The sixty Italian soldiers were commanded by two subaltern officers, and by a tall, silent, grim old captain, with white hair and whiskers.
With them was a little Sardinian drummer, a boy scarcely more than fourteen years old, but who did not look even twelve, with his dark, olive skin, and black, deep-set eyes that flashed fire.
From a room on the upper story the captain directed the defense, every order sounding like a pistol shot, his iron countenance showing not the slightest emotion.
The little drummer, pale, but with his feet firmly planted on the table, and holding fast to the walls, stretched out his head and neck to look from the window, and saw through the smoke the Austrians steadily advancing over the fields.
The house was near the top of a very steep hillside, so that but one small high window in the upper story looked out over the crest. The Austrians did not threaten that side, nor was there anybody on the hilltop. The fire was directed against the front and the two sides.
The firing was infernal—a close, heavy hailstorm of balls rained upon the walls and through the broken roof, tearing out the ceiling, shattering the beams, doors, furniture, filling the air with fragments, plastering, and clouds of lime and dust, utensils and broken glass whizzing, clattering over their heads, rebounding from the walls with a noise and clash that made the hair stand on end.
Now and then a soldier stationed at the windows fell inward, and was pushed one side; others staggered from room to room, stanching their wounds with their hands. In the kitchen lay one soldier, pierced through the forehead. The enemy was closing in. At last the captain, until then impassible, began to show signs of uneasiness, and hurriedly left the room, followed by a sergeant. In a few moments the sergeant came rushing back, called the drummer, telling him to follow.
The boy raced up the stairs after him, and entered a dilapidated garret, in which he saw the captain with pencil and paper in hand, leaning on the window sill, and lying on the ground at his feet was a rope belonging to the well.
The captain folded the paper, and, fixing on the boy those cold, gray eyes before which every soldier trembled, said abruptly:
“Drummer!”