Il Cavaliere di Casteluccio, some of whose followers still hovered about the Solano, having sent me accurate information of the position and arrangement of Regnier's outpost at Bagnara—the point nearest to us in his possession, and held by the voltigeurs of the 23rd (French) Light Infantry—I concerted a plan to form a junction with the Cavaliere's Free Company, and cut off that detachment; as the castle had been quite blocked up on every side since Regnier had pushed his advanced parties as far south as Bagnara and Favazina.
On a misty night in the month of February, an hour after tattoo-beat, I marched out one hundred rank and file (more indeed than could be spared from my small garrison), and was joined by three times that number of the Free Calabri, led by Santugo. Guided by the distant watchfires of General Milette's picquets, which formed a fiery chain along the Milia heights, we moved by the most unfrequented paths and gorges: the last were numerous enough, as the whole country bore traces of that terrible convulsion of nature, which twenty-four years before engulphed Bagnara and three thousand of its inhabitants. Hideous scaurs and chasms rent in the sandstone rocks and salt-hills, together with the banks of vapour exhaled from the marshes, completely screened our movements from the enemy; scattered parties of whom watched the operations of the banditti and the Masse (a force now rapidly melting away), who were apt at all times to beat up their quarters. The system of perpetual harassing was vigorously maintained, to prevent the formation of roads for the conveyance of their battering train towards the scene of the intended siege.
After a time, the night became so dark that the visconte was doubtful which was the way; as the dense vapour rolling down from the mountains cast a double gloom over everything. Opening the door of a wretched hut, I found an old crone, who dealt in spells and love potions, spreading her shrivelled hands over the expiring embers of a few dried sticks.
"Beware, excellency, the hag is a sorceress!" said Giacomo, as I entered.
"Signora," said I, unheeding his caution, "we are in want of a guide to the olive wood of Bagnara: can you procure us one for the service of Ferdinand and la Santa Fede?"
I glanced at her son, or grandson, a boy about fifteen, a model of that bloom and symmetry so common in the youth of Spain and Italy; he was almost naked, or clad only in skins. "Go thou, Pablo," said the crone.
"Ahi! madre," said he, shrinking back, "like my father, I may be shot by the French."
"Via—away!" she replied, sternly. The strict filial obedience exacted by the ancients yet existed in these remote provinces; so taking his knife and pole, the youth at once prepared to accompany us.
Guided by him, we reached the neighbourhood of Bagnara about midnight, and halted in an olive wood, situated on an eminence above the town: it was then reduced to a few cottages, occupied by the voltigeurs; who had taken all the usual means to render their post as strong as possible, by loop-holing the walls to enfilade the approaches, and barricading the ends of the little street with trees, furniture, brushwood, and banks of earth.
"Chi è là?" cried a sonorous voice from the wood as we entered it.