"And one of our officers pursued you, Francesca?" asked Raphael, after a pause.
"Yes, my beloved—from the gate of Oppido, along the highway, and close up to the forest, where I eluded him by lurking behind an ilex tree, while he passed on."
"Is he old or young?"
"A man of some fifty years, with long gray moustaches curled up to his ears."
"Dio! 'tis the colonel—the Conte Manfredi! the greatest roué, in all Naples!"
"Never mind—soldiers are used to run after pretty girls. You have escaped him, and if he comes hither my gun will do the rest—there will be promotion for the major," said Rivarola, calmly.
But the handsome face of Velda became troubled and clouded.
His love for Francesca was deep and passionate; yet as a soldier could he marry and make her a camp-follower—the jest, perhaps, of his comrades, the prey, perchance, of such a man as the conte?—she, with all her purity and beauty. A soldier, could he with safety wed the daughter of a brigand—an outlaw—one of the Garibaldini? She had been seen and pursued by his roué colonel also, to complicate and make matters more dubious, perilous, and difficult.
"Be one of us—throw your allegiance to the winds, and take to the mountains," the brigand would have suggested; but Raphael was loyal and good, and mourned the lost lives of Rivarola and his doomed father.
But now the sun was set, and he knew that he must soon return to quarters, as he had only leave till midnight, and, taking his gun, Rivarola prepared to accompany him a little distance on the way.