossed at right angles by 
 another street, the Via Macqueda, or Strada Nuova, 
 dividing the city into four distinct quarters. At the 
 point where the two streets intersect they form a 
 square, the four sides of which arc occupied by four 
 palaces, all alike, their facades adorned with statues 
 of the viceroys.
 
 THE SPERONARA 359 
 
 the reader imagine this immense Via Cassero, 
 illuminated from end to end, not merely at the win- 
 dows, but on those porticoes and wooden pyramids 
 I had already noticed in the daytime ; filled from 
 one extremity to the other with the carriages of all 
 the princes, dukes, marquises, counts, and barons, 
 with whom the place abounds, and in those carriages 
 the handsomest women of Palermo, in their grand 
 gala dresses; on each side of the roadway two solid 
 hedges of people, concealing under their Sunday 
 clothes the rags of their daily life; gav companies 
 on all the balconies, flags at all the windows, invisible 
 music everywhere, and he will have an idea of what 
 the nocturnal Corso of Santa Rosalia is. 
 
 It was during this fete that the revolution of 1820 
 [against the Neapolitan viceroys] broke out. The 
 Prince de la Cattolica tried to repress it, and 
 marched the Neapolitan regiments quartered in 
 Palermo against the people. Hut the latter rushed 
 upon them, and before the soldiers had time for a 
 second discharge, they were knocked down, disarmed, 
 dispersed, and reduced to nothing. The insurgents 
 then spread themselves through the town, shouting : 
 "Death to the Prince de la Cattolica!" Ilearino 1 
 
 O 
 
 these cries, the prince took refuge with a friend who 
 had a villa at Bagheria, about fifteen miles from 
 Palermo; but the people followed him. The prince, 
 pursued from room to room, crept between two mat- 
 tresses. The populace entered the room in which he 
 was, hunted on all sides, and left without finding 
 him. Then the prince, hearing no further noise and 
 believing himself alone, came out of his hiding-place ;
 
 360 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 but a child hidden behind the door saw him, called 
 to the murderers, and the prince was killed. 
 
 He, like the Prince of Butera, was one of the great 
 seigneurs of Palermo, but was far from being as pop- 
 ular and beloved as the latter. Both were ruined by 
 the prodigalities without number they each indulged 
 in ; but the Prince of Butera never knew it, and prob- 
 ably never suspected it, for his tenants, by unanimous 
 agreement, continued to pay him an enormous rental, 
 and whenever, in spite of that payment, the prince's 
 steward wrote to them, "The prince lacks money," 
 the coffers were filled as if by miracle, and in some 
 instances these worthy people sold their marriage 
 jewels to do it. The Prince de la Cattolica, on the 
 contrary, was always quarrelling with his creditors ; 
 so that after a magnificent fete he had just given to 
 the Court, King Ferdinand, seeing that he did not 
 know which way to turn for money, granted him by 
 roval ordinance twenty-four years to pay his debts. 
 Backed by this ordinance the prince sent his creditors 
 to the right-about. 
 
 As the Prince of Butera had, in 1820, been dead 
 some years, the old Prince of Paterno, the most 
 popular man in Sicily after him, was obliged to come 
 forward to pacify the people and stop the massacres. 
 He did more ; when General Pepe and his troops 
 presented themselves in the name of the provisional 
 government and demanded an entrance to Palermo, 
 the old prince managed so well that both sides were 
 induced to sign a treaty. The Palermitans, desiring 
 to give to this agreement the form of a treaty, that 
 it might never be considered a capitulation, exacted
 
 THE SPERONARA 361 
 
 that tlie said treaty should be drawn up and signed 
 outside of Sicily. And the conditions were actually 
 discussed, agreed upon, and signed on board of an 
 American vessel lying at anchor in the harbour. 
 One of the articles stipulated that the Neapolitans 
 should enter without beat of drum. At the gate of 
 the town the drum-major, from habit, made the 
 ordinary sign and the march began ; instantly a 
 man of the people threw himself on the drum that 
 was nearest to him and ripped it open with his 
 knife. They attempted to arrest the man, but the 
 whole town showed plainly that it was ready to rise 
 again. General Pepe at once ordered the drum- 
 sticks back to the belts ; and the terms imposed by 
 the Palermitans were put, after this slight infraction, 
 into complete execution. 
 
 But the treaty was soon violated, not only in 
 single articles, but in all its parts. In the first place, 
 the Neapolitan parliament refused to ratify it ; next, 
 the Austrians having returned to Naples, Cardinal 
 Gravina, appointed lieutenant-general for the king in 
 Sicily, published a decree that annulled all that had 
 taken place since the hereditary prince had left the 
 island. Then extortions began, never to cease again, 
 and very strange things were seen. I will cite two 
 or three examples to give an idea of the manner 
 in which taxes arc imposed and collected in 
 Sicily. 
 
 The city of Messina had a right over communal 
 taxation, and out of this revenue it jxiid any over- 
 plus to the land-tax. The king took the communal 
 right for himself, and exacted that the city should
 
 362 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 continue to pay over the surplus, though it no longer 
 had rights over the property. 
 
 The Prince of Villa-Franca had an estate which he 
 made into a rice plantation and which, bringing in 
 about GOOO onces (72,000 francs) had been taxed 
 on that sum. The government discovered that the 
 irrigations made for this crop were injurious to the 
 health of the inhabitants ; it forbade the Prince of 
 Villa-Franca to continue growing rice. The prince 
 obeyed and put his land into wheat and cotton ; 
 but as this crop was much less lucrative than the 
 other the revenue fell from 72,000 francs to 6000. 
 But the Prince of Villa-Franca was made to pay 
 the same tax as before, namely 900 ounces, that 
 is to say, 5000 francs more than the estate yielded 
 him. 
 
 In 1831 clouds of locusts settled upon Sicily ; the 
 property-owners wished to unite with one another in 
 destroying them, but, reunions of individuals beyond 
 a certain number being forbidden, the king made 
 known that on payment of a tax which he was about 
 to establish he would take upon himself the destruc- 
 tion of the locusts. In spite of appeals the tax was 
 levied ; the king did not destroy the locusts ; they 
 disappeared of themselves when they had eaten up 
 the harvest, and the tax remained ! 
 
