"Adieu!"
She disengaged her clinging arms with one last caress; there was an instant of unconsciousness, and when she recovered herself he was gone.
At the next moment there came through the darkness the measured tramp, tramp, tramp of the patrol. With a quivering heart Roma stood and listened. There was a slight movement among the soldiers, a scarcely perceptible pause, and then the tramp, tramp, tramp as before. Rossi looked back as he turned the corner, and saw Roma, in her light cloak, gliding across the silent street like a ghost.
Three or four hundred yards inside the gate of St. John Lateran in one of the half-finished tenement houses on the outskirts of Rome, there is a cellar used as a resting-place and eating-house by the carriers from the country who bring wine into the city. This cellar was the only place that seemed to be awake when Rossi walked towards the city walls. Some eight or nine men, in the rude dress of wine-carriers, lay dozing or talking on the floor. They had been kept in Rome overnight by the closing of the gate, and were waiting for it to be opened in the morning.
Without a moment's hesitation David Rossi stepped down and spoke to the men.
"Gentlemen," he said, "you know who I am. I am Rossi. The police have orders to arrest me. Will you help me to get out of Rome?"
"What's that?" shouted a drowsy voice from the smoky shadows of the cellar.
"It's the Honourable Rossi," said a lad who had shambled up. "The oysters are after him, and will we help him to escape?"
"Will we? It's not will we; it's can we, Honourable," said a thick-set man, who lifted his head from an upturned horse-saddle.
In a moment the men were all on their feet, asking questions and discussing chances. The gate was to be opened at six, and the first train north was to go out at half-past nine. But the difficulty was that everybody in Rome knew Rossi. Even if he got through the gate he could not get on to the train within ten miles of the city without the certainty of recognition.