Among the Brigands

by James De Mille

On leaving the convent, Frank and Bob had hurried back to Albano, where they found dinner ready, and Uncle Moses waiting for them in anxious impatience. This anxious impatience was not by any means diminished when he saw only two out of the four coming back to him, nor was it alleviated one whit when they informed him that David and Clive had gone to see some subterranean passage, of the nature or location of which they had but the vaguest possible conception. His first impulse was to go forth at once in search of them, and bring them back with him by main force; and it was only with extreme difficulty that Frank and Bob dissuaded him from this.

"Why, they're perfectly safe—as safe as if they were here," said
Frank. "It isn't possible for anything at all to happen to them.
The convent guide—a monk—is with them, and a very fine fellow he
is, too. He knows all about the country."

"O, yes; but these monks ain't to my taste. I don't like 'em," said Uncle Moses.

"It'll take them an hour to get back here from the place. There's no use for you to try to go there, for you don't know the way; and if you did go, why, they might come back and find you gone, and then we'd have to wait for you. So, you see, the best thing to do, Uncle Moses, is for us all to set quietly down, get our dinner, and wait for them to come back."

The numerous frights which Uncle Moses had already been called on to experience about his precious but too troublesome charges had always turned out to be groundless; and the result had invariably been a happy one; yet this did not at all prevent Uncle Moses from feeling as anxious, as worried, and as unsettled, on this occasion, as he had ever been before. He sat down to the table, therefore, because Frank urged it, and he hardly knew how to move without his cooperation. He said nothing. He was silenced, but not convinced. He ate nothing. He merely dallied with his knife and fork, and played listlessly with the viands upon his plate. Frank and Bob were both as hungry as hunters, and for some time had no eyes but for their food. At last, however, they saw that Uncle Moses was eating nothing; whereupon they began to remonstrate with him, and tried very earnestly to induce him to take something. In vain. Uncle Moses was beyond the reach of persuasion. His appetite was gone with his wandering boys, and would not come back until they should come also. The dinner ended, and then Uncle Moses grew more restless than ever. He walked out, and paced the street up and down, every little while coming back to the hotel, and looking anxiously in to see if the wanderers had returned. Frank and Bob felt sorry that he should feel so much unnecessary anxiety, but they did not know what to do, or to say. They had done and said all that they possibly could. Uncle Moses refused to be comforted, and so there was nothing more for them to do.

At length the hour passed which Frank had allotted as the time of their absence, and still they did not come. Uncle Moses now came, and stared at them with a disturbed face and trembling frame. He said not a word. The situation was one which, to his mind, rendered words useless.

"O, come now, Uncle Moses," said Frank; "they're all right. What's the use of imagining all sorts of nonsense? Suppose they are delayed a few minutes longer—what of that? They couldn't reckon upon being back in exactly an hour. The guide said, 'about an hour.' You'll have to make some allowance."

Uncle Moses tried to wait longer, and succeeded in controlling himself for about half an hour more. Then he found inaction intolerable, and insisted on Frank and Bob accompanying him on a search for the lost ones. Frank suggested the necessity of going to the convent first, and getting another guide. He left word at the hotel where they had gone, and why, so that David and Clive might follow them, or send word; and then they all three set forth for the convent.

On reaching the place, the first man that they saw was no other than the guide himself. At this sight even Frank was amazed, and a little disturbed. He asked him hurriedly where the boys were.

"De boys?" said the guide. "Haf dey not come to de hotel?"