 It was exactions such as these, of which I have 
 related the most insignificant, that produced the 
 deep hatred which exists between the Sicilians and 
 Neapolitans, hatred surpassing that of England 
 and Ireland, of Belgium and Holland, of Portugal 
 and Spain.
 
 THE SPERONARA 3G3 
 
 Nevertheless, this great hatred between the two 
 people has been somewhat calmed of late. I speak 
 of the years 1833, 1834, 1835. The King of Naples, 
 on his accession to the throne, desirous of accomplish- 
 ing the hopes and wishes of the Sicilians, sent his 
 brother to Palermo with the rank of viceroy. The 
 Count of Syracuse was not only a young man but 
 almost a child ; he was, I think, scarcely eighteen 
 years old. At first this extreme youth frightened 
 his subjects ; a few boyish pranks increased their 
 uneasiness ; but under the friction of public affaire 
 the boy became a man, he understood the high 
 mission he had to fulfil in reconciling Naples and 
 Palermo ; he dreamed for this poor ruined, enslaved, 
 crushed Sicily a social and artistic renascence. Two 
 years after his arrival, Sicily breathed as if she were 
 awaking from an iron-bound sleep. The young 
 prince had now become the idol of her people. 
 
 But then there happened what happens always in 
 like circumstances ; the men who battened on the 
 disorder, ruin, and abasement of Sicily saw that their 
 reign would end if that of the prince continued. 
 The natural kindness of the viceroy became on their 
 lips calculated ambition, the gratitude of the popu- 
 lace a tendency to revolt. The king surrounded, 
 circumvented, teased, conceived suspicions as to the 
 fidelity of his brother. 
 
 Matters were thus when the carnival occurred. 
 The Count of Syracuse, a handsome young fellow, 
 loving pleasure, joined in all the fetes, eagerly 
 seizing every occasion of them. Neapolitan, and 
 consequently accustomed to a noisy and animated
 
 364 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 carnival, he organized a magnificent cavalcade, in 
 which he took the part of Richard Cceur de Lion, 
 and invited the Sicilian nobles, who wished to please 
 him, to take the other characters in the novel of 
 " Ivanhoe." They nil hastened to accept the invi- 
 tation. The cavalcade was so splendid that the fame 
 of it reached Naples. 
 
 " What part did my brother take ? " asked the 
 king. 
 
 " Sire," replied the bearer of the news, " his Royal 
 Highness represented the personage of Richard Cxeur 
 de Lion." 
 
 " Ah ! yes, yes ! " murmured the king ; " he 
 Richard Goeur de Lion, and I John Lackland ! I 
 understand." 
 
 Eight days later the Count of Syracuse was 
 recalled. 
 
 This disgrace gave him fresh popularity in Sicily, 
 where every one, seeing him at close hand, did justice 
 to his intentions and knew he was guiltless of the 
 ambition of which his brother suspected him. King 
 Ferdinand, on his side, knowing that he had lost a 
 part, at least, of his popularity, was sulky to his 
 insular subjects. For the first time since his acces- 
 sion to the throne he allowed the fete of Santa 
 Rosalia to take place without being present in the 
 cathedral at the solemn mass which is celebrated 
 there in honour of it. 
 
 Such were the feelings of hatred and animosity 
 that I found throughout Sicily towards the people 
 and government of Naples; although it must be 
 owned that these political emotions did not hinder
 
 THE SPERONARA -%5 
 
 in any visible manner the Palermitan proclivities for 
 pleasure. 
 
 One of the things that struck me most on arriving 
 there was the difference between the Neapolitan 
 character and the Sicilian character; a crossing of a 
 day separates the two capitals, a strait four miles 
 wide parts the two kingdoms, and yet one might 
 think them a thousand leagues from one another. 
 At Naples you find shouts, gesticulations, eternal 
 noise without due cause ; at Messina or Palermo you 
 meet silence, sobriety of gesture, almost taciturnity. 
 Ask a question of a Palermitan, a sign, a word, 
 rarely a sentence answers you ; ask the Neapolitan, 
 and not only will he reply at full length, prolixly, 
 but presently he himself will be questioning you in 
 turn and you cannot get rid of him. The Palermitan 
 shouts and gesticulates also, but only in moments of 
 passion or anger ; the Neapolitan does so all the 
 time. The normal condition of one is noise ; the 
 habitual state of the other is silence. 
 
 The two distinctive characteristics of the Sicilian 
 are bravery and disinterestedness. The Prince of 
 Butera, whom I cite as the type of a great Palermi- 
 tan noble, gave an example of those two virtues in 
 one day. 
 
 A riot occurred in Palermo, brought on by a 
 money crisis. The people were literally dying of 
 hunger; they reasoned that it were better to die of 
 a ball or a cannon-shot, because the death struggle 
 in that way was less long and less painful. 
 
 The king and queen on their side, who hail not 
 much money themselves, could not buy wheat, and
 
 366 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 would not reduce the taxes ; they pointed a cannon 
 down each street and made ready to answer the 
 people with that ultima ratio re gum. One of these 
 cannon commanded the end of the Via Cassero, where 
 it opens on the square of the Royal Palace. The 
 populace marched on the palace and consequently on 
 the cannon. The gunner, with lighted match, stood 
 ready; the people advanced, the gunner put the 
 match nearer to the touch-hole ; at that moment 
 Prince Ercola di Butera came from a cross street 
 and, without saying a word or making a sign, he 
 seated himself on the cannon's mouth. 
 
 As he was the most popular man in Sicily the 
 people welcomed him with .shouts of joy. He made 
 sign that he wished to speak. The gunner, dumb- 
 founded, after putting his match three times near 
 the touch-hole without the prince deigning to notice 
 it, lowered it to the ground. The people kept silence 
 as if under a spell ; they listened. 
 
 The prince made them a long speech, in which he 
 explained how the Court, driven from Naples, 
 stripped by the English, and reduced to its Sicilian 
 revenue, was itself starving ; he told how King Fer- 
 dinand went hunting to get food, and said he had 
 dined with his Majesty a few days earlier, when there 
 was nothing to eat but the game the king had killed. 
 
 The people listened, saw the justice of his argu- 
 ments, uncocked their guns, put them over their 
 shoulders, and dispersed. 
 
