Frank ran forward. The tremendous roll of fire beyond the barricade showed how strong was the force there, and he felt sure that the defenders must speedily be overpowered. Numbers of men were running along the street; he shouted to them: “The barricade cannot hold out; enter the houses and man every window; we must keep them back to the last. Garibaldi will be here before long.”
He himself kept on until within some two hundred yards of the barricade; then he stopped at the door of a house at the corner of a lane at right angles to the street, and ran into it. He waited until a score of men came up.
“Come in here,” he said: “we will defend this house till the last.”
The men closed the door behind them, and running into the lower rooms, fetched out furniture and piled it against it. They were assisted by five or six women, who, with some children, were the sole occupants of the house.
“Bring all the mattresses and bedding that you have,” Frank said to them, “to the windows of the first floor. We will place them on the balconies.”
In three or four minutes every balcony was lined with mattresses, and Frank sheltered his men behind them. Looking out, he saw that the fighting had just ceased, and that a dense mass of the enemy were pouring over the barricade; while at the same moment a crackling fire broke out from the houses near, into which its defenders had run, when they saw that the barricade could be no longer defended. Along both sides of the street, preparations similar to those he had ordered had been hastily made; and the men who were still coming up were all turning into the houses. Directly the Neapolitans crossed the barricade, they opened fire down the street, which was speedily deserted; but Frank had no doubt that, as the Garibaldian supports came up, they would make their way in at the back and strengthen the defenders. A hundred yards higher up the street was another barricade; behind this the townspeople were already gathering. Frank ordered his men to keep back inside the rooms until the enemy came along.
“Your powder is no good till they are close,” he said, “but it is as good as the best at close quarters.”
