Tough yarns, vol. 2 (of 2) — Background and Themes

Italy, must retain a lasting remembrance of its romantic beauties, its delicious climate, and the balmy odours exhaled from the glowing productions of its soil. It was in one of the most delightful parts of this luxuriant country, that Joachim Galeazzo cultivated his extensive vineyards; and his wealth and influence rendered him of considerable importance, not only in the immediate neighbourhood, but throughout the province where he resided. Possessed of a fine manly form, and endowed with a countenance of mild benevolence, it could be no wonder that he was united to a female whose loveliness first attracted his attention, and whose sweetness of disposition secured the best affections of his heart. Smiling little cherubs blessed their union, gladdening prospects crowned their industry, and happiness shed contentment on their days. It was delightful to see the interesting family group, after the heat of the day had subsided, assembling round the margin of the clear fountain to enjoy its refreshing coolness, or revelling on the verdant lawn and sporting in their innocence and gayety.

But this was a bliss too pure to continue long. That plague of kings and scourge of nations--ambition, urged Napoleon on to conquest; and war, with its attendant horrors, spread devastation through the fertile valleys, while ravages heightened by ruthless ferocity marked the progress of the invaders. In vain did the peasants rush to defend their country and their homes; the army of the conqueror advanced amid smoking ruins and burning villages, the ashes of which were quenched only by the blood of slaughtered victims. Galeazzo possessed a soul of undaunted courage, and he determined to exert his utmost efforts to repel the approaching storm. He assembled a band of the bravest of his countrymen, and a solemn oath was pledged upon the altar, that they would expel the sanguinary invaders from their native soil, or die in the attempt.

It was an affecting sight to see those self-devoted heroes parting from their families and friends. Mothers and maidens, amid all the anxious emotions which fill the female heart with apprehension, looked with glowing pride upon the men they loved; and the small but firm phalanx bade adieu to their peaceful habitations, and to those whom danger bound more strongly round their hearts, determined that no disgrace should tarnish their fair fame.

Galeazzo and his band of patriots marched towards the enemy, and nearly the whole of them fell in the desperate struggle for liberty. They had, however, inspired their countrymen with fresh vigour, and the career of Napoleon was for a short time checked. The gallant conduct of Galeazzo, who still survived, pointed him out as a fit person to assume a higher command; a number of select and well tried men were therefore placed at his disposal, and without risking a general engagement, he commenced that species of guerilla warfare which afterwards became so terrible to the French.

But fortune, which at first crowned the efforts of Galeazzo with success, at length forsook him. In an evil hour he fell into a snare that had been laid to entrap him: his men were either killed or dispersed; and wounded almost to death, he returned to his own estate to aid the flight of his family to the mountains.

Almost fainting with the loss of blood, he arrived at the midnight hour on the borders of his vineyards. But the hand of the destroyer had been speedy; the red hue of the crackling flames streamed upon his sight, and overpowered with agony and weakness, he sank to the ground behind a hedge of myrtle that screened him from observation. Insensibility would have been a blessing, but it came not; for though unable to rise from the spot where he had fallen, his mind was still acutely alive to all that passed within his view. He saw his little innocents butchered by the murderous hands of the inebriated troops; he saw his beautiful wife struggling in vain against the brutal violence of the soldiery; he beheld the bodies of his children--

“Their silver skins laced with their golden blood,”

thrown among the burning embers of their once happy home; his soul sickened at the spectacle, and his senses forsook him. At length the ruthless passions of the troops were satiated; demolition ceased, for there was nothing more to destroy, and they quitted the work of their impious hands to immolate other victims, and to offer fresh sacrifices at the shrine of Napoleon’s ambition.

Morning dawned upon the wretched sufferer, who awoke once more to sense and misery; yet all around was calm, except when the solemn stillness was broken by the piercing death-shriek of some poor wretch in his mortal agony, or the distant discharge of artillery, which told a tale of slaughter. Still serenely beautiful was the clear blue sky, tinged with the golden radiance of the sun; and the blushing flowers that had drunk the moistening dew breathed forth their odours to the morning breeze, blending the soul of sweetness with the cooling winds. But the song of the peasant, as he early plied his wonted task among the purple clusters of the vine, was heard no more. The very birds, scared by the blackening smoke that curled towards the heavens and like the blood of Abel cried from the ground for vengeance, had left the spot where desolation triumphed.