 Ferdinand and Caroline saw the whole affair from 
 their windows. They sent for the Prince of Butera, 
 who made them, in their turn, a very sensible speech
 
 THE SPERONARA 367 
 
 on the disorder of their treasury. The two sov- 
 ereigns then with one voice offered him the plaee of 
 minister of finance. 
 
 " Sire," replied the Prince of Butera, " I have 
 never administered anything but my own fortune, 
 and that I have spent. 11 
 
 So saying, he made his bow to the sovereigns he 
 had just saved and retired to his palace on the 
 Marina, far more a king than King Ferdinand. 
 
 The Corso lasted two houi-s, and at two in the 
 morning we returned to our hotel amid illuminations 
 
 c> 
 
 half extinguished and serenaders half asleep. We 
 found awaiting us an invitation to dine on the mor- 
 row with the viceroy, the Prince of Campo Franco. 
 We had sent him, on arriving, our letters of intro- 
 duction, and with that perfect politeness to be found 
 only among the great Italian seigneurs he honoured 
 them at once. 
 
 The Prince of Campo Franco has four sons; the 
 second of whom is the Count Lucchesi-Palli, who 
 married the Duchesse de Berry. lie was just then 
 in Sicily for the purpose of burying in his familv 
 vault the bodv of the little girl born during the 
 captivity at Blaye, who had just died. As this 
 invitation for dinner was at the country-seat of the 
 viceroy, situated, like nearly all the villas of the rich 
 Palermitans, at La Bagheria, we started two or three 
 hours earlier than the time appointed, in order to 
 visit on the way the famous palace of the Prince of 
 Palagonia, a model of grotcsqucness, and a miracle 
 of folly. It was in the environs of I A Bagheria that 
 Roger, Count of Sicily and Calabria, won from the
 
 368 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 Saracens about the year 1072 the great battle that 
 gave him Palermo. 
 
 Our carnage stopped before the palace of the 
 Prince of Palagonia, which we recogni/ed at once by 
 the unnumbered monsters which adorned the walls, 
 surmounted the gates, and crawled about the gar- 
 dens; there were shepherds with asses'" heads, young 
 girls with horses' heads, cats with faces of Capuchin 
 monks, bicephalous children, men with four legs, 
 one-footed human creatures with four arms, a men- 
 agerie of impossible beings to whom the prince 
 prayed God, every time his wife was pregnant, to give 
 reality by permitting the princess to give birth to 
 some creature like unto those he carefully spread 
 before her eyes in order to bring about that happy 
 result. Unfortunately for the prince, God had the 
 good sense not to listen to his prayers, and the prin- 
 cess brought into the world none but children like 
 all other children, unless, to be sure, they find them- 
 selves inheriting some fine day the singular madness 
 of their father. 
 
 Another fancy of the prince was to procure all the 
 horns he ever heard of, horns of cattle, horns of 
 deer, antlers of stags, goats 1 horns, rams' 1 horns, ele- 
 phants' 1 tusks even ; all bony protuberances of curved 
 and pointed shajxj were welcomed at the palazzo, and 
 bought by the prince almost without bargaining. 
 So from the antechamber to the boudoir, from the 
 cellar to the garret, that palace bristled with horns; 
 horns held up the draperies, and suspended the chan- 
 deliers; curtains were looped back with horns; buf- 
 fets, testers, and bookshelves, were surmounted by
 
 THE SPERONARA 3G9 
 
 horns. One might have offered twenty-five louis 
 for a horn of any kind, and in all Palermo it could 
 not have been found. 
 
 Art, of course, had nothing to do with such de- 
 bauchery of the imagination ; palace, court, gardens, 
 are all in the vilest taste, and made one think it a 
 house built and inhabited by a colony of mad- 
 men. Jadin would not compromise his pencil by 
 sketching it. 
 
 The villa of the Prince of Campo Franco is, with- 
 out contradiction, one of the most delightful, espe- 
 cially for situation, to be found anywhere. The 
 dinner was magnificent, but wholly Sicilian ; that is to 
 say, many ices and quantities of fruit, but very little 
 fish or flesh. We must have seemed ichthyophagists 
 and carnivora of the first rank, Jadin and I, for we 
 were the only ones who ate seriously. After dinner, 
 coffee was served on a terrace covered with flowers, 
 which looked upon the bay, a part of Palermo, and 
 Monte Pellegrino. The hour we passed on that ter- 
 race, during which we saw the sun go down and the 
 landscape pass through every gradation of light from 
 vivid gold to sombre blue, is one of those indescrib- 
 able hours that we find in our memory when we close 
 our eyes, but which can never be rendered by a pen 
 or pictured by a pencil. 
 
 The next day we devoted to the sights of the city ; 
 a young man, Arami, a college friend of the Mar- 
 chese di Gargallo, was to accompany us, dine with 
 us, and take us to the Opera. We began by the 
 churches. The Uuomo had the first claim, but 
 we had already gone through it on the day of our 
 
 24
 
 370 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 arrival ; so we crossed the square and found our- 
 selves in front of the Palazzo Reale, which is built 
 upon the foundations of the ancient Saracenic Al 
 Cassar. We entered it principally to see two things : 
 the famous Syracusan rams which were transported 
 there, and the chapel of San Pietro, otherwise called 
 the Capella Palatina, which, in spite of seven hun- 
 dred years of existence, looks as if it had just come 
 from the hands of the Greek mosaic workers. 
 
 We looked on all sides for the rams, and at last 
 they were pointed out to us, coquettishly painted in 
 sky blue. We asked to what ingenious artist belonged 
 the idea of painting them of that agreeable colour, 
 and were told it was the Marchese di Forcella. We 
 asked where he lived, that we might leave our cards 
 upon him. 
 
 Not so with the Capella Palatina ; it remains a 
 miracle of architecture and of ornamentation. No 
 doubt the reverence in which it is held owes some- 
 thing to tradition (tradition respected and trans- 
 mitted by the Saracens), which asserts that Saint 
 Peter, going from Jerusalem to Rome, did himself 
 consecrate the little subterranean chapel which now 
 forms the mortuary vault of the Norman building. 
 The solemn beauty of the latter, especially at the 
 hour when the sun sends a wondrous glow through 
 the richly coloured windows, is equalled only, and not 
 surpassed, by that of San Marco in Venice. 
 
