Sybert shut his lips, and reversing the truncheon, struck him with the handle a ringing blow on the head. Tarquinio fell forward into the darkness of the room, and the moonlight streamed in on his bloody face.
Sybert bent over him a moment with white lips. ‘You poor fool!’ he muttered. ‘I had to do it.’
The next moment Marcia uttered a joyous cry that rang through the rooms.
‘Listen!’
A silence of ten seconds followed, while both besieged and besiegers held their breath. The sound was unmistakable—a shout far down the avenue and the beat of galloping hoofs.
‘The soldiers!’ she cried, and the men outside, as if they had understood the word, echoed the cry.
‘I soldati! I soldati!’
The next moment a dozen carabinieri swept into sight, the moonlight gleaming brightly on their white cross-belts and polished mountings. The men on the loggia dropped their weapons and dashed for cover, while the soldiers leaped from their horses and with spiked muskets chased them into the trees.
Sybert hastily bent over Tarquinio and dragged him back into the shadow.
‘Is he alive?’ Marcia whispered.