“I must go and report to Bixio,” Frank said, as they entered the town. “You had better find a shelter somewhere.”
“There is no occasion for that,” Maffio replied. “The sky has been getting lighter for some little time, and it must be nearly five o’clock. It was past two when we started.”
“I will wait for another half-hour,” Frank said, “before I rouse Bixio; he is always out by six, and bad news will keep.”
Shortly before that hour he went to the general’s quarters. The house was already astir.
“The general will be down in a few minutes, captain,” an orderly said. “I called him a quarter of an hour ago.”
In two or three minutes Bixio came down.
“Have you any news?” he asked hastily, when he saw Frank, whose downcast face struck him at once.
“Yes, general; and very bad news.”
“Come in here,” Bixio said, opening the door of a sitting-room. “Now, what is it?”
“I grieve to have to report, sir, that I have arrived here with only Sarto, Maffio, and three other men of the detachment, and that I fear Captain Rubini and the whole of the rest of the men have been killed.”