 From this chapel we went to the Observatory, 
 where, on the 1st of January, 1801, Piaz/i discovered, 
 thanks to Ramsden's instrument, the planet Ceres. 
 As our de'ijms were less ambitious we contented our-
 
 THE SPERONAIIA 371 
 
 selves with looking eastward for the isles of 
 little specks upon the surface of the sea, and west- 
 ward to the village of Monreale and its gigantic 
 monastery. 
 
 To make an end of sight-seeing, we ordered our 
 coachman to drive to the Saracenic castles, named 
 7A7.il and Cuba, though our friend Arami, in whom 
 we placed great confidence, assured us there was no 
 important tradition attached to them. The Zi/a is 
 the best preserved, and still shows a fine Moorish 
 room, with an arched ceiling decorated in arabesques 
 and mosaics. As for the Cuba, it is turned into 
 barracks. 
 
 Near these two Moorish castles stands a Christian 
 monastery of great reputation. It is the convent of 
 the Capuchins, the fame of which is derived from the 
 singular property possessed by its cellars of mummify- 
 ing dead bodies, and preserving them free from cor- 
 ruption until they turn into dust. When we arrived 
 at the convent the father in charge of visitors took 
 us straight to these catacombs. We went down thirty 
 steps and found ourselves in a vast subterranean 
 chamber in the form of the cross, lighted from 
 above, where a spectacle awaited us of which no 
 words can give a just idea. 
 
 Let the reader imagine fifteen hundred dead bodies 
 reduced to the condition of mummies, grinning in 
 rivalry with one another ; some appearing to laugh, 
 others to weep ; some opening their mouths immeas- 
 urably to loll out a black tongue between toothless 
 jaws, others pinching their lips convulsively, 
 shrivelled, twisted, bony, distorted human caricatures,
 
 372 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 palpable nightmares, spectres a thousand times more 
 hideous than skeletons hanging in the closets of 
 anatomists, all arrayed in Capuchin robes, and hold- 
 ing in their hands a ticket on which is their name, 
 the date of their birth, and that of their death. 
 The body nearest the door, who in life was named 
 Francesco Tollari, carried in his hand a stick ; I 
 asked the father who took us round to explain that 
 symbol. He answered that the said Francesco 
 Tollari, being nearest the door, was appointed to the 
 dignity of concierge, and was given a stick to 
 prevent the others from going out. This explana- 
 tion put me greatly ftt my ease ; and it showed the 
 degree of respect felt by the worthy monks for their 
 lodgers. In other lands men laugh at death ; here 
 they laugh at the dead : that is progress. 
 
 It must be said that in this collection of mummies 
 those that are not hideous are laughable. They are 
 placed sometimes in two rows, sometimes in three 
 rows one above another, side by side, on projecting 
 planks, so that those of the lower row seem to serve 
 as caryatides to those of the second row, and those 
 of the second to the third row. Beneath the feet of 
 the first row arc wooden chests, more or less valu- 
 able, and more or less richly decorated with heraldic 
 bearings, monograms, and crowns. These chests in- 
 close the dead for whom the relations provide a cof- 
 fin ; but the coffins are not like ours, for eternity ; 
 they have lids with locks, of which the relations keep 
 the key. From time to time the heirs come to see if 
 those whose fortune they are spending are still there ; 
 their uncle, grandfather, or wife makes a grimace at
 
 THE SPERONARA 373 
 
 them and they are satisfied. Consequently you may 
 make the round of Sicily without hearing a single 
 one of those poetic tales of ghosts and phantoms 
 which terrori/e long evenings at the North. For 
 the Southerner a dead man is dead ; there is no mid- 
 night hour at which he rises ; no cock-crow at which 
 he disappears ; how can any one believe in ghosts 
 when they have them under lock and key, and keep 
 the key in their pocket ? 
 
 Besides these niches occupied by the ruck of the 
 dead, besides the chests reserved for the aristocracy, 
 one arm of this vast mortuary cross forms a species 
 of private vault, and is reserved for the ladies of the 
 upper Palermitan society. It is there that death is 
 most hideous ; the bodies, lying beneath glass cases, 
 are dressed in their richest clothes, the matrons in 
 ball or court costume, the young girls in white gowns 
 with their virginal chaplets. One can hardly endure 
 the sight of those faces decked with flowers and 
 ribbons, those withered arms issuing from pink or 
 blue satin sleeves, their bony fingers wearing gloves 
 four times too large for them, and those shrivelled 
 feet in silken slippers, their bones and sinews plainly 
 visible through open-worked silk stockings. One of 
 these corpses, horrible to see, held a palm in her 
 hand and had this epitaph inscribed on the plinth of 
 her mortuary bed : 
 
 SAFER vuoi DICHI CIACCK, IL SKXSO VKRO : AXTONIA 
 
 PEOOCHE FIOII 
 
 PASSAGGIERO VISSE AXXI xx E MORI A xxv 
 SETTEMBRK 1S34-.
 
 374 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 Another body not less dreadful to look at, lying 
 in a crepe gown and a coronet on a lace pillow, is 
 that of the Signora I). Maria Amaldi e Ventiiniglia, 
 Marche-ssina di Spataro, died August 7, 1834, aged 
 29. This corpse was strewn with fresh flowers ; the 
 monk whom we questioned told us that the flowers 
 
 were renewed every day by Baron P , who had 
 
 loved her. A love mighty indeed ! that could resist 
 for two years so terrible a sight ! 
 
 We had been in these catacombs two hours and 
 thought we had seen everything, when the attendant 
 monk told us he had kept for the last the most 
 interesting thing of all, namely, a sight of the dead 
 bodies in process of desiccation. We had gone too 
 far to shrink back now, so we told him to go before 
 us and we would follow. 
 
 He lighted a torch and opened a little cavern dark 
 as night, and entered before us. Then, by the ruddy 
 glare of his torch we saw one of the most horrible 
 sights it is possible to see, a body, entirely naked, 
 fastened to a species of iron railing, the feet, hands, 
 and jaws bound, to prevent as much as possible the 
 sinews from contracting ; a stream of water flowed 
 beneath it and did the desiccation, which is usually 
 completed in six months. The dead person, now 
 passed into a mummy, is then clothed, adorned, 
 and put in his or her place. There are four of 
 these vaults, each of which can contain three or 
 four bodies. They are called the rotting-vats 
 [pourrissoirs]. 
 
