"Here's a garment more to my mind!" he cried. And flinging down his bundle of woman's clothes, the robber seized hold of the indignant and struggling captive, and by force dispossessed him of his coat.
The gang gathered around, much amused at the scene, laughing uproariously at the vain passionate resistance of Horace.
"There's more peel on the orange," cried one, and the young captive might have had to submit to further indignities had not Enrico come to the rescue.
"Hold!" he cried. "The prisoner is in my charge, no one has a right to touch him but me."
"For seven days," said Beppo significantly, "he'll want no clothes after that." And putting out his large, coarse foot, he added with a laugh, "In seven days, I'll have hosen and boots. I take it that his will just fit me!"
"It's a shame to dig a man's grave before his eyes!" exclaimed Enrico.
"Shame!" repeated Beppo angrily. "Don't come it your brother over us; it's enough to have one lunatic in a family, say I."
Without taking any notice of the insult, Enrico touched Horace on the shoulder and bade him come with him; which the youth was ready enough to do—it being an unutterable relief to him to be removed, even for a short time, from the company of the rest of the lawless band. Enrico led his captive into the deep recesses of the wood, seeming to find his way by instinct through the darkness in which shining fireflies glanced and played.
Horace envied them their liberty. He walked with difficulty and pain. His fetters not only impeded his movements but chafed his ankles. He stumbled over the inequalities of the ground, struck against branches which he could not see, and his chain caught and entangled in brambles, and he often felt inclined to throw himself down on the ground in utter despair of getting on. Enrico neither pitied nor appeared to notice his sufferings, but hurried him on through the thicket.
Horace, who, notwithstanding his fetters, grasped strongly the hope of future escape, was eagerly on the watch for landmarks, and strained his eyes in the darkness to find some. The rippling sound of water, and the occasional glimpse which he caught through the trees of what appeared to be a stream, seemed to supply something like a guide. His hope strengthened as the noise increased so greatly that Horace felt certain that they were approaching a cataract plunging down the side of the mountain, the roar of waters could not be mistaken, though nothing was visible to the eye. Before Enrico reached what must be the head of the fall, he turned sharply round to the left, and grasping his captive by the wrist, made him follow in the same direction.