"There be ways of shackling tongues as well as limbs!" he exclaimed, resting his right hand on the butt of his pistol, and glaring at young Cleveland as if he had touched a wound.
Horace made no attempt to pursue the conversation so rudely interrupted. The banditti began to amuse themselves with dirty cards, gambling away their ill-earned spoils; and Horace, as he sat watching them in silent disgust from under his tree, saw many things that had belonged to himself and his mother staked and lost in play.
Then came the noonday meal of maccaroni and the peculiar fruit of the cactus, which was eaten in the open air, and of which the prisoner, with a rude hospitality, was invited by the robbers to partake. The day had now become oppressively hot, and the banditti, after the fashion of their country, stretched themselves on the ground to enjoy their afternoon siesta.
Horace did not sleep; even had he been in the habit of conforming to this Italian custom, he would now have felt too restless and anxious to do so. In a half-recumbent position he remained listening to the loud, monotonous noise of the cicala, a kind of beetle that all day long fills the air with its harsh grating sound, and watching the lizards as with quick motion, their lithe, slender forms glanced in and out of holes in the rock. Familiarity with the sight of the robbers had rather lessened his fears of danger from them, and though Horace had small hope of effecting his escape by any efforts of his own, he had strong expectations that the unwearied exertions of his mother would avail to procure his release.
When the sun, sloping towards the west, was throwing the broad shadow of the mountain across the valley which stretched in front of the cave, the banditti prepared to start upon some lawless expedition. The day of listless indolence and reckless gambling was probably to be succeeded by an evening of crime. Horace was well pleased to find that Matteo had no intention of dragging his captive with him into the woods. The youth had exchanged no word with the chief on that day, but before the robber quitted his mountain haunt, he strode up to Horace, and addressed him with an expression of savage determination upon his hard features, that was calculated to inspire more fear than the tenor of his words.
"I need hardly command you, boy, not to stir beyond this platform of rock, as—even were you unfettered—it would be impossible for you to find your way through yon forest without a guide. It may be as well, however, to remind you, that these woods are our familiar haunts, that watch is kept there by night and by day, and that a network surrounds you there which you would feel before you saw it. Were you detected in any insane attempt to break through the toils, short and sharp would be the means taken to curb your restless humor. You are not the first prisoner whom I have kept for ransom, and I have found a little iron in the foot a more effectual restraint than a great weight of iron around it."
"Ay," joined in Beppo, who had overheard the threat, "the procuratore of Garda will go halting for the rest of his life, as a token that he passed one night in the den of the wolf, and tried to make his escape in the morning!"
[CHAPTER X.]
THE LONE SENTINEL.
Horace had not been left many minutes to ruminate over the bandit's parting warning, when the sound of a melody, warbled in rich tones which, once heard, could ever afterwards be recognized, announced to his glad ear that the Rossignol was coming through the forest. Little as the captive had seen of the improvisatore, he yet welcomed him as a friend.