 The guests of this ossuary have their fete-days, on 
 which they are dressed in their Sunday clothes, clean
 
 THE SPERONARA 375 
 
 linen, and posies in their belts. The doors of the 
 catacombs are then opened to their parents and 
 friends. Some, however, retain their every-day 
 clothes with a sombre air. Then their relations, 
 who think they know what saddens them, ask if they 
 have need of anything and if a mass or two would be 
 agreeable to them. The dead reply with a motion 
 of the hand, or a nod, that that is what they want. 
 Then the relations pay the convent for a certain 
 number of masses, and the following year they have 
 the satisfaction of seeing their dead beflowered and 
 wearing their best clothes, in sign that they have 
 left purgatory and are enjoying eternal beatitude. 
 
 Is not all this a very strange profanation of sacred 
 things ? And does not our entombing seem a far 
 more religious way of returning dust to dust? I 
 confess I saw daylight and flowers and breathed the 
 fresh air with relief; it seemed to me that I had 
 wakened from a fearful nightmare, and though I had 
 not touched any of the inhabitants of that gloomy 
 abode, I was pursued by a corpse-like odour from 
 which I could not free myself. 
 
 After dinner we went to the Opera ; two of the 
 principal seigneurs in Sicily, who undertook its 
 management, had succeeded in obtaining a rather 
 good company ; the opera was " Norma." Bellini's 
 masterpiece. 
 
 I had often heard of the Sicilian habit of dialog- 
 uing by gestures, from one end of a place to another, 
 or from the upper to the lower part of a hall or 
 theatre. This science, to which the language of the 
 deaf and dumb is but a b c, goes back, if we are to
 
 376 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 believe tradition, to the clays of Dionysius the Tyrant. 
 lie prohibited gatherings and conversations under the 
 severest penalties ; the result was that his subjects 
 sought and found a means of communication that 
 took the place of words. Between the acts I noticed 
 very lively communications between the boxes and 
 stalls. Arami, especially, recogni/ed a friend across 
 the house, whom he had not seen for three years, and 
 who made him with his eyes and sometimes with his 
 hands what seemed to be a narrative, judging by the 
 eager gestures of my companion, which showed the 
 deepest interest. This comvrsaiio ended, I asked 
 if, without indiscretion, I might be told the facts 
 that seemed to excite our friend Arami so much. 
 " Oh, dear, yes," he said ; " the man I talked with is 
 one of my best friends, absent from Palermo for three 
 years. He tells me he was married in Naples ; then he 
 travelled with his wife in Austria and in France. 
 There his wife gave birth to a daughter whom, 
 unfortunately, he has lost. He arrived by the 
 steamboat yesterday, but, as his wife suffered 
 much from seasickness, she has stayed in bed, 
 and that is the reason he has come to the theatre 
 alone."" 
 
 " My dear fellow," I said to Arami, " if you want 
 me to believe all that you must do me a kindness." 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " Not leave my side this whole evening, so that I 
 may be certain you do not give the cue to your 
 friend, and when we meet him in the fover ask 
 him to repeat aloud what he said to you." 
 
 " Willingly," replied Arami.
 
 THE SPERONARA 377 
 
 The second act of " Norma" was played, and then 
 tlie audience adjourned to the foyer, where we met 
 the traveller. 
 
 "My dear friend," said Arami, "I could not quite 
 make out what you said to me; do me the kindness 
 to repeat it." 
 
 His friend then repeated his history word for 
 word, without changing one syllable from the 
 translation Arami had given me of those signs. It 
 was indeed miraculous. 
 
 Six weeks later I saw a second example of this 
 silent communication; it happened in Naples. I 
 was walking with a young man from Syracuse ; we 
 passed a sentinel; this soldier and my companion 
 exchanged two or three grimaces which in any other 
 place I should not even have noticed. 
 
 " Poor devil ! " murmured my friend. 
 
 " What did he tell you ?" I asked. 
 
 " Well, I thought I recognized him for a Sicilian, 
 and I asked him as I passed to what city he belonged ; 
 he told me he was from Syracuse, and knew me per- 
 fectly well. Then I asked him how he liked the 
 Neapolitan service ; he told me he was so unhappy 
 in it that if his superiors continued to treat him as 
 they did he should certainly desert. I told him 
 if he was reduced to that extremity to count on me, 
 and I would help him all I could. The poor devil 
 thanked me with all his heart; and I don't doubt 
 he will be after me before long." 
 
 Three days later I was in my friend's apartment 
 when they came to tell him that a man, who 
 Mould not give his name, wanted him. lie went
 
 378 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 out, leaving me alone for ten minutes. On his 
 return he said : 
 
 "Did n't I say so?" 
 
 "Say what?" 
 
 " That that poor devil would desert." 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! was it your soldier who wanted you ? " 
 
 "Himself: an hour ago his sergeant struck him, 
 and he ran his sword through the sergeant's body. 
 Now, as he does n't care to be shot, he came and 
 asked me for two or three ducats ; the day after to- 
 morrow he will be in the mountains of Calabria, and 
 in two weeks in Sicily." 
 
 " What will he do when he gets there ? " I asked. 
 
 "Heu!" said the Syracusan, with a gesture im- 
 possible to describe, "he will make himself a 
 bandit." 
 
 I hope that my friend's compatriot was not forced 
 to fail in carrying out the prediction, and that he is 
 at this moment honourably exercising his profession 
 between Girgenti and Palermo. 
 
 The next day we started for Segesta, with the in- 
 tention of stopping on our return at Monreale. 
 
 It is about twenty-four miles from Palermo to the 
 tomb of Ceres, and yet we were warned to take as 
 many precautions for this little trip as we had 
 taken for the journey from Girgenti to Palermo, 
 robbers having a singular affection for this particu- 
 lar road, deserted most of the time, it is true, but all 
 visitors to Sicily take it, so that the bandits are sure 
 when a traveller falls into their hands that the lack 
 of quantity is made up in quality. 
 
 We were five men well armed, and Milord, who
 
 THE SPERONARA 379 
 
 was well worth a sixth ; so there was not much to 
 fear. We took an open carriage, our double-bar- 
 relled guns between our legs, all but one of us, who 
 sat by the coachman, his carbine slung on his shoul- 
 der, Milord followed the carnage, showing his 
 teeth, and by means of these precautions we reached 
 our destination without accident. 
 
