By daybreak next morning we were clear of the castello; for we quitted its walls while its ruffian inmates were buried in slumber. I was happy when the ladies were mounted, and once more on the road; having been under considerable apprehension for their safety: dreading, perhaps, our detention as royalist prisoners in the barone's residence.
"A rough night the last for a march, signor," said I to Captain Gismondo, whom we found parading the Calabri in the street of Amato.
"A tempest, signor! the blue glare of the lightning alone revealed to us that foaming river which we forded, the water rising to our waist-belts; and the rain that rushed down from heaven was every drop large enough to beat in our drumheads."
Ordering the company to march by a solitary and long forgotten road, towards St. Eufemio, I informed Gismondo and my fair charge of the diabolical plan laid by the barone and his revolters to destroy the villa, and assign the innocent Bianca to the wretch Scarolla as the price of his co-operation. Her sisters shrieked with terror, and old Battista gave me a stern smile while laying his hand on his sword.
"I know a path across the mountains, signor; I travelled it once to Monteleone: my little daughter was with me then;" he sighed deeply. "By Ave Maria this evening our good friends the Alfieri will have a hundred and fifty bayonets at their disposal. Compagna! threes right, quick march!" and we moved off with rapidity.
Marching by the most retired roads, we made a circuit among the mountains to deceive the barone, if any of his scouts should have followed us. The evening sun was casting the long shadows of the lofty hills of Nicastro across the woods and valleys of St. Eufemio, the waters of the bay were rolling in their usual varied tints of sparkling blue, and the eve was so calm and still, that the dash of the lonely breakers, as they flowed on the sandy beach, was heard many miles from the shore; mingling with the solemn hymn of the Sicilian mariners, and the crews of those picturesque feluccas which spread their striped latteen sails to the breezes of the strait.
Leaving Gismondo with his company to follow, I pushed on with the ladies at full gallop towards the villa: they were both expert horsewomen, and quite outstripped me, as we flew along the sandy marino. Their merry laughter and taunting cries of "Fi! fi! Signor Capitano," were very galling to me; for I was considered the best horseman (except Lascelles) on the Sicilian staff, and had twice won the regimental and brigade cup at the Palermitan races.
"On my honour! ladies, if I held the reins of my brave English grey instead of those of a chubby Calabrian horse, you would not have distanced me thus," said I, when they halted to let me come up with them.
The battery erected by the soldiers of Sir Louis de Watteville was now abandoned and demolished; the cannon were away, and the platforms overgrown with luxuriant grass. How stirringly my time had passed since the morning when our army landed on the beach close by!
The moment we rode into the quadrangle of the villa, the clattering hoofs roused the whole household, as the blast of a trumpet would have done. To be brief: great was the joy diffused by our arrival. We disturbed the old viscontessa from cards, with which she was rapidly gaining from old Adriano all the ducats she had paid at confessional an hour before for peccadilloes. The young visconte, pale and worn with long illness of mind and body, received the trembling Francesca to his arms as if she had been restored to him from the tomb. The Italians are peculiarly exciteable, and his transports were wild in the extreme. He had expected to behold his bride no more; and now she was hanging on his bosom, free, happy, and more beautiful than ever. As I had long foreseen, he placed in my hand that of his blushing cousin, Bianca; while the venerable viscontessa wept and prayed with joy, scattered a handful of cards and counters over us, in her confusion, and embraced us by turns. The whole household, male and female, from Andronicus the chasseur to the little ragazzo who turned the spits, joined in a general chorus of joy; they commenced the furious tarantella in the quadrangle, and the whole mansion rang with shouts: which were soon to be changed for those of a less agreeable nature.