Chapter Forty Nine.
Evviva Ella Republica!
On returning to the town, a surprise awaited the sindico and his friends. Men, women, and children were running to and fro; the children screaming, the men and women giving utterance to loud shouts and exclamations. There had been a similar fracas on the first alarm of the brigands, but it had subsided as the soldiers started off to ascend the hill. What had caused it to break forth afresh? This was the question hurriedly exchanged between the returning townsmen. Could it be the robbers who had entered from the opposite side, and taken possession of the place? Was the skirmish on the hill only a feint to draw the soldiers out of the town? If so, it had succeeded; and the shouts now heard, with the rushing to and fro, were signs of a general pillage.
With sad hearts, they hastened on into the streets. They soon came in sight of the piazza. A crowd was collected in front of the sindico’s house—another by the albergo. Both were composed of armed men, not in any uniform, but in costumes of varied kind: peasants, proprietors, and men in broad-cloth habiliments of city life, all carrying guns, swords, and pistols. They were not citizens of Val di Orno; they were strangers, as could be seen at a glance. Neither did they appear banditti, though several of the soldiers who had lagged behind were now seen standing in the piazza, guarded as their prisoners! What could it mean? Who could the strangers be?
These questions were answered as the returning townsmen came near enough to distinguish the cries: “Evviva ella Republica! Abasso tyranni! Abasso il Papa!” At the same time a tricoloured flag shot up on its staff, proclaiming to the citizens of Val di Orno that their town was in possession of the Republicans! And so, too, was Rome at that moment. The Pope had fled, and the triumvirate—Mazzini, Saffi, and Aurelli—held rule in the Holy City.
A fresh surprise awaited the sindico on reaching his own house; his son Luigi stood in front of it—one of those who was vociferating the watchword of Liberty.
A hurried greeting passed between father and son. With a quick glance, the latter caught the expression of grief on his father’s countenance.
“What is wrong?” he asked. “There have been brigands here—where is my sister?”
A groan was the answer; this, and a hand raised in the direction of the hills.
“O God!” exclaimed the young man; “too late! Have I come too late? Speak, father! Tell me what has happened—where is Lucetta?”
“Poverina!—mia povera figlia!—gone, Luigi! Borne off by the brigand Corvino!”
The words were gasped out with the choking utterance of grief. The bereaved parent could say no more. He sank into the arms of his son.
“Friends!” cried Luigi Torreani to those who stood around listening; “comrades, I may call you! But for absence in a foreign land, I should have been one of you. I am one of you now, and henceforth. Here is my father, Francesco Torreani, the sindico of this town. You heard what he has said. His daughter—my sister—carried off by the brigands! And that with a hundred soldiers supposed to be protecting the place! This is the protection we get from the valiant defenders of the Holy Faith!”
“Defenders of the devil!” came a voice from the crowd.
“Worse than the brigands themselves,” added another. “I believe they’ve been in league with them all along. That’s why the scoundrels have so often escaped.”
“Quite true!” cried a third. “We know it. They’re in the pay of the Pope and his Majesty of Naples. That’s one of the ways by which our tyrants have controlled us.”
“You will stand by me, then?” said the young artist, his face brightening with hope. “You will help me to recover my sister? I know you will.”
“We will! we will!” answered a score of earnest voices.
“You may depend upon that, Signor Torreani,” said a man of imposing aspect, who was evidently the leader of the Republican troop. “The brigands shall be pursued, and your sister saved, if it be in our power. Nothing shall be left undone. But first we must dispose of these hirelings. See! they are coming down the hill. Into the houses, compagnos! Let us take them by surprise. Here, Stramoni, Giugletta, Paoli! On to the end of the street. Shoot down any one who attempts to go out and give them warning! Inside, compagnos!—in, in!”
