Raphael and Horace little guessed that a timid delicate woman, foiled in her efforts to save her son in one way, had attempted another, with the energy given by desperation to maternal love. There had been a carriage and a lady within it; there had been postilions and outriders; the appearance of the equipage had been such as to awake cupidity, but not arouse alarm. But the banditti were soon to find out that the hands which held bridles were such as had been accustomed to grasp the sword. The luggage on the carriage consisted of sabres and carbines; and the travelers within it, save one, were soldiers chosen for courage and strength. Gold had, indeed, been lavished with unsparing hand by the almost despairing mother; and now, notwithstanding constitutional nervousness and delicacy of frame, Mrs. Cleveland risked her own life amidst clashing steel and flying bullets in order to lure from their secret fastness, and draw within reach of the arm of justice, those who in perilous captivity held her only son!
What was the result of the conflict we shall hear in the following chapter.
[CHAPTER XVIII.]
VICTORY.
"Onward, onward! Now or never must we make a struggle for freedom!" exclaimed Horace. "If your strength fail you, Enrico, lean upon me. This is no time for giving way to weariness; and as for hesitation and doubt—"
"The firing has ceased!" gasped Enrico. "We know not who are the victors."
"The right has conquered, be sure of that!" cried Horace, whose countenance, beaming with hope and flushed with excitement, presented a strong contrast to that of Enrico, livid even to ghastliness! The young bandit in his dripping garments looked more like the corpse of a drowned man than one through whose veins the warm blood of life was coursing.
"Come on!" again exclaimed the impatient youth; and almost dragging his companion forward, Horace hurried on for a few paces, and suddenly confronted—Matteo!
Defeat, disaster, despair, were stamped on the dark lineaments of the chieftain, distinct as the blood-marks on face and hand. It was the wounded lion driven back into the shelter of his native jungle, who hears behind him the bay of the bloodhounds, the shout of the hunters on his track! Matteo had seen all his followers, save Marco, slain or taken, and then, not till then, had he dashed aside opposing weapons and plunged into the depths of the thicket. He had paused but once, and that was to reload a pistol, less to provide for defence than to assure himself that he should never fall alive into the hands of his foes.
Before this desperate man stood his prisoner, his Italian companion at his side. No thought of apparitions roused in Matteo superstitious dread; he doubted not that in mortal flesh and blood, he beheld a traitor and an escaping hostage, a hostage for the son of whose ignominious death he on that very night had heard!