The sun had just sunk below the horizon, and a blaze of blended crimson and gold spread over the Bay of Naples, coloring the rocky island of Ischia till it glowed like a carbuncle. Gradually, however, the rich warm tints began to fade away from the base of the mountains, and a cold blue color stole slowly up their sides, peak after peak surrendering their gorgeous panoply, till at length the whole island assumed a tinge blue as the sea it stood in.

But for the memory of the former glory it would have been difficult to imagine a more beautiful picture. Every cliff and jutting promontory tufted with wild olives and myrtle was reflected in the waveless sea below; and feathery palm-trees and broad-leaved figs trembled in the water, as that gentle wash eddied softly round the rocks, or played on the golden shore.

It was essentially the hour of peace and repose. Along the shores of the bay, in every little village, the angelus was ringing, and kneeling groups were bowed in prayer; and even here, on this rocky islet, where crime and wretchedness were sent to expiate by years of misery their sins against their fellow-men, the poor galley-slaves caught one instant of kindred with the world, and were suffered to taste in peace the beauty of the hour. There they were in little knots and groups—some lying listlessly in the deep grass; some gathered on a little rocky point, watching the fish as they darted to and fro in the limpid water, and doubtless envying their glorious freedom: and others, again, seated under some spreading tree, and seeming, at least, to feel the calm influence of the hour.

The soldiers who formed their guard had piled their arms, leaving here and there merely a sentinel, and had gone down amongst the rocks, to search for limpets, or those rugged “ricci di mare” which humble palates accept as delicacies. A few, too, dashed in for a swim, and their joyous voices and merry laughter were heard amid the plash of the water they disported in.

In a small cleft of a rock overshadowed by an old ilex-tree two men sat moodily gazing on the sea. In dress they were indeed alike, for both wore that terrible red and yellow livery that marks a life-long condemnation, and each carried the heavy chain of the same terrible sentence. They were linked together at the ankle, and thus, for convenience' sake, they sat shoulder to shoulder. One was a thin, spare, but still wiry-looking man, evidently far advanced in life, but with a vigor in his look and a quick intelligence in his eye that showed what energy he must have possessed in youth. He had spent years at the galleys, but neither time nor the degradation of his associations had completely eradicated the traces of something above the common in his appearance; for No. 97—he had no other name as a prisoner—had been condemned for his share in a plot against the life of the king; three of his associates having been beheaded for their greater criminality. What station he might originally have belonged to was no longer easy to determine; but there were yet some signs that indicated that he had been at least in the middle rank of life. His companion was unlike him in every way. He was a young man with fresh complexion and large blue eyes, the very type of frankness and good-nature. Not even prison diet and discipline had yet hollowed his cheek, though it was easy to see that unaccustomed labor and distasteful food were beginning to tell upon his strength, and the bitter smile with which he was gazing on his lank figure and wasted hands showed the weary misery that was consuming him.

“Well, old Nick,” said the young man at length, “this is to be our last evening together; and if ever I should touch land again, is there any way I could help you—is there anything I could do for you?”

“So then you're determined to try it?” said the other, in a low growling tone.

“That I am. I have not spent weeks filing through that confounded chain for nothing: one wrench now and it's smashed.”

“And then?” asked the old man with a grin.

“And then I'll have a swim for it. I know all that—I know it all,” said he, answering a gesture of the other's hand; “but do you think I care to drag out such a life as this?”

“I do,” was the quiet reply.

“Then why you do is clear and clean beyond me. To me it is worse than fifty deaths.”

“Look here, lad,” said the old man, with a degree of animation he had not shown before. “There are four hundred and eighty of us here: some for ten, some for twenty years, some for life; except yourself alone there is not one has the faintest chance of a pardon. You are English, and your nation takes trouble about its people, and, right or wrong, in the end gets them favorable treatment, and yet you are the only man here would put his life in jeopardy on so poor a chance.”

“I 'll try it, for all that.”

