While these things were pending, very different scenes were taking place at the French consulate, for great preparations were going on for a mask-ball which was about to take place there.
It may, perhaps, appear strange to some readers that any one could have the heart to engage in gaieties in the midst of such horrible scenes of injustice, cruelty, and death, but it must be remembered that human beings have a wonderful capacity for becoming used and indifferent to circumstances the most peculiar—as all history assures us—and it must also be borne in remembrance that the unfortunate Sicilian captives, whose sorrows and sufferings we have tried to depict, were a mere fraction of the community in the midst of which they suffered. It is probable that the great body of the people in Algiers at that time knew little, and cared less, about the Riminis and their brethren.
dent was soon nearly forgotten. Two and a half centuries afterwards (in December 1853) the French, while carrying out their improvements in the town, destroyed the ancient "Fort of the Twenty-four Hours," but were warned, by one who was well read in the history of the place, to be careful on razing a certain part of the walls to examine them well. They did so, and found the body of Geronimo—or, rather, the mould formed by his body, which latter, of course, had crumbled to dust. A plaster cast was taken from this mould, and this cast—which gives an almost perfect representation of the martyr lying on his face, with his hands tied behind bis back—is now in the museum of the library of Algiers.
