Mezzoni the Brigand — page 29: what you’re looking at

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

MEZZONI THE BRIGAND. 21 There was this peculiarity, as it regarded the operations of the King of the Mountains, that Ital- ians did not seem to be put under contributions to supply his purse; it was foreigners only who were compelled to replenish his exchequer. This was un- doubtedly one reason why the Neapolitans were not more restive under his depredations—they were not the immediate sufferers. The activity of the government even was more the result of foreign pressure brought to bear upon it than from any sense of self-respect or regard for the sacredness of the law. They assumed a virtue if they had it not, and, after offering a heavy reward for the head of the famous outlaw, the officials seemed to think they had performed their duty. About a month had transpired since the robbery of the store of Woolf & Co., when a party of Ameri- cans, consisting of two ladies and two gentlemen, who had been passing the day in examining that un- equaled curiosity, the exhumed city of Pompei, were just starting at twilight to return to Naples. They were all seated together in a two-horse vehicle, driven by an Italian coachman. Scarcely had they got fairly under way upon the road, passing a very thinly inhabited section, when the carriage was suddenly stopped by a couple of men on foot, one pointing his pistol at the driver and informing him that if he moved from his seat, or started his horses, he was a dead man, while the other, presenting himself at the door of the vehicle, pistol in hand, demanded the purses and watches of the party. One of the gentlemen instantly sprang mnt of the vehicle, and struck the highwayman a blow that felled him to the earth as though he had been hit co Eomicbooks