Out with Garibaldi: A story of the liberation of Italy

by G. A. Henty

“Garibaldi began with but a thousand men,” he said in conclusion. “He is now at the head of twenty thousand, and it will grow every hour; for we have news of risings throughout southern Calabria. If a thousand sufficed for the conquest of Sicily, twenty thousand will surely be sufficient for that of the mainland. The easy capture of this place will strike terror into the enemy, and raise the enthusiasm of the troops and the Calabrians to the utmost. Garibaldi has but four thousand men with him now; but by this time to-morrow ten thousand at least will have crossed, and I think it is possible that we shall reach Naples without having to fight another battle. At any rate, one pitched battle should be enough to free all Southern Italy. The Papal States will come next, and then, as Garibaldi hopes, Venice; though this will be a far more serious affair, for the Austrians are very different foes from the Neapolitans, and have the advantage of tremendously strong fortifications, which could only be taken by siege operations with heavy artillery, and certainly could not be accomplished by troops like Garibaldi’s.

“Now about my father. Supposing him to be alive, where do you think he would most probably be imprisoned?”

“There is no saying. That he is alive, I feel confident—unless, indeed, he died in prison from the effect of the wound given him when he was captured. That he did not die when in the hands of the brigands, we may take to be certain, for his grave must in that case have been discovered. He must have been handed over to a party of police sent to fetch him by previous agreement with the brigands, and would have been confined in some place considered especially secure from search. I should fancy that he is probably in Naples itself,—there are several large prisons there. Then there would be the advantage that, if the British government had insisted upon a commission of their own officers searching these prisons, he could be removed secretly from one to another, so that before the one in which he was confined could be examined, he would have been taken to another, which had been previously searched.

“His case was a more serious one than mine. Although I was a naturalised British subject, I had gone of my own free will to Italy, in the vain belief that I should be unmolested after so long an absence; and probably there would have been no stir in the matter had not your father taken it up so hotly, and by the influence he possessed obtained permission to search the dungeons. But, as I said, his case was a far more serious one. He went out backed by the influence of the British government; he was assisted by the British legation; he held the order of the Neapolitan government for admission to all prisons. Thus, had it been found that he had, in spite of their own so-called safe-conduct, been seized and imprisoned, the British fleet would have been in the Bay of Naples in a very short time—especially as his letters, as you tell me, created so much feeling throughout the country. Therefore it would be an almost vital question for the government to maintain the story they had framed, and to conceal the fact that, all the time they were asserting that he had been captured and killed by the brigands, he was in one of their own prisons.

“I may say frankly that they would unhesitatingly have had him killed, perhaps starved to death in a cell, were it not that they would have put it in the power of some official or other to betray them: a discovery that would have meant the fall of the government, possibly the dethronement of the king. Had he been an Italian, he would assuredly have been murdered, for it would not have paid any prison official to betray them; whereas, being an Englishman of distinction, in whose fate the British government had actively interested itself, any man who knew the facts could have obtained a reward of a very large amount indeed for giving information. That is the sole reason, Frank, that leads me to believe that he may still be alive. He was doubtless imprisoned under another name, just as I was; but at least it would be known to the men that attended upon him that he was an Englishman, and these could scarcely have avoided suspecting that he was the man about whom such a stir had taken place. The government had already incurred a tremendous risk by his seizure; but this would have been far greater had foul means been used to get rid of him in prison.

“In the former case, should by any extraordinary chance his existence have become known to the British legation, they would have framed some deliberate lie to account for their ignorance of his being Captain Percival. They might, for instance, assert that he had been taken prisoner in the mountains, with a party of brigands; that his assertions that he was an Englishman had been wholly disbelieved, for he would naturally have spoken in Italian, and his Italian was so good that any assertions he made that he was an Englishman would have been wholly discredited. That is merely a rough guess at the story they might have invented, for probably it would have been much more plausible; but, however plausible, it would not have received the slightest credit had it been found that he had been foully done to death.

“It is difficult, Frank, when one is discussing the probable actions of men without heart, honour, or principle, and in deadly fear of discovery, to determine what course they would be likely to take in any particular circumstances. Now, the first thing that I have to do is to cross to Messina, and to telegraph and afterwards to write to my wife. Can I telegraph?”

“Yes, but not direct: the regular line is that which crosses the straits to this town and then goes up through Italy. That, of course, we have not been able to use, and could not use it now. All messages have been sent by the line from Cape Passaro to Malta, and thence through Sardinia and Corsica to Spezzia. You can send a message by that. There will be no difficulty in getting a boat across the straits. You see the war-ships have steamed away. As soon as the castle was taken they found that their anchorage was within range of its guns. They fired a few shots into the town when the castle was bombarding it, and then retired. I believe that all through the men of the navy have been very reluctant to act against us, except, of course, at Palermo.”

“Then I will go at once. It is strange to me to be able to say I will go.”

“Very well, grandfather. Of course you have no money, but I can supply you with as much as you like. I have plenty of funds. I can’t say where you will find me when you come back, but you will only have to enquire where Garibaldi himself is: I am sure to be with him.”