The notes of a hymn swept up the street,—a hymn so sung that it seemed a call to battle rather than a sacred song. It rose, it fell, it stirred the blood, the plaintive tones of the women’s voices rising high above the fuller notes of the men, while soaring above all the others were the shrill, sweet voices of the altar boys.
On they came, with banners waving and with clouds of smoke rising from the swinging censers. But the music, strong as it rose on the morning air, did not blot out the clang of the alarm bells which were constantly rung in every quarter of the city. Nor could it drown the boom, boom, boom of the bombardment which had been slowly wrecking the city for so long.
Augustina kneeled on the balcony with her bent head on her hands, her heart swelling as she listened.
“Ah,” said she to herself, “if I were but a man! If I could but help to save the city. Yet here must I sit and do nothing better than weave lace, while our brave men are dropping before those cruel guns.”
As the music grew fainter, she rose and stood watching the procession. At the head of the long narrow street in which she lived, towered the spires of the lovely old cathedral of the Virgin of the Pillar, and the procession which had just passed was of men and women who sought to petition the Holy Mother for her aid in the desperate war which was being waged against their city.
Although the sun had been up some hours, the tall convents which were set among the houses made the street still dim, and as Augustina looked up towards the cathedral, the people in the procession seemed hardly larger than children moving slowly and singing as they went.
Every day in some part of the city was to be seen such a procession as had just passed, for although Napoleon and his soldiers had been besieging the town for forty days, never once did the people lose courage in their power to come out victorious from the struggle.
Yes, to triumph at last, though hunger, sickness, and ill-trained soldiers were evils with which they had to struggle, as well as the enemy without their walls.
As the last singer entered the cathedral, Augustina seemed to wake from a dream, and a look of anxiety came over her face as she looked up the street. Leaning as far forward over the balcony as she dared, she could see nothing but some figures of men wrapped in dull brown cloaks, the only spots of colour being the gay kerchiefs bound about their heads.
“Augustina!” From within the house came the call, prolonged and whining, as if the patience of the caller were nearly exhausted.