In a score of seconds the piazza was cleared of the crowd, the strangers hurrying inside the houses, forcing along with them the soldier-prisoners whom they had taken. Half-a-dozen men hastened towards the suburbs, to cut off any communication that might be attempted between the citizens and soldiery, who were now returning en masse down the mountain slope, their captain at their head. Such of the townsmen as chose were allowed to remain in the streets, with a warning that any attempt at treason, made either by word or sign, would draw the fire of the Republicans upon them. Few of them stood in need of it. Under the administration of such a sindico, there were not many of the inhabitants of Val di Orno who did not secretly exult at the new order of things. They had already hailed with acclamation their deliverers from the city, and were joyed at the prospect of a Republic.
On came Guardiola at the head of his troop. The soldiers were marching in straggling disorder. The captain was not himself in the best of spirits. False as his love had been, he felt bitter chagrin at the girl having been carried away. His own recreance too, there was something to regret about that. Now that the excitement was over, he could not help thinking of it. With soiled shield and trailing pennon, he was returning into the town. He cared little for the sentiment of the citizens; less now that she was no longer among them. But his own followers had been witnesses of his cowardly conduct, and he would hear of it perhaps at headquarters. Captain, subalterns, and troop tramped back towards the town, observing neither rank nor caution. Little did they dream of the trap into which they were advancing. The measures of the Republican leader had been well taken. On each of the four sides of the piazza he had placed a portion of his force—distributed into nearly equal parts. Hidden by the blinds inside, they commanded the whole square, and could rake it with their fire through the windows and doors. The soldiers would have no chance. Once within the piazza they would be at the mercy of the Revolutionists. And into the piazza they came, utterly unconscious of the fate that awaited them. They had noticed the silence pervading the place, and wondered that their comrades, left behind, came not forth to greet them.
They were reflecting on the strangeness of these things when a loud voice, issuing from the inn, summoned them to surrender.
“Rendate, Capitano! Yield up your sword to the soldiers of the Republic!”
“What’s the meaning of this impertinence?” cried Guardiola, facing the albergo, and endeavouring to discover from whom proceeded the voice. “Sergeant,” he continued, “drag that man out into the street, and see that he has a score of blows upon the back—heavily laid on.”
“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed the voice, while the laughter was loudly echoed from the four sides of the square, and again the demand was repeated.
The carabineers unslung their firelocks, and faced in different directions, ready to make havoc among the jeering citizens, as they supposed them to be. They only waited for the word to fire into the windows and doors.
“We don’t want to spill your blood,” said the same stentorian voice, speaking from the albergo; “but if you insist upon it, we shall. Soldiers of the Pope! you are surrounded by soldiers of a higher power—the Republic. Your master is no longer in Rome. He has fled to Gaeta. Mazzini rules in the city, and we intend to rule here. You are completely in our power. The first of you that draws a trigger will be answerable for the sacrifice of your whole troop; for we shall not leave a man of you standing. Be wise, then, and surrender, as we tell you. Put down your arms, and we shall treat you as prisoners of war. Use them, and you shall have the treatment you more deserve—that accorded to hirelings and brigands!”
Guardiola and his troop were astounded. What could it mean—this summons so impudently and yet so confidently spoken? They stood irresolute.
“Compagnos!” cried the voice from the albergo, speaking as if from the interior of some Delphian shrine, and loud enough to reach the four sides of the square; “these worthy gentlemen seem to hesitate, as if they doubted the truth of my words. Convince them of it by showing the muzzles of your guns. When they have counted those, perhaps they will be less incredulous.”
Quick following upon this speech came the clanking noise of gun-barrels brought in collision; and, to the consternation of Guardiola and his carabineers, a score of windows around the piazza glistened with dark iron tubes that could not be mistaken for aught else than what they were. There appeared to be at least two hundred. One-fourth of the number would have been sufficient.
The soldiers saw that they were in an ambuscade—that the Revolution, long threatened, had at length come; and, without waiting for the sanction of Captain Guardiola or his subalterns, they flung their carbines to the ground, and declared themselves agreeable to a surrender.
In ten minutes after they were standing under the tricolour flag, and crying “Evviva ella Republica!” while their captain, swordless and looking very uncomfortable, was pacing a chamber floor in the albergo, to which but three days before he had consigned Henry Harding as a prisoner.
He was now himself a prisoner to the soldiers of the Republic.