The estafette galloped up to the door and jumped from his horse.
“A glass of rosolio, a fresh horse, and a pair of breeches,” said he, “and quickly—I am behind my time, and must be off.”
“San Genaro!” replied the host, “why, where hast thou left thy garment?”
“Among the robbers between this and Fondi.”
“What! rob an estafette! I never heard of such folly. What could they hope to get from thee?”
“My leather breeches!” replied the estafette. “They were bran new, and shone like gold, and hit the fancy of the captain.”
“Well, these fellows grow worse and worse. To meddle with an estafette! And that merely for the sake of a pair of leather breeches!”
The robbing of a government messenger seemed to strike the host with More astonishment than any other enormity that had taken place on the road; and indeed it was the first time so wanton an outrage had been committed; the robbers generally taking care not to meddle with any thing belonging to government.
The estafette was by this time equipped; for he had not lost an instant in making his preparations while talking. The relay was ready: the rosolio tossed off. He grasped the reins and the stirrup.
“Were there many robbers in the band?” said a handsome, dark young man, stepping forward from the door of the inn.
“As formidable a band as ever I saw,” said the estafette, springing into the saddle.
“Are they cruel to travellers?” said a beautiful young Venetian lady, who had been hanging on the gentleman’s arm.
“Cruel, signora!” echoed the estafette, giving a glance at the lady as he put spurs to his horse. “_Corpo del Bacco!_ they stiletto all the men, and as to the women—”
Crack! crack! crack! crack! crack!—the last words were drowned in the smacking of the whip, and away galloped the estafette along the road to the Pontine marshes.
“Holy Virgin!” ejaculated the fair Venetian, “what will become of us!”
The inn of Terracina stands just outside of the walls of the old town of that name, on the frontiers of the Roman territory. A little, lazy, Italian town, the inhabitants of which, apparently heedless and listless, are said to be little better than the brigands which surround them, and indeed are half of them supposed to be in some way or other connected with the robbers. A vast, rocky height rises perpendicularly above it, with the ruins of the castle of Theodoric the Goth, crowning its summit; before it spreads the wide bosom of the Mediterranean, that sea without flux or reflux. There seems an idle pause in every thing about this place. The port is without a sail, excepting that once in a while a solitary felucca may be seen, disgorging its holy cargo of baccala, the meagre provision for the Quaresima or Lent. The naked watch towers, rising here and there along the coast, speak of pirates and corsairs which hover about these shores: while the low huts, as stations for soldiers, which dot the distant road, as it winds through an olive grove, intimate that in the ascent there is danger for the traveller and facility for the bandit.