"I must stay with my comrade, Angus Cawdor," put in Hugh Deventer. "He is far more clever than I am, and I should be lost without him. I am only a boy, but he——"
"Has the thoughts of a man—I see," interrupted Menotti, who had been considering us from under his hand without speaking. "I think it would be no kindness to add two recruits of such mettle to the number of the admirably combed and pressed young gentlemen in the anteroom out there. You had better take them, Ricciotti. You will be sure to find old Manteuffel hammering away at you on your return to Dijon, and the lads can take bite and sup with the 'Enfants.' Since they speak Italian no explanations need be made. They can be fitted out by the commissariat adjutant."
"The favour is an unusual one, brother. There will be grumbling."
"The circumstances are unusual, and so are the lads. There is but one Dennis Deventer, and we must do the best we can for his son."
And in this manner we became part of the personal following of Ricciotti Garibaldi, and were destined to take part in the war game which he played out successfully against Manteuffel and Werder till the coming of the armistice stopped all fighting.
CHAPTER XIV
"THE CHILDREN"
"The Children" were young men, some of them hardly more than boys, who had followed the Dictator from Italy. They came from all parts of the Peninsula, but the wide windy Milanese plain supplied most of them. A curious exaltation reigned in the camp. It was like the mystic aura of a new religion. One became infected with it after a few hours among the troops.
They were already veterans in their own opinion, and, feeling that the eyes of their General was always upon them, they claimed as their monopoly all desperate ventures, the front rank in stubborn defences, the rear-guard in retreat, and they died with an "Evviva, Garibaldi!" upon their lips. One snatched the standard from a falling comrade that he might carry it closer to the Prussian lines, only in most cases to fall in his turn under the fatal steadiness of the needle-gun.