The soldiers were so well posted, that the different approaches to the villa were completely enfiladed; while that by the quadrangle would be exposed to a deadly cross fire from fifty windows. In this order we awaited the revolters.
On making my rounds, to see that all were on the alert, I visited the ladies; who, in the attic story of the old round tower, were quite secure from musketry. The old viscontessa was on her knees praying: she had relinquished her cards for "The Litanies of our Blessed Lady;" and a crowd of female domestics knelt around her. Bianca and her sisters were clustered together, with arms entwined, like three beautiful graces; but looking pale and terrified: awaiting the strife with beating hearts and eyes suffused with tears.
"Dearest Claude!" said she whose gentle voice I loved best, "for God's sake! O, for my sake! do not expose yourself heedlessly to danger."
"Courage, dear one," said I, putting an arm playfully round her; "we must all fight like the Trojans of old. Think of what will be the fate of us all—of yourself in particular—if Guelfo and his ruffian compeers capture the villa to-night. If I can put a bullet into the head of this new suitor, Scarolla—Tush, Bianca! ridiculous, is it not?" She made a sickly attempt to smile, but bowed her head on my shoulder and wept. I heard Santugo and his chasseur uttering my name, and calling aloud through various parts of the mansion; but I was too agreeably occupied to attend to them just then.
"Allerta!" cried Gismondo; and knowing the military warning, I hurried away to the scene of action.
"See you the rascals, signor?" said he, pointing from a barricaded window, to a dark mass moving along the distant roadway, and rapidly debouching into the lawn. They marched in the full glare of the moonlight, and the gleam of steel flashed incessantly from the shapeless column. They carried two standards, and one was a tri-color.
"Some of those Jacobin dogs are the iron miners of Stilo: they have long been stubborn traitors," said Santugo, in accents of rage.
"And bold Scarolla, so long the scourge of Frenchmen, why leagues he with villains such as these?"
"You forgot, signor," replied the young lord, with a grim smile, "that he is either to gain a noble bride, or an ounce bullet to-night."
CHAPTER VI.