CHAPTER LXVIII. THE SUBTERRANEAN PASSAGE.
Amongst the surviving workmen who were defending the large front entrance to the manufactory was an old gray-headed man, who listened intently to the above conversation of the two chiefs. When Muzio uttered the last words, he exclaimed, "Coraggio, signors! If you wish to retire from this place, and to save the women, I know of a passage that will lead us out of danger."
A ray of hope broke upon the minds of the two friends when they heard there was a way of saving their beloved ones, and they immediately proceeded to avail themselves of it, for there was no time to be lost, as the enemy was preparing for a fresh attack.
Muzio approached Julia and Clelia, who were not far off, and obtained a promise, on the condition that he and Attilio would soon follow them, that they would take refuge under the escort of old Dentato and Jack in the subterranean passage. The other women would follow after them, and lastly our friends with all the remaining defenders of the factory.
And the wounded? Ah! if there be a circumstance that is harrowing and terrible in those butcheries of men called "battles," it is certainly that of abandoning one's own wounded to the enemy!
Povyri! In one moment the faces of your friends—of your brothers, who bewailed your hurt, who tended you with such gentleness, will disappear, to be succeeded by the revolting, horrible, and triumphant faces of the mercenaries. At the best they will be brutal; at the worst, they, infringing every right of war and of people, will steep their base bayonets in your precious blood! Cowards! who fled before you, and to whom you so often generously conceded their lives.
Supported by the 20,000 soldiers of the 2d of December, they have regained once more their spirits, and have forgotten that they owe their ignoble existences to you.
In St. Antonio (America), Italians fought against the soldiers of despotism, and many, very many were wounded. There, carried on their brothers' backs, or transported on horses, the wounded were removed. Not one was left* alive to be at the mercy of Rosa's cannibals.
And are the hirelings of the priests less cruel? At the station at Monte Rotondo, after the glorious assault of the 25th of October, three wounded men were lying awaiting the convoy that was to convey them to Terni, when the Pope's soldiers arrived. Worthy followers of the Inquisitors, they amused themselves with murdering our unhappy companions by stabbing them with their bayonets, and giving them blows with the butt-end of their guns.**
Oh, Italians, leave not in your enemy's power your wounded! It is too heart-rending a spectacle. If they be not murdered, they will remain at least to be mocked and jested at by those who are accustomed to outrage Italy.
Attilio and Muzio, though tired and wounded themselves, would not abandon their helpless comrades to the insults and the steel of the priests' soldiers.
In the lowest part of the factory, at the extremity of an immense room used for washing the wool, was a massive oak door, which appeared at first sight to lead to a channel of water which discharged itself into the Tiber. The canal really existed, but the door we have referred to did not lead to it, but to a subterranean passage, gained by a bridge built across this same canal. Into this underground vault a procession of the devoted women, the wounded, and the workmen, began to defile.
But in the priestly city, where education consists in being taught to play the hypocrite and to lie, traitors abound. And a traitor threw from one of the upper windows of the factory a written paper, whilst these brave people were retiring, informing the soldiery of the retreat of the defenders.
* It is painful to state it, but one man, hopelessly
wounded, was killed so that he should not be in the enemy's
power, who usually cut the throats of those they found alive
on the field,
** An historical fact.
The attack was no longer deferred, and an ever-increasing crowd of mercenaries and police threw themselves upon the barricade at the door, and rushed in. Only a few defenders remained. Had Attilio and Muzio been more careful of themselves, and taken to flight, they might perhaps have saved their lives. But too lavish of their blood were this pair of noble Romans. They did not fly; they remained to fight desperately for some time against that in-pouring stream of slaves.
Many were the assailants cut down upon the heap of dying and of dead. But heroes, like cowards, have only one life. The assailants were too numerous, and side by side the valorous champions of Roman liberty fell together, and exhaled their last breath.
Dentato, who had assisted in this last struggle, seeing that all hope of a successful resistance was over, favored by the darkness, and his acquaintance with the establishment, gained the washing-house, and thence the subterranean passage, closing the oak door from the outside upon that scene of blood, and barring it as well as he was able.
The hired assassins of the priesthood having no other motives than rapine and slaughter, inundated the factory with the hope of securing plunder and wreaking revenge. They never thought of the oaken back-door by which the surviving defenders of Italian liberty had escaped, until too late. Having discovered by-and-by that the building contained only corpses, they were reminded of the subterranean passage. They searched, inquired, and at length discovered the door leading to it. Some time elapsed before they succeeded in forcing open the obstacles which barred it, as well as in organizing an entry into the darkness, and all this gave the fugitives sufficient opportunity of placing themselves in safety.
In the first week of November, 1867, three females, an old man, and a lad in the bloom of youth, descended at the Leghorn station. At the head of this party stood one of those daughters of England, from whose pure and lofty countenance, sad though she was, and dressed in mourning, the heart derived new ideas of the dignity and happiness of life. Her lady companion was not less beautiful nor less sad, and displayed in the lovely lineaments of her face a different but exquisite feminine delicacy of the Southern type, such as Raphael portrayed in his Fornarina. The third woman was also comely; but sorrow had furrowed her forehead deeply, and a look of vacancy had settled upon her melancholy features. The old man, Dentato, whom Julia would not leave to misery and want, was occupying himself about the luggage.
Jack, with the vivacity of sixteen years, offered his arm to the ladies, to assist them as they alighted from the railway carriage. He quickly discovered Captain Thompson and his wife, the Signora Aurelia, who were awaiting them, and saluted the latter, who had a high regard for our sailor-lad. Jack alone was able to relate what had passed.
"Oh!" he said, "I have kissed their corpses," and a tear rolled down his cheek, cheek of Britannia's fair son. He spoke of the dead bodies of Orazio and Irene, who loved him so much, and who had been his preservers. They had been removed for burial along with the other sad relics of our noble friends.
The women embraced, weeping on each other's bosoms, but unable to articulate a word. After assisting at this mute scene for some time, and showing himself also much affected, Captain Thompson raised his head, and, approaching his mistress, addressed her, cap in hand, saying-
"Madam, the yacht is anchored off the pier, awaiting your orders; do you desire to go on board?"
"Yes, Thompson," she replied, "let us go on board, and set sail immediately, so as to get out of Italy; it has become the grave of all its best and most beautiful."
Julia sailed for merry England, and took kind care of her adopted family, to whom were added, after a time, Manlio and Silvia. Until they joined her in England, they had remained on the island of the Recluse.
Julia vowed she would not return to that unhappy country until Rome, freed from priestly despotism, would permit her to raise a worthy national monument to her heart's beloved, and to his heroic companions.