Why?" asked the first.

"Because he can't speak Italian," said the second, who, although a Lombard, was established at Sora. The man who had wished me good evening was from Desanzano.

After keeping along the Imperial road until they were some ten or twelve yards outside the walls, they turned to the right and disappeared in a kind of valley. I retraced my steps and warned the Commissary of Police at Sora, whom I took with me to the place where I had left the two individuals; two agents were with him. I advised him to follow the suspected men at a distance until they came to the place of deposit, which could not be far off. Then, with rapid steps, I continued on my way to Trent.

The next morning, when I entered the office of the Commissary of Police, I found the Commissaries from Sora, who were full of joy at having discovered the store, comprising forty-two guns, thirty-seven sabres, powder, cartridges, etc., and at having arrested the two men.

These two worthies could not understand how I had managed to ferret out the depository in two days, when they had been looking for it for a month past and had discovered no trace of it.

A couple of hours after that I arrived at Venice with the arms and ammunition, which the Commissary of Sora carried to the Prefecture. I will add,

in justice to him, that although I was not present, he told the Emperor's Lieutenant that he had only executed my orders. He was given two hundred florins (500 fr.), and fifty florins for each of his agents (250 fr.), in all seven hundred and fifty francs. When I went that evening to see the Chief of Police he gave me one thousand florins (2,500 fr.) from Baron Tanneberg. This affair, therefore, cost the Government of Vienna three thousand two hundred and fifty francs. All that was found in the house in which the arms were secreted did not amount to this sum. It is but veracious to say that the Austrian Government may allow their soldiers to die of hunger, while their spies ride in carriages.

CHAPTER L.

ESPIONAGE AT FLORENCE.

DURING my stay in Venice I had the honour several times of seeing the Comte de Chambord, his nephew, Prince Robert of Parma, and his brother-in-law, the Duke of Modena, and they all invariably received me with kindness, especially if they heard I had been playing the Piedmontese some good turn.

The year 1866 went by swiftly, and every day an attack by Victor Emmanuel was expected. Major Tolozzi, a Garibaldian officer, threw himself with a handful of red-shirts into the Tyrol, but unsupported by his party he was crushed.

This attack by the Garibaldians opened up a new field to journalists. Those of the Piedmontese Minister (who were under French pressure) maintained that the advanced party wished to furnish Austria with arms and force her to violate the treaty of Villafranca by marching on Rome. The Republican journals attacked the Government in

cessantly, because they left their brothers the Venetians to languish in chains. Reports from several agents whom we had sent to Turin and Florence pointed out an unusual bustle at the War-Office and amongst the Garibaldian Committee. Even the journals hinted that the second campaign was about to begin on the banks of the Po. All these rumours at length obtained such credit at Vienna that the Minister for War wrote directly to the Governor to assure himself of the facts, and send him an official report of them.

One evening the Emperor's Lieutenant summoned me to his palace and ordered me to set out immediately for Florence. I was to write nothing conjectural, to report nothing except what I had seen and touched myself. My letters were to be entrusted to no one except certain persons whom he himself would send from Venice every Sunday, and on the Sundays on which I had nothing positive to state I was only to say, "There is nothing new."

With the practice I had had in certain matters, and these instructions, the reader will understand that I was to use every means of finding out all that was official in the newspaper articles and the reports of the secret agents.

When I left the room, the Governor, Baron de Tanneberg, gave me one thousand florins (2,500 fr.) and a letter of credit for two thousand florins (5,000

fr.) on the firm of Fenzi, banker, No. 1, Place des Seigneurs, Florence.

"Here is money enough to keep you for some time in Florence. Go to Milan, Turin, Genoa, and even Naples, if necessary, in order to ascertain the true state of affairs.

"I will do my utmost to please your Excellency," said I; "but I think that the best thing I can do will be to remain in Florence, the seat of government. Anything I may hear elsewhere would have no official value unless it had passed through the Ministerial offices."

"Do as you like," replied Baron Tanneberg; "but where am I to tell the agent to meet you on Sunday?"

"Tell him to be in the principal church in the city, near the font, at exactly twelve o'clock a.m. He will know me by the words, 'Who said that?' which I will utter as I pass on his left."

Two days after that I was passing listlessly amidst the crowd which swarmed in the Casino, the magnificent promenade on the banks of the Arno, a short distance outside the city. I had taken rooms at No. 17, Via Calsaioli, and dined at the table d'hôte at the Hotel de l'Etoile, taking coffee and reading the papers at the Grand Café de l'Etoile de l'Italie, whilst I waited for something to happen.

The few political men whom I saw told me nothing beyond what I could read every day in the daily