“Did you ever hear of a man that escaped by swimming?”

“If they did n't it was their own fault—at least, they gave themselves no fair chance: they always made for the shore, and generally the nearest shore, and of course they were followed and taken. I'll strike out for the open sea, and when I have cut the cork floats off a fishing-net, I'll be able to float for hours, if I should tire swimming. Once in the open, it will be hard luck if some coasting vessel, some steamer to Palermo or Messina, should not pick me up. Besides, there are numbers of fishing-boats—”

“Any one of which would be right glad to make five ducats by bringing you safe back to the police.”

“I don't believe it—I don't believe there is that much baseness in a human heart.”

“Take my word for it, there are depths a good deal below even that,” said the old man, with a harsh grating laugh.

“No matter, come what will of it, I'll make the venture; and now, as our time is growing short, tell me if there is anything I can do for you, if I live to get free again. Have you any friends who could help you? or is there any one to whom you would wish me to go on your behalf?”

“None—none,” said he, slowly but calmly.

“As yours was a political crime—”

“I have done all of them, and if my life were to be drawn out for eighty years longer it would not suffice for all the sentences against me.”

“Still I 'd not despair of doing something—”

“Look here, lad,” said the other, sharply; “it is my will that all who belong to me should believe me dead. I was shipwrecked twelve years ago, and reported to have gone down with all the crew. My son—”

“Have you a son, then?”

“My son inherits rights that, stained as I am by crime and condemnation, I never could have maintained. Whether he shall make them good or not will depend on whether he has more or less of my blood in his veins. It may be, however, he will want money to prosecute his claim. I have none to send him, but I could tell him where he is almost certain to find not only money, but what will serve him more than money, if you could make him out. I have written some of the names he is known by on this paper, and he can be traced through Bolton, the banker at Naples. Tell him to seek out all the places old Giacomo Lami worked at. He never painted his daughter Enrichetta in a fresco, that he didn't hide gold, or jewels, or papers of value somewhere near. Tell him, above all, to find out where Giacomo's last work was executed. You can say that you got this commission from me years ago in Monte Video; and when you tell him it was Niccolo Baldassare gave it, he'll believe you. There. I have written Giacomo Lami on that paper, so that you need not trust to your memory. But why do I waste time with these things? You'll never set foot on shore, lad—never.”

“I am just as certain that I shall. If that son of yours was only as certain of winning his estate, I'd call him a lucky fellow. But see, they are almost dressed. They 'll be soon ready to march us home. Rest your foot next this rock till I smash the link, and when you see them coming roll this heavy stone down into the sea. I 'll make for the south side of the island, and, once night falls, take to the water. Good-bye, old fellow. I 'll not forget you—never, never,” and he wrung the old man's hand in a strong grasp. The chain gave way at the second blow, and he was gone.

Just as the last flickering light was fading from the sky, three cannon shots, in quick succession, announced that a prisoner had made his escape, and patrols issued forth in every direction to scour the island, while boats were manned to search the caves and crevasses along the shore.

The morning's telegram to the Minister of Police ran thus: “No. 11 made his escape last evening, filing his ankle-iron. The prisoner, 97, to whom he was linked, declares that he saw him leap into the sea and sink. This statement is not believed; but up to this, no trace of the missing man has been discovered.”

In the afternoon of the same day, Temple Bramleigh learned the news, and hastened home to the hotel to inform his chief. Lord Culduff was not in the best of tempers. Some independent member below the gangway had given notice of a question he intended to ask the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and the leader of a Radical morning paper had thus paraphrased the inquiry: “What Mr. Bechell wishes to ascertain, in fact, amounts to this,—'Could not the case of Samuel Rogers have been treated by our resident envoy at Naples, or was it necessary that the dignity and honor of England should be maintained by an essenced old fop, whose social successes—and we never heard that he had any other—date from the early days of the Regency?'”

Lord Culduff was pacing his room angrily when Temple entered, and, although nothing would have induced him to show the insolent paragraph of the paper, he burst out into a violent abuse of those meddlesome Radicals, whose whole mission in life was to assail men of family and station.

