‘You ‘ll have the drums beat to arms now; there’s little time to lose. Our cuirassiers will soon be upon them,’ cried another, in ecstasy.
‘No, but the rain will, and upon us, too,’ said Giorgio, who had now come up; ‘don’t you see that it’s not a battle yonder, it’s a burrasca. There it comes.’ And as if the outstretched finger of the dwarf had been the wand of a magician, the great cloud was suddenly torn open with a crash, and the rain descended like a deluge, swept along by a hurricane wind, and came in vast sheets of water, while high over our heads, and moving onward towards the sea, growled the distant thunder. The great mountain was now visible from base to summit, but not a soldier, not a gun, to be seen! Swollen and yellow, the gushing torrents leaped madly from crag to crag, and crashing trees, and falling rocks, added their wild sounds to the tumult.
There we stood, mute and sorrow-struck, regardless of the seething rain, unconscious of anything save our disappointment. The hope we built upon had left us, and the dreary scene of storm around seemed but a type of our own future! And yet we could not turn away, but with eyes strained and aching, gazed at the spot from where our succour should have come.
I looked up at the watch-tower, and there was Massena still, his arms folded, on a battlement; he seemed to be deep in thought. At last he arose, and, drawing his cloak across his face, descended the winding-stair outside the tower. His step was slow, and more than once he halted, as if to think. When he reached the walls, he walked rapidly on, his suite following him.
‘Ah, Monsieur Tiernay,’ said he, as he passed me, ‘you know what an Apennine storm is now; but it will cool the air and give us delicious weather’; and so he passed on with an easy smile.
CHAPTER XXXVII. MONTE DI PACCIO
The disappointment we had suffered was not the only circumstance adverse to our expedition. The rain had now swollen the smallest rivulets to the size of torrents; in many places the paths would be torn away and obliterated, and everywhere the difficulty of a night march enormously increased. Giorgio, however, who was, perhaps, afraid of forfeiting his reward, assured the general that these mountain streams subside even more rapidly than they rise; that such was the dryness of the soil, no trace of rain would be seen by sunset, and that we should have a calm, starry night; the very thing we wanted for our enterprise.
We did not need persuasion to believe all he said—the opinion chimed in with our own wishes, and, better still, was verified to the very letter by a glorious afternoon. Landward, the spectacle was perfectly enchanting; the varied foliage of the Apennines, refreshed by the rain, glittered and shone in the sun’s rays, while in the bay, the fleet, with sails hung out to dry, presented a grand and an imposing sight. Better than all, Monte Faccio now appeared quite near us; we could, even with the naked eye, perceive all the defences, and were able to detect a party of soldiers at work outside the walls, clearing, as it seemed, some watercourse that had been impeded by the storm. Unimportant as the labour was, we watched it anxiously, for we thought that perhaps before another sunset many a brave fellow’s blood might dye that earth. During the whole of that day, from some cause or other, not a shot had been fired either from the land-batteries or the fleet, and as though a truce had been agreed to, we sat watching each other’s movements peacefully and calmly.
‘The Austrians would seem to have been as much deceived as ourselves, sir,’ said an old artillery sergeant to me, as I strolled along the walls at nightfall. ‘The pickets last night were close to the glacis, but see, now they have fallen back a gunshot or more.’