His dark grim figure was set off by a curious effect of color in the sky--a long wide band of crimson cloud, as though the sun-god had thrown down a goblet of ruby wine and left it to trickle along the smooth blue fairness of his palace floor--a deep after-glow, which burned redly on the olive-tinted eager faces of the multitude that were everywhere upturned in wonder and ill-judged admiration to the brutal black face of the notorious murderer and thief, whose name had for years been the terror of Sicily.

I pressed through the crowd to obtain a nearer view, and as I did so a sudden savage movement of Neri's bound body caused the gendarmes to cross their swords in front of his eyes with a warning clash.

The brigand laughed hoarsely.
"Corpo di Cristo!" he muttered--"think you a man tied hand and foot can run like a deer?
I am trapped--I know it! But tell HIM," and he indicated some person in the throng by a nod of his head "tell him to come hither--I have a message for him." The gendarmes looked at one another, and then at the swaying crowd about them in perplexity--they did not understand.
Carmelo, without wasting more words upon them, raised himself as uprightly as he could in his strained and bound position, and called aloud: "Luigi Biscardi! Capitano! Oh he--you thought I could not see you! Dio! I should know you in hell! Come near, I have a parting word for you." At the sound of his strong harsh voice, a silence half of terror, half of awe, fell upon the chattering multitude.

There was a sudden stir as the people made way for a young man to pass through their ranks--a slight, tall, rather handsome fellow, with a pale face and cold, sneering eyes.

He was dressed with fastidious care and neatness in the uniform of the Bersagliere--and he elbowed his way along with the easy audacity of a privileged dandy.