The troops had scarcely entered this ravine when a sharp, shrill whistle rang from one side of the mountain to the other. Immediately human voices were heard on all sides, repeating in every pitch of tone, from bass to soprano, the word "Rione." For several minutes the mountain echoed with the weird sound of the brigand war-cry; the troops were ordered to stand in readiness, and timid hearts like Henry's quailed at the awful moment.
The earth rumbled under their feet, and dark, bluish columns of smoke curled in the air from the terrible cone; the sun was setting over the beautiful Bay of Naples in the color of blood, and the air was impregnated with the fumes of sulphur. The wilderness of the spot, and nature's terrors convulsing the elements around, made, indeed, the moment before battle a dreadful moment for the delicate children of the French banker.
A few minutes, and the battle was at its height. A long and dreadful contest ensued. The numbers were about equal on both sides. Fortunately, the brigands had not time to muster all at once, and the royalist troops met them in small but desperate bands. No sooner was one defeated than another and another poured down from the sides of the mountain and disputed every inch of the way. The brigands fought bravely, but were outnumbered, and towards midnight the bloodshed ceased. All sounds had died away save the groans of the wounded and dying, and now and then a solitary whoop of a brigand chief from the distant hills, calling together the few straggling and scattered bands of rebels.
The moment the heat of the combat was over the first thought that struck Charles was to look for Henry. They were separated in the confusion of the fight. She ran through the men, but could not find her. Here and there she could discern in the pale light of a clouded moon some knot of soldiers binding up their wounds and recounting their escapes and their triumphs. She hurriedly ran through them, enquiring for her brother-officer, but none knew anything of her. She scanned every feature, she called her in every group, but in vain—no Henry was there. The awful thought struck her—and her heart nearly broke under its pang—perhaps she is killed! She flew across the bloody path they had passed; her mournful and shrill cry of "Enrico!" rolled over the bodies of the slain, and was echoed again and again with plaintive intensity from the surrounding hills. Sometimes she even fancied the dying echo of her own shrill cry was the feeble answer of her wounded sister; and when she would pause to listen again, the valley around was wrapt in the stillness of death. At length she came to the spot where the battle first commenced, and there, with a shriek that was heard in the distant encampment, she found among the first victims of that bloody night the lifeless corpse of her sister.
Chapter XXII.
The Morning After the Battle.
The morning sun rose dimly in a bank of clouds. It found Charles still clinging to the remains of poor Aloysia, and bathing with kisses and tears the stiffened features of her beloved sister. With a silken kerchief she had bandaged the fatal gash on her neck, believing she might be only in a swoon and might recover. Hope, which is the last comfort to abandon man in his most desperate condition, scarcely retarded for Charles the awful reality of her bereavement.
The pale moon that has rolled over so many generations, and lent its dim, silvery light to so many thrilling vicissitudes, never looked down on a sadder scene. Death has no pang equal to the blow it give true affection. No language could describe what the heart feels on occasions like this. There sat the delicate French girl, alone in the dark night, on the side of Vesuvius, in the midst of the bleeding victims of the bloody fight, and clasping to her heart the cold, lifeless body of her ill-fated sister.
Her sudden and awful end, swept, perhaps, into eternity without a moment's notice, to be buried in the ashes of the volcano, amidst the dishonored remains of outlaws and murderers—does not the thought strike us that this sad fate was more the due of Alvira than the innocent and harmless Aloysia?