Life was rapidly passing away from the wretched Galeazzo; his wounds had burst out afresh in his struggles to rise, and he felt approaching dissolution spread its film over his eyes. Still he continued fearfully sensible of his situation, and waited for the hour when his mortal agony should cease.

At this moment, the whole expanse was filled with a wild unnatural yell, like the mingling laugh and shriek of the tortured maniac; and a female figure, her hair dishevelled and hanging down her bare and bleeding bosom, her white dress rent and deeply stained with human gore, appeared upon the lawn. Her left hand was writhed in the hair of a French soldier, who was wounded beyond the power of resistance; and with strength almost surpassing nature, she dragged him towards the still glowing ashes of her once joyous habitation. Her right hand grasped a dagger, which was reeking with blood, and there she stood like another Hecate over her fallen prey. There was a maddened laugh--a scream--a shout of triumph--as she buried the ruddy steel in the body of the soldier; then flashed it in the sun, and again plunged it to the hilt in his breast. She gazed on her prostrate enemy with the fiend-like expression of a demon, and seemed to feel a terrible gratification in turning over every mangled corpse that bore the uniform of France, and with a direful vengeance thrusting the dagger into many a heart that had long ceased to beat. Unsatiated by revenge, she looked round for fresh offerings to her fury, and at length came to the spot where Galeazzo was crouched,

“Breathing the slow remains of life away.”

She looked upon his sunken eye and hollow cheek, and raising the weapon in her hand, “Die! wretch,” said she; “for thou hast nought to live for now.” But nature refused compliance with her purpose; the dagger dropped from her unnerved grasp, and she fell senseless by his side:--it was his wife!

The French army continued to advance almost unmolested, and thousands fled to the mountains to escape the ravages of war. But though these remained quiescent and passive at first, yet when the impulse of terror had subsided, the guerillas again formed themselves into an organized band, and swore eternal enmity to France. Their leader was a man of dauntless intrepidity and cool determination. Ever foremost in the conflict and always the last in the retreat, he soon become a conspicuous object to the invaders; and when the army encamped near Capua, his single hand performed prodigies of valour. The outposts were constantly attacked; the sentinels, even in the very centre of the main body, were found dead upon their post; and but a few of the foraging parties ever returned to supply the wants of the soldiery. All succour was cut off from seaward by the British cruisers, and provisions began rapidly to diminish in spite of even the masterly commissariat of Bonaparte.

The officers had been accustomed to make excursions into the surrounding country; but this was at last forbidden, for there was scarcely a jutting crag or thicket that did not conceal a desperate enemy, whose shining blade or long fusee was prompt to deal destruction. In vain were whole brigades called out to scour the country; the guerillas were secure in their mountainholds, and bade defiance to their foes. Attempts were made to dislodge them from their positions, but they were utterly fruitless; for though a few prisoners fell into the hands of the French, and after suffering torture were hung upon the branches of trees as spectacles for their companions, yet this did but instigate them to firmer resolve and to deeper revenge.

The chief had been known repeatedly to visit the camp of the invading army in disguise; and once, on being detected and pursued, the bullets whistled around him in every direction; but he escaped unhurt, and superstition whispered that his body was impervious to shot. The sentinels declared that they had seen him assume a variety of shapes, for he was sometimes perceived in the form of a wolf stealing from bush to bush, and then he would suddenly emerge in all the vigour and prime of manhood; but pursuit seemed useless, for he was said to disappear so suddenly, that none but those who were under the protection of superhuman agency could otherwise have escaped. A general consternation spread among the soldiery; even the commanders caught the infection, and this desperate leader became known to the whole army under the appellation of Frere du Diable. Large rewards were set upon his head; many of the officers bound themselves by oath to take him dead or alive, but their oath was generally sealed in death. Oftentimes when the wine was set upon the convivial board, and the canvass walls echoed to the sounds of mirth, the alarm was given that Frere du Diable was in the camp, and every weapon was prepared and every eye alert for action. Oftentimes at the evening hour, when the generous wine had warmed the flagging courage, would some one or other, more bold than his companions, laugh at their pusillanimity and swear to destroy the common foe; but the morning light generally saw him a corpse, with some certain token that either Frere du Diable or one of his comrades had dealt the blow.

