“I should like to be at Milazzo,” Bixio said, “but as that is now impossible I should prefer remaining here until Garibaldi is ready to start, to hanging about Messina for weeks: that sort of thing is very bad for young troops. Here they get plenty of marching, and a certain amount of drill every day, and in another month or six weeks even the latest recruits, who arrived before we left Palermo, will be fit to take part in a battle by the side of our veterans. Are you to stay with me, or to go on to Messina?”
“I had no explicit order, sir, but from what the general said, I gathered that he thought it better for me to stay, at any rate for the present, with you. The doctor said that I must keep my arm in a sling for some time to come, and although I did not ride here at any great speed, I feel some sharp twinges in it, and think I should wait a few days before I mount again. After that I shall be happy to carry out any orders, or perform any duty, with which you may think fit to intrust me.”
“Quite right, Percival. You will, of course, be attached to my staff while you are with me, and I will set you to easy work when I consider you fit to undertake it. Now that I have put things in train here, I shall make it my headquarters for a time, but shall be sending parties to the hills. I know that the villages there are all terrorised by the brigands, and although it is hopeless to try to stamp these fellows out, I may strike a few blows at them. The worst of it is, that half the peasantry are in alliance with them, and the other half know that it is as much as their lives are worth to give any information as to the brigands’ movements, so that to a large extent I shall have to trust to luck. When you are able to ride again, I will send you off with one of these parties, for I am sure that the air of the slopes of Etna will do an immense deal towards setting you up again, while the heat in the plains is very trying, especially to those who are not in robust health, and are unaccustomed to a climate like this.”
“It is hot,” Frank said. “I started my journeys very early in the morning, and stopped for five or six hours in the middle of the day; but I think that, even in that way, the heat has taken a good deal more out of me than the fatigue of riding.”
“I have no doubt that is so; and I should recommend you, for the next week, to rise at daybreak, lie down, or at any rate keep within doors, between ten or eleven and five in the afternoon, and then take gentle exercise again, and enjoy yourself until eleven or twelve o’clock at night. Even the natives of the island keep indoors as far as possible during the heat of the day, at this time of year, and if they find it necessary, it is still more so for you. I suppose you came through Traina last night?”
“Yes, sir; and was very glad to find Rubini and my other two friends there.”
The next week passed pleasantly. Bixio himself was often away, making flying visits to the towns and villages where he had left detachments; but as there were several of the officers of the force at Bronte, who had crossed in the same ship with him from Genoa, and by whose side he had fought at Calatafimi and Palermo, Frank had very pleasant society. Indeed, as the majority of the force were men of good family and education, there was, when off duty, little distinction of rank, and with the tie of good comradeship, and of dangers and fatigues borne in common, there was none of the stiffness and exclusiveness that necessarily prevail in regular armies. All of the original thousand knew Frank well, had heard how largely the expedition was indebted for its success to the aid his mother had sent, and how he had distinguished himself in the fighting, and they welcomed him everywhere with the utmost cordiality.
Early in the morning he always went for a walk, and was usually accompanied by one or two of his acquaintances who happened to be off duty. After taking a meal, he generally spent the evening sitting in the open air in front of the principal café, eating ices, drinking coffee, and chatting with the officers who gathered there. At the end of a week he no longer felt even passing pains in his arm, and reported to Bixio that he was ready for work again.
“Not hard work,” the general said; “but I can give you employment that will suit you. I am calling in Rubini’s detachment from Traina, where things are settling down, and shall send fifty men under his command to the village of Latinano. It is some three thousand feet above the sea, and you will find it much more cool and pleasant there than it is here. Other villages, on about the same line, will also be occupied. The brigands have found that it is no longer safe to come down into the plains, and I am going to push them as far up the slopes as I can: possibly we may then be able to obtain some information from the peasants below that line as to the principal haunts of these fellows in the mountains. At present these villages that I am going to occupy are all used by the brigands, whom the people regard as good customers; and though they ill-treat and murder without mercy any they suspect of being hostile to them, it is of course to their interest to keep well with the majority, and to pay for what they want. Terror will do a good deal towards keeping men’s mouths shut; but anything like the general ill-treatment of the population would soon drive somebody to betray them.
“Of course, hitherto the brigands have had little fear of treachery. The commanders of the Bourbon troops had no disposition to enter upon toilsome expeditions, which offered small prospect of success, merely to avenge the wrongs of the peasants; but now matters have changed. We are not only willing, but eager, to suppress these bands; and, seeing that we are in earnest, some of the peasantry may pluck up heart enough to endeavour to get rid of those who at present hold them at their mercy.