“In the famous revolution of France, sir,” cried he, “they did their work with the guillotine; but our cowardly canaille never rise above defamation. You must write to the papers about this, Temple. You must expose this system of social assassination, or the day will come, if it has not already come, when gentlemen of birth and blood will refuse to serve the Crown.”

“I came back to tell you that our man has made his escape,” said Temple, half trembling at daring to interrupt this flow of indignation.

“And whom do you call our man, sir?” “I mean Rogers—the fellow we have been writing about.”

“How and when has this happened?”

Temple proceeded to repeat what he had learned at the prefecture of the police, and read out the words of the telegram.

“Let us see,” said Lord Culduff, seating himself in a well-cushioned chair. “Let us see what new turn this will give the affair. He may be recaptured, or he may be, most probably is, drowned. We then come in for compensation. They must indemnify. There are few claims so thoroughly chronic in their character as those for an indemnity. You first discuss the right, and you then higgle over the arithmetic. I don't want to go back to town this season. See to it then, Temple, that we reserve this question entirely to ourselves. Let Blagden refer everything to us.”

“They have sent the news home already.”

“Oh! they have. Very sharp practice. Not peculiar for any extreme delicacy either. But I cannot dine with Blagden, for all that. This escape gives a curious turn to the whole affair. Let us look into it a little. I take it the fellow must have gone down—eh?”

“Most probably.”

“Or he might have been picked up by some passing steamer or by a fishing-boat. Suppose him to have got free, he 'll get back to England, and make capital out of the adventure. These fellows understand all that nowadays.”

Temple, seeing a reply was expected, assented.

“So that we must not be precipitate, Temple,” said Lord Culduff, slowly. “It's a case for caution.”

These words, and the keen look that accompanied them, were perfect puzzles to Temple, and he did not dare to speak.

“The thing must be done this wise,” said Lord Culduff. “It must be a 'private and confidential' to the office, and a 'sly and ambiguous' to the public prints. I 'll charge myself with the former; the latter shall be your care, Temple. You are intimate with Flosser, the correspondent of the 'Bell-Weather.' Have him to dinner and be indiscreet. This old Madeira here will explain any amount of expansiveness. Get him to talk of this escape, and let out the secret that it was we who managed it all. Mind, however, that you swear him not to reveal anything. It would be your ruin, you must say, if the affair got wind; but the fact was Lord Culduff saw the Neapolitans were determined not to surrender him, and knowing what an insult it would be to the public feeling of England that an Englishman was held as a prisoner at the galleys, for an act of heroism and gallantry, the only course was to liberate him at any cost and in any way. Flosser will swear secrecy, but hints at this solution as the on dit in certain keen coteries. Such a mode of treating the matter carries more real weight than a sworn affidavit. Men like the problem that they fancy they have unravelled by their own acuteness. And then it muzzles discussion in the House, since even the most blatant Radical sees that it cannot be debated openly; for all Englishmen, as a rule, love compensation, and we can only claim indemnification here on the assumption that we were no parties to the escape. Do you follow me, Temple?”

“I believe I do. I see the drift of it at last.”

“There's no drift, sir. It is a full, palpable, well-delivered blow. We saved Rogers; but we refuse to explain how.”

“And if he turns up one of these days, and refuses to confirm us?”

“Then we denounce him as an impostor; but always, mark you, in the same shadowy way that we allude to our share in his evasion. It must be a sketch in water-colors throughout, Temple,—very faint and very transparent. When I have rough-drafted my despatch you shall see it. Once the original melody is before you, you will see there is nothing to do but invent the variations.”

“My Lady wishes to know, my Lord, if your Lordship will step upstairs to speak to her?” said a servant at this conjuncture.