 As far as Monreale the road is enchanting, through 
 the region of the well-named Conca d'Oro, a vast 
 basin of emerald, glittering with oranges and lemons, 
 studded with oleanders, myrtles, and orange-blossoms 
 (for the trees bloom and fruit at the same time), 
 while above them, here and there, some noble palm- 
 tree waved its African plume. Beyond Monreale, 
 on the slope of the mountain towards Alcamo, the 
 aspect changes ; vegetation dries up, verdure disap- 
 pears, the wild herbage recovers its power, and we 
 are once more in a desert. At a turn of the road, 
 in one of the most picturesque positions in the world, 
 we came in sight of the sole building still left of the 
 ancient city, the temple of Demeter, standing on a 
 species of platform, whence it commands the desert, 
 a sad and melancholy vestige of a lost civilization. 
 
 A Trojan prince named Hippotes had a very 
 beautiful daughter named Egesta, for whom he 
 dreaded the great sea-monster whom Poseidon had 
 sent against Laomedon, King of Troy, the latter 
 having forgotten to pay to the said god the sum 
 agreed upon for the building of the walls of Trov. 
 Now the first victim offered to appease the monster 
 was Ilesione, daughter of the forgetful debtor. Hut 
 Heracles, who chanced to see her as he was passing,
 
 380 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 delivered her, and then the monster, very hungry, 
 imposed the cruel condition on the Trojans that 
 yearly a young girl should be given him to devour. 
 The fathers and mothers cried out ; but hungry 
 stomachs have no ears ; the monster held firm, and 
 the Trojan people had to do as he chose. Hippotes, 
 fearing that the choice might fall on his beautiful 
 daughter, preferred to put her in a boat filled with 
 provisions and cast her adrift upon the sea. Hardly 
 was this done before a soft breeze from the Dar- 
 danelles wafted the boat so far and so well that it 
 came to the shore near Drepanum at the mouth of 
 the river Crimisus. Now the Crimisus was one of 
 the most gallant streams of antiquity, brother to the 
 Scamander and first cousin to the Alpheus ; no 
 sooner did he see the beautiful Egesta than he dis- 
 guised himself as a black dog and paid his court to 
 her. She, being tired with her voyage, had seated 
 herself in the shade of a tree after eating a few 
 pomegranates she had gathered on landing, and fall- 
 ing fiust asleep she dreamed a dream like those of 
 Leda and Europa, and nine months later gave birth 
 to two sons ; one she named /Eolus (not to be con- 
 founded with the god of the winds), the other Acestes. 
 History does not record what became of ^Eolus, but 
 Acestes built a city on the banks of his father, and 
 called it by his mother's name, Egesta. 
 
 The town was nearly built when ^ueas, driven 
 from Troy, came to Drepanum [now Trupani]. He 
 sent some of his lieutenants ashore to explore the 
 land ; who reported that they had found a people 
 of the same origin and speaking the same language
 
 THE SPERONARA 381 
 
 as their own. ^Eneas landed immediately, went to 
 the city, and, meeting Acestes among his workmen, 
 the two princes saluted, named themselves, and so 
 became aware that they were cousins-german. All 
 this is explained in the 5th book of the yEneid, 
 which is about the last mention of the good King 
 Acestes that we find in history. 
 
 This wise king dead, his subjects must needs pick 
 a quarrel with the Selinuntians ; and the poor little 
 jxx>ple, after many vicissitudes, being unable to hold 
 their own, appealed for help to the Athenians. The 
 Athenians were always very obliging if well paid, so 
 they first made sure of the pecuniary means of the 
 Egestans by sending deputies, to whom were shown 
 vases of gold and silver kept in the temple of Deme- 
 ter. Being thus convinced, Athens sent Nicias, who 
 began by asking an advance of thirty talents, about 
 twenty thousand francs of our money ; the Egestans 
 thought this reasonable and paid it. Nicias then 
 joined his cavalry with theirs and together they 
 sei/ed the town of Hyccara and sold the inhabitants, 
 who brought in a total of one hundred and twenty 
 talents (about eighty thousand francs), half of which 
 should have gone to the Egestans, but Nicias forgot 
 to give it to them. Among the women who were 
 sold was a young girl twelve years old, already 
 famous for her beauty. This young girl, carried to 
 Corinth, became the celebrated Lai's, whose beauty 
 obtained such fame that painters came in crowds, 
 says Athenanis, to gain inspiration from the mere 
 sight of it. But all were not admitted to her pres- 
 ence; the sight of her cost so dear that from the
 
 382 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 price she put upon it came the proverb, " It is not 
 given to every one to get to Corinth."" 
 
 But the triumph of Egesta did not last long. Nicias 
 was beaten, taken prisoner, and condemned to death. 
 Egesta fell again under the dominion of the Selinun- 
 tians, and so remained until Hannibal Gisgon de- 
 stroyed Selinunto after eight days' assault, 409 B. c., 
 when Egesta naturally became part and parcel of 
 the victor's spoils. At the time of the first Punic 
 war she revolted ; but the Carthaginians never went 
 in for half-measures, they razed the town and carried 
 to Carthage all that was precious. 
 
 The Romans triumphed, and then the unfortunate, 
 dying town, recovered a little life. Sustained by the 
 Senate, which gave it a rich territory and added an 
 S to its name, to remove the idea of the word egestas^ 
 which means beggary, the city rebuilt its houses, 
 temples, and walls. But its walls were scarcely up 
 when it had the imprudent courage to refuse to pay 
 tribute to Agathocles. That was the end of Segesta ; 
 the tyrant put the inhabitants to death as one man ; 
 the temple alone survived that universal destruction ; 
 and there it stands still, dedicated to Demeter. In 
 this temple was the famous bronze statue of Deme- 
 ter, which was taken by the Carthaginians when they 
 razed the town, returned to the Segestans by Scipio 
 Africanus, and finally stolen forever by Verres dur- 
 ing his praetorship. 
 
 Two little streams, which were dry when we 
 crossed them, were once the Scamander, and the 
 SimoYs, in memory of the two Trojan rivers. The 
 temple, one of the best-preserved Doric temples in
 
 THE SPERONARA 383 
 
 existence, is grandly impressive in this desolate 
 spot. 
 
