Mezzoni the Brigand — page 148: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

140 MEZZONI THE BRIGAND. sorry plight. Their story caused great excitement. One of the men had got what would doubtless prove a fatal pistol wound, a second was dangerously stabbed in the side, the detective had a severe flesh wound and was weak from the loss of blood, while the third officer had a bruise from his fall which dis-. abled him. How seriously the fugitive was hurt they could not tell. They only knew that he had bled profusely, though his strength had by no means deserted him at the very last of the encounter. “You should have shot the man at the outset,”’ said the impulsive prefect. ‘‘Our warrant was for arrest,’’ said the detective, quietly. ‘Very true, and you were to use the necessary means to accomplish it.”’ ‘“We take life only as the very last resort in my country,’’ was the reply. “No doubt that is the best asa rule, but I don’t like to see my men all disabled.’’ ‘He won’t escape again,’’ said one or two officers, significantly. ‘They would shoot him at sight.”’ The authorities were puzzled, in this condition of affairs, how to proceed in relation to the Countess Amadeo. No guilt was traceable to her. The fact of her harboring Alberto for a brief moment consti- tuted no crime, as he had not up to that time been declared amenable to the law. She had not resisted the officers who entered her house at midnight, and up to the present hour certainly no lady in Naples had a more unsullied fame. Her position was one which they did not like to assail lightly. Her social grade had been very high, and her late husband had been in the receipt of dis- comicboo ‘S.CO