“Shortly after the plot was discovered,” he proceeds to say, “I received several anonymous letters, advising me to discontinue my forest rides; but I entertained no apprehensions of treachery, and was more on horseback than ever.  I never stir out without being well armed, nor sleep without pistols.  They knew that I never missed my aim; perhaps this saved me.”

An event occurred at this time at Ravenna that made a deep impression on Lord Byron.  The commandant of the place, who, though suspected of being secretly a Carbonaro, was too powerful a man to be arrested, was assassinated opposite to his residence.  The measures adopted to screen the murderer proved, in the opinion of his Lordship, that the assassination had taken place by order of the police, and that the spot where it was perpetrated had been selected by choice.  Byron at the moment had his foot in the stirrup, and his horse started at the report of the shot.  On looking round he saw a man throw down a carbine and run away, and another stretched on the pavement near him.  On hastening to the spot, he found it was the commandant; a crowd collected, but no one offered any assistance.  His Lordship directed his servant to lift the bleeding body into the palace—­he assisted himself in the act, though it was represented to him that he might incur the displeasure of the government—­and the gentleman was already dead.  His adjutant followed the body into the house.  “I remember,” says his Lordship, “his lamentation over him—­’Poor devil he would not have harmed a dog.’”

It was from the murder of this commandant that the poet sketched the scene of the assassination in the fifth canto of Don Juan.

   The other evening (’twas on Friday last),
      This is a fact, and no poetic fable—­
   Just as my great coat was about me cast,
      My hat and gloves still lying on the table,
   I heard a shot—­’twas eight o’clock scarce past,
      And running out as fast as I was able,
I found the military commandant
Stretch’d in the street, and able scarce to pant.

   Poor fellow! for some reason, surely bad,
      They had him slain with five slugs, and left him there
   To perish on the pavement:  so I had
      Him borne into the house, and up the stair;
The man was gone:  in some Italian quarrel
Kill’d by five bullets from an old gun-barrel.

   The scars of his old wounds were near his new,
      Those honourable scars which bought him fame,
   And horrid was the contrast to the view—­
      But let me quit the theme, as such things claim
   Perhaps ev’n more attention than is due
      From me:  I gazed (as oft I’ve gazed the same)
To try if I could wrench aught out of death
Which should confirm, or shake, or make a faith.