 It was never finished ; the columns are unfluted ; 
 many of the stones of the basement still have the 
 knobs left on them by which the workmen were 
 pushing them into place when Hannibal Gisgon's 
 army swept down upon the city, and drove them 
 away. So strong is the impression conveyed by that 
 one fact of the stones lying ready and waiting to be 
 placed, that we look about us half expecting to see 
 the men returning to their work. Truly a thousand 
 years, nay, two thousand years, are but as yester- 
 day I 1 
 
 Jadin made a sketch of the temple ; I left him one 
 of the men of our escort to protect him, and started 
 myself to hunt across the great plain covered with 
 thistles and fennel. In spite of the favourable nature 
 of the ground for sport, the only living things I met 
 were two adders, one of which I killed with the heel 
 of my boot, the other with my gun. While hunting 
 we came upon the ruins of a Greek theatre, but it 
 was so small an affair, after those of Taormina and 
 Siracusa, that I cared more for the view to be seen 
 from its upper pnucinctio, commanding the a/ure bay 
 of Castellamare, the ancient harbour of Segesta. 
 
 Our coachman was not willing to risk returning to 
 Palermo that evening ; all that he consented to do 
 was to let us choose whether to sleep at Calatah'rni 
 or at Alcamo. As the keeper of the temple assured 
 us that the rector of Alcamo kept an inn, we decided 
 
 1 The temple commands u view of the field where Garibaldi 
 won his great victory, May 20, I860. TR.
 
 384 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 for the latter place. I have too much respect for the 
 church to say anything here of the inn of the rector 
 of Aleamo. We started the next morning at six 
 o'clock ; at nine we reached Monreale, where we 
 breakfasted and then went to see the cathedral. 
 
 The Cathedral of Monreale is perhaps the most 
 precious existing monument of the union of Greek, 
 Norman, and Saracenic architecture. William the 
 Good began it about the year 1180, as the result of a 
 vision. Wearied in hunting, he lay down to sleep 
 beneath a tree ; the Virgin appeared to him and 
 revealed that a treasure was buried at the foot of 
 that tree. William dug up the earth, found the trea- 
 sure, and built the cathedral. The doors, dating 
 from 1186, are on the model of those of San Gio- 
 vanni in Florence ; the following inscription engraved 
 on one of them leaves no doubt as to their maker : 
 Bonanus, civis Pimnus, me fecit " Bonano, citizen 
 of Pisa, made me." 
 
 William ordered that his tomb should be placed 
 in the temple he had built, whither he transported 
 the bodies of Margaret his mother, William the 
 Bad his father, and two brothers dying young. His 
 request was eventually fulfilled, but in a singular 
 way. Having died suddenly of a fever on his return 
 from Syria, in the twenty-sixth year of his age and 
 the twenty-fourth of his reign, he was buried by his 
 successor, Tancred the Bastard, at the foot of the 
 tomb of his father, William the Bud. It was not 
 until 1575 that his bones were exhumed by the 
 Archbishop Don Luis del Torre, and placed in a 
 white marble tomb raised on a platform of the same
 
 THE SPERONARA 385 
 
 marble. A pyramid rose from the centre of this 
 tomb, on one face of which were engraved these words 
 of the hundred and seventeenth psalm, which the 
 Norman kings had adopted as their motto : Dextera 
 Domini fecit virtutem. 
 
 In 1811 the cathedral took fire ; part of the roof 
 fell and damaged these tombs more or less. Those 
 of Margaret and the two children were wholly de- 
 stroyed. That of William the Good, when opened, was 
 found to contain little more than a skull, to which 
 hung a long strand of auburn hair, indelible sign 
 of the Norman race. These bones were inclosed in a 
 wooden case, painted blue, covered with stars, and 
 marked with a red cross. The body did not seem to 
 have been embalmed. But the tomb that attracted 
 more especially the attention of antiquaries was that 
 of William the Bad. On opening the sarcophagus 
 they found, first, a cypress case wrapped in a spe- 
 cies of satin-cloth of a dead-leaf colour ; and that 
 case being opened, the body of the king was seen in 
 a state of perfect preservation, although six centu- 
 ries and a half had passed away since his burial. In 
 conformity with the description given by history, it 
 was seen that he was six feet tall. The face and all 
 his limbs were intact, except the right hand, which 
 was missing; a red beard, with drooping moustache, 
 came down upon his breast ; his hair was of the same 
 colour, and a few locks torn from the skull were scat- 
 tered on the left side of the coffin. The corpse was 
 clothed in three tunics, one over another; the first 
 was a species of long jacket of gold-coloured satin, 
 that still preserved a fine lustre ; it fell from the 
 
 15
 
 386 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 neck to the calves of the legs, and was made full at 
 the hips. Beneath this garment was another, of 
 linen, falling also from the neck like the first, and 
 descending half-way down the leg. This was very 
 like the alb of a priest; and it was fastened round 
 the waist by a silken belt, the two ends of which were 
 joined by a buckle. Beneath this second garment was 
 a shirt also starting from the neck but covering the 
 whole body. The legs wore long satin-cloth boots 
 coming nearly up to the thigh, where their tops were 
 folded over to the depth of three inches. The colour 
 of this cloth was dead-leaf, and it seemed to have 
 been cut from the same piece that covered the coffin. 
 The left hand, the only one remaining, was bare, and 
 close to it lay the glove of the right hand ; this glove 
 was knitted of gold-coloured silk, without any seam. 
 
 Close to the cathedral is the Benedictine abbey, and 
 adjoining the abbey is the cloister, a marvellous con- 
 struction in Moorish style, supported by two hundred 
 and sixteen columns, of which not one presents the 
 same ornamentation as any of the others. On one of 
 the capitals we see William the Good on his knees, 
 offering his church to the Virgin. It is this cloister 
 that served as a model for the one in the third act 
 of " Robert le Diable." 
 