“Go up, Temple, and see what it is,” whispered Lord Culduff. “If it be about that box at the St. Carlos, you can say our stay here is now most uncertain. If it be a budget question, she must wait till quarter-day.” He smiled maliciously as he spoke, and waved his hand to dismiss him. Within a minute—it seemed scarcely half that time—Lady Culduff entered the room, with an open letter in her hand; her color was high, and her eyes flashing, as she said:—

“Make your mind at ease, my Lord. It is no question of an opera-box, or a milliner's bill, but it is a matter of much importance that I desire, to speak about. Will you do me the favor to read that, and say what answer I shall return to it?”

Lord Culduff took the letter and read it over leisurely, and then, laying it down, said, “Lady Augusta is not a very perspicuous letter-writer, or else she feels her present task too much for her tact, but what she means here is, that you should give M. Pracontal permission to ransack your brother's house for documents, which, if discovered, might deprive him of the title to his estate. The request, at least, has modesty to recommend it.”

“The absurdity is, to my thinking, greater than even the impertinence,” cried Lady Culduff. “She says, that on separating two pages, which by some accident had adhered, of Giacomo Lami's journal,—whoever Giacomo Lami may be,—we—we being Pracontal and herself—have discovered that it was Giacomo's habit to conceal important papers in the walls where he painted, and in all cases where he introduced his daughter's portrait; and that as in the octagon room at Castello there is a picture of her as Flora, it is believed—confidently believed—such documents will be found there as will throw great light on the present claim—”

“First of all,” said he, interrupting, “is there such a portrait?”

“There is a Flora; I never heard it was a portrait. Who could tell after what the artist copied it?”

“Lady Augusta assumes to believe this story.”

“Lady Augusta is only too glad to believe what everybody else would pronounce incredible; but this is not all, she has the inconceivable impertinence to prefer this request to us, to make us a party to our own detriment,—as if it were matter of perfect indifference who possessed these estates, and who owned Castello.”

“I declare I have heard sentiments from your brother Augustus that would fully warrant this impression. I have a letter of his in my desk wherein he distinctly says, that once satisfied in his own mind—not to the conviction of his lawyer, mark you, nor to the conviction of men well versed in evidence, and accustomed to sift testimony, but simply in his own not very capacious intellect—that the estate belongs to Pracontal, he 'll yield him up the possession without dispute or delay.”

“He's a fool! there is no other name for him,” said she, passionately.

“Yes, and his folly is very mischievous folly, for he is abrogating rights he has no pretension to deal with. It is as well, at all events, that this demand was addressed to us and not to your brother, for I'm certain he'd not have refused his permission.”

“I know it,” said she, fiercely; “and if Lady Augusta only knew his address and how a letter might reach him, she would never have written to us. Time pressed, however; see what she says here. 'The case will come on for trial in November, and if the papers have the value and significance Count Pracontal's lawyers suspect, there will yet be time to make some arrangement,—the Count would be disposed for a generous one,—which might lessen the blow, and diminish the evil consequences of a verdict certain to be adverse to the present possessor.'”

“She dissevers her interests from those of her late husband's family with great magnanimity, I must say.”

“The horrid woman is going to marry Pracontal.”

“They say so, but I doubt it—at least, till he comes out a victor.”

“How she could have dared to write this, how she could have had the shamelessness to ask me,—me whom she certainly ought to know,—to aid and abet a plot directed against the estates—the very legitimacy of my family—is more than I can conceive.”

“She 's an implicit believer, one must admit, for she says, 'if on examining the part of the wall behind the pedestal of the figure nothing shall be found, she desires no further search.' The spot is indicated with such exactness in the journal that she limits her request distinctly to this.”

“Probably she thought the destruction of a costly fresco might well have been demurred to,” said Lady Culduff, angrily. “Not but, for my part, I 'd equally refuse her leave to touch the moulding in the surbase. I am glad, however, she has addressed this demand to us, for I know well Augustus is weak enough to comply with it, and fancy himself a hero in consequence. There is something piquant in the way she hints that she is asking as a favor what, for all she knows, might be claimed as a right. Imagine a woman saying this!”

