I halted in the darkness beneath the window, trying to catch the drift of the conversation, and even while I stood there one of them pulled aside the heavy curtains and allowed a stream of light to fall across the roadway. It was surely an injudicious action, yet they could not examine the bars without so doing.
Standing back in the shadow I saw them open the window and feel the strength of that thick prison-like grating, the defence in those turbulent days when the place had been a miniature fortress.
“Without a file, it’s impossible to break them,” declared Gavazzi, in a tone of deep disappointment. “But we must get out somehow. Every moment’s delay places us in graver peril. What shall we do?”
I saw that their position was utterly hopeless. They had been caught like rats in a trap. Therefore I crept along under the old stone wall of the villa and made my way down the hill in the direction of where the electric street lamps of the town of Tivoli were shining.
It was, I saw by my watch, already half-past two.
After walking near half a mile, at a bend in the road two carabineers in uniform, with their guns slung upon their shoulders, emerged suddenly upon me and called me to halt.
Imagine my confusion. I held my breath, and perhaps it was fortunate for me that the darkness hid the pallor of my face.
“Who are you?” demanded one of the rural guards in Italian, with a strong northern accent. He was Piedmontese, I think.
“I am an Englishman,” I answered, quite frankly, but making a strenuous effort to remain calm.
“So I hear by your speech,” the man replied gruffly. “And what are you doing here? The English don’t usually walk about here at this hour?”