“An inexpressible terror came over me. The unhappy child in the midst of this universal distress, in the very centre of the horrors! It was in vain now that Giraldi attempted to calm me by arguing that the approach of the troops gave promise of safety; I would not, I could not listen to anything; I could say nothing but ‘On! on!’
“The people said we should not get far, and in fact we had scarcely gone a mile before we came up with a large body of soldiers, whose young officer courteously but decidedly ordered us back. The carriage had passed the lines against the distinct order of the colonel, and we could go no farther, as the banditti had rendered the bridge over the Sele impracticable for carriages and horses; very likely at this moment there was fighting in the open field before Pœstum. Tomorrow the roads would be safer than they had ever been before; we must have patience so long.
“No prayers, no supplications availed. Back to Battipaglia! The impossibility of reaching the child, the fear of losing it, perhaps of having already lost it, drove me almost frantic. For the first time Giraldi had lost his power over me. He left me to my despair in the miserable inn and wandered about out of doors. It was a fearful night!
“The next morning the roads were, as the officer had promised, free. He thought it his duty to bring us the news himself, advising us, however, to postpone to another time our romantic trip. We had wanted to see Pœstum yesterday by moonlight! Good God! It looked melancholy in Pœstum. The little hotel was a ruin, the house of the guide Panari destroyed, he himself dangerously wounded in the defence of a strange child, which had been entrusted to him, and which the banditti had carried off to the mountains. This had taken place unfortunately the evening before last, so that the robbers had had time to convey to a place of safety their prey, on which indeed they must set great store, as they had made the most tremendous efforts to attain it, and had put themselves in such evident danger to place it in safety. There was, however, still a hope of snatching their prey from them. The pursuit was hot, and the precautionary measures well laid out. The lady might for the present calm her compassionate heart, and moreover, even if the child were to be pitied, the unnatural parents who had placed their child in such danger deserved no pity. Who could tell that they had not themselves planned the robbery, the better to hide the living witness of their shame, and that the pursuit of their accomplices was more than inconvenient to them? Such things had happened before.
“Oh! Elsa! Elsa! when the young man spoke these words so unsuspiciously, I did not venture to look up for shame and horror; I had provoked this fate. I ‘deserved no pity!’ and yet—and yet—
“But there was yet a possibility of escaping from this hell of anguish. Bandits were almost daily brought in—men, women, and children! ‘It is not our Cesare,’ said Feldner. I—Good God! I should not have known with certainty if it were my child. Feldner cried quietly to herself night after night, that she had been robbed of her heart’s-blood, her sweet little Cesare. I forbade her to cry. I threatened to dismiss her. I would not endure that he who appeared to suffer so terribly under the blow should be still further distressed by her complaints. He had in no way given up hope; prisoners had reported that a certain Lazzaro Cecutti, one of their principal leaders, who had for reasons unknown to them conducted the actual robbery of the child, with two others who had fallen in the fight, and his mother, with whom he had sent the child into the mountains, could alone give any information as to the destination of the same. Why should not Lazzaro or old Barbara be taken prisoners, like so many others? But they were not taken.
“ ‘They are too cunning,’ said Giraldi; ‘they will not let themselves be taken; but when the pursuit is over, and that will soon be, the ardour of our authorities dies quickly, they will emerge in some distant spot and demand the ransom, which is naturally the only thing they care for; and on that very account we may be easy about our child, they will treasure it as the apple of their eye. Everything for them depends upon the child.’
“ ‘But how will they find us?’ I asked; ‘we who by your direction have never openly claimed the child, have never offered a reward for his restoration?’
“ ‘Those are measures,’ said Giraldi, ‘which would only have drawn upon us the attention of the public and the officials; that is to say, would have made it more difficult for the robbers to come to us unnoticed. You do not know either the loquacity or the cunning of my country people. The Panaris have assuredly not kept their counsel, and Lazzaro, before he achieved the robbery, knew our address better even than the police authorities; and when Italian bandits want to get a ransom they can find their men, wherever they may be. And believe me, they will find us.’
“The pursuit came to an end, very quickly too, astonishingly so, the papers said. It was at an end, but Lazzaro and his mother appeared