“It is like asking me for the key of my writing-desk to see if I have not some paper or letter there, that might, if published, give me grave inconvenience.”

“I have often heard of her eccentricities and absurdities, but on this occasion I believe she has actually outdone herself. I suppose, though this appeal is made to us conjointly, as it is addressed to me, I am the proper person to reply to it.”

“Certainly, my Lady.”

“And I may say—Lord Culduff feels shocked equally with myself at the indelicacy of the step you have just taken; failing to respect the tie which connects you with our family, you might, he opines, have had some regard for the decencies which regulate social intercourse, and while bearing our name, not have ranked yourself with those who declare themselves our enemies. I may say this, I may tell her that her conduct is shameless, an outrage on all feeling, and not only derogatory to her station, but unwomanly?”

“I don't think I 'd say that,” said he, with a faint simper, while he patted his hand with a gold paper-knife. “I opine the better way would be to accept her Ladyship's letter as the most natural thing in life from her; that she had preferred a request, which coming from her, was all that was right and reasonable. That there was something very noble and very elevated in the way she could rise superior to personal interests, and the ties of kindred, and actually assert the claims of mere justice; but I'd add that the decision could not lie with us—that your brother being the head of the family, was the person to whom the request must be addressed, and that we would, with her permission, charge ourselves with the task. Pray hear me out—first of all, we have a delay while she replies to this, with or without the permission we ask for; in that interval you can inform your brother that a very serious plot is being concerted against him; that your next letter will fully inform him as to the details of the conspiracy—your present advice being simply for warning, and then, when, if she still persist, the matter must be heard, it will be strange if Augustus shall not have come to the conclusion that the part intended for him is a very contemptible one—that of a dupe.”

“Your Lordship's mode may be more diplomatic; mine would be more direct.”

“Which is exactly its demerit, my Lady,” said he, with one of his blandest smiles, “In my craft the great secret is never to give a flat refusal to anything. If the French were to ask us for the Isle of Wight, the proper reply would be a polite demand for the reasons that prompted the request—whether 'Osborne' might be reserved—and a courteous assurance that the claim should meet with every consideration and a cordial disposition to make every possible concession that might lead to a closer union with a nation it was our pride and happiness to reckon on as an ally.”

“These fallacies never deceive any one.”

“Nor are they meant to do so, any more than the words 'your most obedient and humble servant' at the foot of a letter; but they serve to keep correspondence within polite limits.”

“And they consume time,” broke she in, impatiently.

“And, as you observe so aptly, they consume time.”

“Let us have done with trifling, my Lord. I mean to answer this letter in my own way.”

“I can have no other objection to make to that, save the unnecessary loss of time I have incurred in listening to the matter.”

“That time so precious to the nation you serve!” said she, sneeringly.

“Your Ladyship admirably expresses my meaning.”

“Then, my Lord, I make you the only amends in my power; I take my leave of you.”

“Your Ladyship's politeness is never at fault,” said he, rising to open the door for her.

“Has Temple told you that the box on the lower tier is now free—the box I spoke of?”

“He has; but our stay here is now uncertain. It may be days; it may be hours—”

“And why was not I told? I have been giving orders to tradespeople—accepting invitations—making engagements, and what not. Am I to be treated like the wife of a subaltern in a marching regiment—to hold myself ready to start when the route comes?”

“How I could envy that subaltern,” said he, with an inimitable mixture of raillery and deference.

She darted on him a look of indignant anger, and swept out of the room.

Lord Culduff rang his bell, and told the servant to beg Mr. Temple Bramleigh would have the kindness to step down to him.

“Write to Filangieri, Temple,” said he, “and say that I desire to have access to the prisoner Rogers. We know nothing of his escape, and the demand will embarrass—There, don't start objections, my dear boy; I never play a card without thinking what the enemy will do after he scores the trick.”

And with this profound encomium on himself he dismissed the secretary, and proceeded to read the morning papers.