I knew so little or had forgotten so much that I
scarcely deserved to be taken down into the crypt of this church and
shown the skeletons of four conspirators for Anjou whom Aragon had put
to death--two laymen and an archbishop by beheading, and a woman by
dividing crosswise into thirds. The skeletons lay in their tattered and
dusty shrouds, and I suppose were authentic enough; but I had met them,
poor things, too late in my life to Avish for their further
acquaintance. Once I could have exulted to search out their story and
make much of it; but now I must leave it to the reader's imagination,
along with most other facts of my observation in Naples.
I was at some pains to look up the traces of my lost youth there, and if
I could have found more of them no doubt I should have been more
interested in these skeletons. Eor forty-odd years I had remembered the
prodigious picturesqueness of certain streets branching from a busy
avenue and ascending to uplands above by stately successions of steps.
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