"Then," said Giuseppe, "I'm glad, for that will give Cesare and Raffaelle and me a chance to help them fight. I'm going to be a refugee myself some day. Will you teach me, father, how to use a sword?"
"All in good time," said the man, smiling. "You've got your hands full learning the points of the compass just now."
For some reason Giuseppe could not get the tall, black-haired man out of his mind, and the next day, at recess, he told his two friends of his meeting with him and what he had learned about him.
"Couldn't we find him or another like him, this afternoon?" suggested Cesare, very much interested.
"We'll hunt," agreed Giuseppe. "A refugee could tell us much better stories than those old sailors can."
After school the three boys looked through the main streets of Nice, but saw no one asking for alms for the cause of Italy. They went down to the harbor, but there were no such men there. Finally in a little square they came upon the very man Giuseppe had seen the day before. He was sitting on the grass under a tree, and seemed to be asleep, for his head was sunk on his folded arms. They crossed over to him quietly. Although the day was warm he had a greatcoat fastened about his shoulders and a soft, broad-brimmed hat pulled down upon his head. He looked tired out.
The three boys stood in front of the man, and finally his eyes opened. He smiled as he saw them staring at him. "What do you want with me, signors?" said he.
Giuseppe dropped on to the grass beside him. "I know now what you meant when you said the refugees of Italy yesterday," he explained. "We three boys mean to be refugees some day. We've made a vow that we'll fight the Austrians until there isn't one of the three of us left. We'd like very much to hear some of the things you've done."
The man threw back his cloak and sat up a trifle straighten "Three future refugees!" he exclaimed. "The world moves! You want to be pushing me away already, do you? Sit down, I'll tell you what I can."
The boys sat in front of him, and listened with rapt attention while he told them that his home was in a little town half-way between Nice and Genoa, that he was a member of a secret society called the Carbonari, and that the first rule of that society was that a man must do exactly as he was told without asking why. Not long before he had received a secret message telling him to go to the city of Milan, taking his sword and pistols with him. He had left his wife and children and gone to Milan, and there he had waited a long time while the leaders of the society planned to surprise the Austrian garrison and drive the troops out of the city.