 They were valiant men, it must be owned, those 
 Normans. In the seventh century they left Norway 
 and appeared among the Gauls. Charlemagne spent 
 his life in repulsing them ; and when, thinking he 
 was rid of them forever, he saw their numerous 
 vessels reappearing on the horizon, the old emperor 
 was so discouraged not for himself but for his
 
 THE SPERONARA 387 
 
 descendants that he crossed his arms and wept 
 silently over the future. He was not mistaken ; a 
 century had not gone by before they sailed up the 
 Seine and besieged Paris. Repulsed in Neustria by 
 Eudes, son of Robert the Strong, they clung to the 
 soil, from which it was impossible to dislodge them, 
 and Charles the Simple negotiated with Rollo their 
 leader. Hardly was the treaty concluded before 
 they built the cathedrals of Bayeux, Caen, and 
 Avranches. While Gaul had as yet no language, 
 and was floundering between Latin, Teuton, and the 
 Romanic, they had troubadours of their own. The 
 ballads of Ron and de Benoit de Saint-Maur pre- 
 ceded by a hundred and twenty years the first Pro- 
 vencal poems. William the Bastard in 1066 had 
 his poet Taillefer, who accompanied him everywhere 
 and to whom he gave the Homeric mission of singing 
 a conquest not yet undertaken. Then, hardly was 
 England conquered (and it took them but one battle 
 to do it) when the victors substituted themselves for 
 the vanquished ; they broke the ancient Anglo-Saxon 
 mould, and changed the language, the manners, the 
 arts ; so that nothing was seen on the surface of the 
 soil but them and their ways, the previous population 
 disappearing as if annihilated. 
 
 While these deeds were being accomplished west- 
 ward, something even more incredible was going on 
 in the Orient. A handful some forty Normans, 
 losing their way on their return from Jerusalem, 
 where they had gone to make a crusade on their own 
 account, landed at Salerno and helped the I^mbards 
 to fight the Saracens. Sergius, Duke of Naples, to
 
 388 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 reward them for this service, granted them a tract of 
 land between Naples and Capua. There they in- 
 stantly founded Aversa in 1029, which Ilanulfo 
 governed with the title of count. They had gained 
 a footing in Italy was it all they wanted ? Wait 
 and see here comes Tancred d'Hauteville and his 
 sons. In 1033 they land upon the shores of Naples. 
 Two years later they are helping the Emperor of the 
 East to reconquer Sicily from the Saracens (seizing 
 Pouille for their share). They make themselves Dukes 
 of Calabria ; they float for a moment undecided be- 
 tween the two great parties that divide Italy, but 
 finally decide to be Guelfs ; and, sanctioned one day 
 by the popes, they reward them the next by fight- 
 ing for them against the Western emperors. And 
 how much time did it take them to do all that ? 
 From 1035 to 1060, twenty-five years ! 
 
 Room for Roger, the Great Count ! It does not 
 satisfy him to be Duke of Calabria ; he steps across 
 the straits, takes Messina in 1061, Palermo in 1072. 
 In the space of eleven years he annihilates the 
 Saracenic power. But it is not enough for him to 
 be a conqueror like Alexander and a legislator like 
 Justinian ; he must needs unite in himself the sacer- 
 dotal power and the military power, the mitre and 
 the sword ; in 1098 he had himself appointed Pope's 
 legate, and he died in 1101, bequeathing to his 
 descendants that title which is still one of the most 
 precious of the present King of Naples. 
 
 His son Roger succeeded him, but his ambition was 
 not satisfied in being Count of Sicily and Calabria ; 
 he must be king. He had himself proclaimed King
 
 THE SPERONARA 389 
 
 of Sicily in 1130; in 1146, he sei/cd Athens and 
 Corinth, whence he brought back silk-worms and 
 mulberries. In 1154 he died, leaving Sicily to his 
 son William the Bad, the one we found in his tomb 
 at Monreale in royal clothes. William II., the Good, 
 his son, succeeded him and built the cathedral at Mon- 
 reale, the cathedral of Palermo, and the roval palace. 
 This is William the pacific, William the poet, Wil- 
 liam the artist. He profits by all the civilizations, 
 Greek, Moorish, and Occidental; he takes from the Oc- 
 cidentals mystic thought, from the Arabians form, 
 from the Greeks ornamentation ; finds time to make a 
 crusade, and comes back to die, at thirty-six years of 
 age, near to that Dome of Monreale which he built. 
 
 In him became extinct the legitimate descendants 
 of the Great Count. His successor was a bastard 
 of Roger, Duke of Pouille, named Tancred. With 
 Tancred died the last of the Norman kings. Henry 
 VI., who married Constance, Roger's daughter, suc- 
 ceeded him, and the Suabian family was henceforth 
 on the throne of Sicily. 
 
 A few hours of our day remained to visit La 
 Favorita, the royal country-house to which the pre- 
 dilection felt for it by King Ferdinand and Queen 
 Caroline has given its name. During their long stay 
 in Sicily I^a Favorita was the summer residence of the 
 two exiles. It was from La Favorita that Lidv 
 Hamilton started to go and obtain from Nelson the 
 rupture of the capitulation of Naples. Nelson, for 
 a night of pleasure, broke his given word, and 
 twenty thousand patriots paid with their heads for 
 the cajoling of Emma Lyonna, formerly a London
 
 390 JOURNEYS WITH DUMAS 
 
 prostitute. La Favorita is a caprice in the style of 
 the Palagonian folly, except that La Favorita is 
 wholly Chinese, internally and externally, furniture 
 and gardens. There is no getting away from kiosks, 
 pagodas, bridges, and tinkling bells. Needless to 
 say that it is all in shocking taste, and in the very 
 worst Louis XV. style. 
 
 On returning to Palermo we found the whole of 
 our ship's company awaiting us at the door of the 
 hotel. The speronara had come into port that very 
 morning after an excellent voyage. She brought 
 with her a fine provision of Marsala, bought at the 
 vineyards. We had to let the good fellows, one 
 and all, kiss our hands, and I gave them rendezvous 
 on board for the following Monday. 
 
 THE END
 
 THE ROMANCES OF 
 ALEXANDRE DUMAS 
 
 With nearly one hundred plates, including historical portraits 
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 HISTORICAL AND REGENCY ROMANCES 
 
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 CHEVALIER D'HARMENTAL, 1 vol.; THE REGENT'S DAUGHTER 
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 MEMOIRS OF A PHYSICIAN, 3 vols.; THE QI-EKN'S NECKLACE, 
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 IS:?.'.) 6 vols. 
 
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 Ri.rKs, 2 vols.; THE SHE- WOLVES OF MACHECOI:L and THE COR- 
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 WITH THE VELVET NECKLACE (periods of the last days of the 
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