"No, no; tell me now, I never felt better in my life."
"Well then," said the count, "some of your amiable countrymen have been robbing us. I woke up to find the carriage stopped, and you lying back insensible, your face covered by a handkerchief which I afterwards found to be soaked with chloroform. Half-a-dozen scoundrels were standing round the maid, whom they were about serving in the same manner, and the coachman was on his knees in the road, saying his prayers. I understand that such is the custom of the country."
"Good heavens!" exclaimed Annunziata, clasping her hands, "they were banditti!"
"Banditti, my dear, of the purest type. Costumes of the old style—long cloaks, leather thongs round their legs, and steeple-crowned hats. Nothing could have been better put on the stage; but their manners left much to be desired. They gave me to understand that I was to be carried off to the mountains and kept till I was ransomed; and, ma foi! I was preparing myself to go—being unarmed and powerless—when a great strapping fellow of six foot three interfered on my behalf, and after a fierce wrangle with his companions, which I had some hope might end in their all stabbing one another, motioned me to get into the carriage again. They then kicked the coachman, and we resumed our journey. But they have carried off every article of luggage we possess. I stand before you the owner of not so much as a toothbrush. Admit that the position is comical!"
"My diamonds!" exclaimed Annunziata, in a voice of poignant anguish—and I am sure every lady will sympathize with her in her bereavement.
"The very first thing they took, my dear," said the count calmly. "Annoying—but inevitable. Perhaps diamonds are not exactly the thing to travel with in your charming country. This, I suppose, is Amalfi. Well, one comfort is that we cannot well be robbed again on our return journey! I wonder whether the landlord here can provide me with a nightshirt and a bit of soap."
Leaving her husband to make investigations on this subject, Annunziata, as soon as she arrived at the inn, went up to her room to have a good cry over the fate of her jewels; for, rich as she was, the loss was a heavy one, and she knew enough of her native land to be aware of the extreme improbability of her ever recovering her property.
After she had bewailed herself for some time, she began to undress, and as she did so, a scrap of folded paper fell out of the front of her dress. She picked it up, and found that it contained these words, hastily scrawled in pencil: "If you want your diamonds, and have the courage to come for them, be at Ravello alone tomorrow evening, just after sunset!" Evidently this note must have been thrust into her dress by one of the brigands while she was insensible.
Annunziata never hesitated about keeping the appointment, not supposing that any harm could be intended to her, and being aware that she must be tolerably safe in Ravello, a moderately-sized village, before nightfall. Nevertheless she thought it might be wiser not to let her husband know of this strange communication. He would either forbid her to go, or would insist upon accompanying her; and the paper expressly said that she was to go alone.
On the following day she accordingly feigned to be too ill and upset by the events of the previous evening to undertake a fresh journey for the next twenty-four hours.
"As you will, my dear," said M. de Chagny resignedly; "I only beg you to remember that I am shirtless, brushless, razorless, and cigarless, and that the food in this enchanting spot, with the exception of the maccaroni, is of the most execrable."
"We will leave as early as you like tomorrow morning," said Annunziata; and her husband sauntered off to stretch himself full length upon the beach—to see but not to admire the lovely view—to throw stones into the sea and long for the slow hours to pass.
Towards evening Annunziata left her room, locking the door behind her and hoping the count would imagine it to be fastened on the inside, and slipped out of the house unobserved.
Ravello stands on the heights above Amalfi, and the footpath that leads to it lies through a rocky, wooded ravine, lonely enough, but not alarming to a courageous lady in quest of her diamonds in broad daylight. Annunziata climbed the hill with her light, elastic step, determined to reach the rendezvous before sunset. She was already within a short distance of the village when she became aware of a man wrapped in a long cloak, who was sitting on a rock by the wayside with his back turned towards her. She was tripping quickly past him; but he rose,
