The robbers' cave

by A. L. O. E.

It need scarcely be said that the Sabbath was no holy season to the robbers. It was passed with rather more of noisy riot than the preceding day had been. There was more of the wild mirth so forcibly described as "the crackling of thorns under the pot," the laughter which makes the thoughtful listener more sad than sounds of woe. The robbers gambled, danced, reveled, swore.

Raphael was the especial target for their coarse jests, which he bore as one who was accustomed to endurance, a veteran in suffering, though young in years. Horace marveled how long the improvisatore had been subjected to the daily martyrdom of such an existence, a constant chafing and fretting like that of the waves against some solitary headland.

Raphael, during the first part of the day, appeared to avoid the society of the prisoner; he neither addressed nor even looked towards him. It seemed to Horace that the young Italian did not wish his comrades to see that there was any community of thought or sympathy between them; and Horace felt that to have been recognized as the friend of the Rossignol would have increased the difficulties of his own position. It would have been like leaning on a lightning conductor while thunder was growling above.

When gambling had succeeded to more noisy revels, the improvisatore approached Enrico, who was seated amid a group of his rude companions outside the cave. Horace, from his favorite seat under the oak, where he enjoyed comparative seclusion, watched with interest the movements of the brothers, though he could not overhear their conversation. Raphael laid his hand on Enrico's shoulder, stooped down, and whispered something in his ear. Enrico, who had a dice-box in his hand, frowned and shook his head with a gesture of impatience. Again there was a low whisper, and the robbers around burst into mocking laughter. Distress, indecision were stamped upon the face of Enrico, and as Horace viewed on the one side the anxious, pleading look of the brother, on the other the dark glances of his reckless companions, he seemed to behold, in human embodiment, spirits of good and of evil contending for the possession of a soul. This time the good appeared to gain the mastery, for Enrico, suddenly flinging dice and dice-box on the ground, sprang to his feet, and followed his brother down the rocks into the forest, in whose recesses they were soon lost to view.

They were absent for more than an hour, and on their return Enrico looked sadder and more subdued, with folded arms and downcast eyes, he emerged from the shadow of the trees. Horace suspected that the interview had had some relation to himself, for Enrico, after mounting to the rocky platform, stood for some moments before his prisoner, surveying him with a fixed and inquiring gaze, then, as if answering some question to himself, he shook his head and turned sadly away.

When, in the hottest and most oppressive part of the day, the banditti retired for their accustomed siesta, the improvisatore joined Horace under the oak. Again was the Testament produced, and again the prisoner and his companion drank deeply of its life-giving truths. He who has never known severer thirst than that which makes a draught of cold water refreshing on a summer's day, can scarcely conceive the feverish eagerness of the traveler in the desert, when, exhausted and parched with thirst, he bends over the lonely well. Raphael was treading the wilderness of life, the scorching sun of temptation above him, the burning sands of tribulation beneath his feet, and the Scriptures were to him as the cooling waters to the pilgrim ready to perish.

"I wish," said Horace, when at length there was a pause in the reading, "that you would tell me how you ever came to lead this strange life amongst robbers, and what induces you, unfettered as you are, to remain in this horrible place. Enrico has told me that your father was an officer of gentle birth. How came the sons of such a man to dwell in the haunts of banditti?"

Raphael sighed as he made answer. "My father was of an honorable family; but his own heroic virtues would have ennobled any descent. He was 'without fear and without reproach'; his name had never been coupled with disgrace. I was but a child when I last saw my father, but well do I remember—never can I forget—how I used to clamber on his knee and play with his sword-knot; and how he would lay his hand on my head and tell me that I should one day serve the king, and that the duty of a brave soldier is simply prompt, unswerving obedience—obedience even unto death.

"And the lesson which my father gave to his child, he sealed with his blood. He received orders to defend a mountain pass from the enemy with a small body of troops that were placed under his command. I know not—it was never clearly ascertained—whether in the confusion of a general retreat that small band was actually forgotten, or whether the commander had found it impossible to send reinforcements to its aid; but it was isolated, unsupported, and attacked by a greatly superior force.

"Some of those under my father's command urged the necessity of retreat; resistance, they said, was hopeless; to attempt to defend the pass was but to throw away the lives of his men.