“Poverina!—mia povera figlia!—gone, Luigi! Borne off by the brigand Corvino!”
The words were gasped out with the choking utterance of grief. The bereaved parent could say no more. He sank into the arms of his son.
“Friends!” cried Luigi Torreani to those who stood around listening; “comrades, I may call you! But for absence in a foreign land, I should have been one of you. I am one of you now, and henceforth. Here is my father, Francesco Torreani, the sindico of this town. You heard what he has said. His daughter—my sister—carried off by the brigands! And that with a hundred soldiers supposed to be protecting the place! This is the protection we get from the valiant defenders of the Holy Faith!”
“Defenders of the devil!” came a voice from the crowd.
“Worse than the brigands themselves,” added another. “I believe they’ve been in league with them all along. That’s why the scoundrels have so often escaped.”
“Quite true!” cried a third. “We know it. They’re in the pay of the Pope and his Majesty of Naples. That’s one of the ways by which our tyrants have controlled us.”
“You will stand by me, then?” said the young artist, his face brightening with hope. “You will help me to recover my sister? I know you will.”
“We will! we will!” answered a score of earnest voices.
“You may depend upon that, Signor Torreani,” said a man of imposing aspect, who was evidently the leader of the Republican troop. “The brigands shall be pursued, and your sister saved, if it be in our power. Nothing shall be left undone. But first we must dispose of these hirelings. See! they are coming down the hill. Into the houses, compagnos! Let us take them by surprise. Here, Stramoni, Giugletta, Paoli! On to the end of the street. Shoot down any one who attempts to go out and give them warning! Inside, compagnos!—in, in!”
In a score of seconds the piazza was cleared of the crowd, the strangers hurrying inside the houses, forcing along with them the soldier-prisoners whom they had taken. Half-a-dozen men hastened towards the suburbs, to cut off any communication that might be attempted between the citizens and soldiery, who were now returning en masse down the mountain slope, their captain at their head. Such of the townsmen as chose were allowed to remain in the streets, with a warning that any attempt at treason, made either by word or sign, would draw the fire of the Republicans upon them. Few of them stood in need of it. Under the administration of such a sindico, there were not many of the inhabitants of Val di Orno who did not secretly exult at the new order of things. They had already hailed with acclamation their deliverers from the city, and were joyed at the prospect of a Republic.