"Ah, faquin! I could order you to be hanged in ten minutes."
"A day may yet come when this ruffianly treatment shall be repaid."
"Ouf! monsieur mouchard, Massena will look to that. At Castello di Bivona, you will be embarked on board La Vigilante courier gunboat, commanded by Antonio Balotte. He is a rough Lucchese, that same Antonio, who will string you to the yard-arm if you prove troublesome. Ouf! if the emperor was of my opinion, his soldiers would not take any prisoners." He grinned savagely, and summoned his orderly.
"Order a corporal and file of soldiers. To them," he continued, addressing the Lancer, "you will hand over the prisoner with this brief despatch for Marshal Massena at Cosenza; it states who he is, and the suspicions against him."
Massena! O, how little I had to hope for, if once in the clutches of that savage and apostate Italian: particularly when blackened by all that Regnier’s malicious nature might dictate. In half an hour I was on the march for Castello di Bivona, escorted by a corporal and file of the 101st, with fixed bayonets. As a deeper degradation, Regnier had ordered me to be hand-cuffed. Heavens! my blood boils yet at the recollection of that! I would have resisted; but a musket levelled at my head silenced all remonstrance, and I bottled up my wrath while Corporal Crapaud locked the fetters on me. We marched off, my exasperation increasing as we proceeded; for the escort seemed determined to consider me in the character of a spy, and consequently treated me with insult and neglect: in vain I told them I was a British officer, and deserved other treatment.
"True, monsieur," replied the corporal, who was a dapper little Gaul, four feet six inches high, "but I am obeying only the orders of the general; and a British officer, or any other officer, who is caught among an enemy’s cantonments in disguise, must be considered as a spy, and expect degradation as such. Monsieur will excuse us—we have orders not to converse with prisoners; and the general—ah! ventre bleu!—he is a man of iron!"
This coolness, or affectation of contempt or superiority, only increased my annoyance. Although the soldiers conversed with all the loquacity and sung with all the gaiety of Frenchmen, they addressed me no more during the march of more than twenty-five miles. This lasted seven hours, exclusive of halts at Gioja, Rossarno, and several half-deserted villages and shepherds’ huts; where they extorted whatever they wanted, at point of the bayonet, and made good their quarters whenever they chose; browbeating the men and caressing the women (if pretty). I often expected a brawl, and perhaps a release; but all hope died away, when, about sunset, we entered Castello di Bivona: my spirit fell in proportion as the plains and snow-capped Apennines grew dark, when the red sun dipped into the Tyrhene sea.