It was about this time that Sir Sidney Smith commanded a fine frigate in the Mediterranean, and few men were better adapted for the conducting that sort of amphibious warfare which attended the hostilities on the shores of Italy. Dauntless intrepidity and daring resolution were mingled with a skilful knowledge of his profession; and there was a certain degree of romantic enthusiasm in his enterprises, which strongly displayed his adventurous and chivalrous spirit. The defeat of the French at Acre, and other places, was an incontestible proof how well he could conduct operations on land; and in boarding and cutting out the vessels of the enemy from under the embrasures of well-mounted batteries, or in storming the batteries themselves, his cool courage and his steady skill were regarded as pledges of victory by the intrepid seamen. But his chief delight was to lead his men under the cover of the twilight glow of an Italian night through the dark mazes of the forest, or winding among the huge masses of rock that lined the coast, where the wild guerilla crossed his path or joined his band and gave intelligence of the enemy.

It would be impossible for language to do adequate justice to such a scene. The slow movements of a hundred men, who crept from bush to bush without a whisper,--the cautious and silent advance upon the enemy,--the red watch-fire that marked the temporary encampment of the French, and the occasional challenge of the drowsy sentinel at the outpost, which died away upon the breeze as tranquillity was restored,--the crouching down in breathless silence till suspicion was lulled,--oh! there was a degree of enchantment in the whole which then was realized, but cannot now be described.

To the seamen these expeditions were a source of real amusement, and they afforded them repeated opportunities for indulging in their characteristic humour. When the word was passed for the boats to be manned, (and none but volunteers were permitted to go with the captain,) the hoarse voice of the boatswain’s mate followed his shrill pipe, and as the words “Bush-fighters away!” resounded down the hatchways, every man fore-and-aft knew the purport of the summons, and all would have gladly joined the party for the shore.

But though I say all, it must be admitted that the old master was an exception; he would have fought the devil himself in his ship, or would have run her flying jib-boom into the very quarters of his satanic majesty if he had caught him afloat; but he had no idea of “land privateering,” as he termed it. “A sailor,” he said, “always gets out of soundings ashore, and without knowing his bearings and distances, generally runs upon a false reckoning.” The fact was, he was as much a piece of the frigate as any timberhead in her hull; and nothing short of being wrecked or blown up could have separated them.

Sir Sidney had obtained intelligence that Frere du Diable was in the neighbourhood of his cruising ground, and wishing to communicate with him for the purpose of ascertaining the precise situation and operations of the French, the boats were manned and armed, and an hour before day-break the whole party landed in a small cove formed by rocks that entirely concealed from view the means of debarkation.

Leaving the principal portion of the men by the boats, with strict orders to the officer not to suffer any one to stray away, but to be extremely vigilant, Sir Sidney, with a lieutenant, two midshipmen, and twelve men, proceeded on his way over rock and stone, through bush and briar, towards the spot where it was most probable the guerilla chief would be found. It was a lovely morning; the stars still glistened in the clear blue heaven of an Italian sky, and there was that sort of dubious light which greatly added to the beauty of the romantic scenery. Sometimes the party had to climb by aid of their hands and knees to the summit of the frowning precipice, and at others to slide down huge masses of rock; so necessary was it to keep from every beaten track, for the purpose of avoiding any stragglers from the enemy’s camp, who might raise an alarm.

At length, after considerable exertion, and just as the sun appeared above the verge of the horizon, they arrived at a place in the interior of a thick forest and nearly at the extreme height of the mountain, which evidently displayed strong lines of defence, but so inartificially contrived as to appear more the work of nature than the hand of man. Huge trees lay piled in various directions as if thrown down by some gust of the wild tempest, yet in such positions as to afford occasional shelter to a retreating party, and offering an admirable post for harassing an advancing foe.

Scarcely was the first of these barriers passed, when a shrill whistle sounded close to them, and in a few minutes they burst into an open space that had been cleared of the underwood, and some of the trees now formed a pleasant alcove. Here the scene became highly interesting; it was one of those such as Salvator Rosa would have gloried in transferring to the canvass. In one corner upon an elevated mound so as to command a view of the whole area, sat a majestic-looking figure, with a countenance of mild serenity, but yet of a commanding aspect. Over his shoulders was hung the skin of a wolf, and the lower part of his body was enveloped in a cloak of furs. The butts of his pistols were just seen as they stuck in his broad girdle; a heavy sword and a carbine lay by his side, and in his hand he held that peculiar kind of knife so well known as the favourite weapon of the guerilla. Resting upon one knee, and with her arm leaning on his shoulder, was a female of great beauty; she was gazing tenderly upon him, but at intervals there was a fierce flashing of the eyes, an agitated contortion of feature, that rendered her terrible to the sight. There was nevertheless a fascinating beauty still, though it was constantly changing from the glance of fervid affection to the fiend-like expression of a fallen angel. These were Frere du Diable and his wife: or in other words, Galeazzo and Camilla.

The guerilla band were assembled in separate groupes, yet so connected as to be ready for action at a moment’s warning. Some were stretched upon the ground and still buried in the deep sleep which exertion and fatigue render so delicious to the weary frame; others were awakening from their slumbers and stretching their sinewy limbs, whilst a few were examining their arms and polishing their knives.

The shrill whistle again sounded, when a single blast from a bugle aroused every soul in an instant, and carbine in hand, they stood prepared for battle! Sir Sidney advanced, was immediately recognised, and a loud shout of joy proclaimed his welcome. The guerillas laid down their arms, and received the seamen with demonstrations of attachment. The chiefs met and embraced in token of amity, whilst the beautiful Camilla testified her satisfaction at seeing the enemies of the French. A multitude of conflicting feelings seemed to agitate her soul as she pressed the hand of Sir Sidney to her heart, and called upon him as “the avenger of blood.”

As soon as order was restored, the two chiefs held a conference together; after which refreshment was spread upon the green sward, consisting of dried venison, hard cheese, bread, fruits, and wine. On the elevated mound Galeazzo, Sir Sidney, Camilla, and the British officers, were seated upon the grass. Behind the guerilla chief, a little to the right, stood the bugleman, and on the left the sword-bearer, both prompt to obey commands. The seamen joined in the messes of the band, and the utmost harmony prevailed. A few minutes had elapsed since these arrangements were made, when suddenly a bright flash was seen among the bushes on the opposite side to that where the chief sat, and as the report of fire-arms echoed among the rocks, the bugleman fell dead upon Sir Sidney’s shoulder. All parties were instantly on their feet, and the chiefs dealt mutual looks of distrust at each other. It was evident that the ball had been designed for one of them, and suspicion pervaded the minds of both that treachery was at work. The dauntless look of defiance was exchanged; but it was only momentary, for the shrill voice of Camilla was heard. “Do they seek the lion in his den?” she exclaimed with bitterness. “On, on, and destroy the common foe!”

The features of the guerilla changed; he grasped Sir Sidney’s hand with impetuosity, gazed for a moment on the corpse, and then seizing the bugle, blew a blast so loud and shrill, that every rock and glen re-echoed the sound. He ceased, and the whole band stood in breathless silence, watching their leader who appeared like a statue; but no sound was heard, except the gentle rustling of the leaves in the morning breeze. Again with wild haste the chief raised the bugle and sounded louder and longer than before, and again all subsided to the deepest attention. At length, answering blasts were heard in different directions, and the chief, dashing the bugle on the ground, gave orders for the immediate departure of the band. Sir Sidney wished to accompany him, but this offer was politely declined; yet, turning to Camilla, he requested her to remain with the English captain till his return. She gave her husband a look of stern reproach. “Am I not bereaved?” said she. “Is not the blood of my offspring on their hands? Will not the wolf fight for her whelps, and shall I shrink? On, on, Galeazzo! the death shriek of my murdered children is ringing in my ears, and nought but deep and terrible revenge can satisfy me now!”