Lucia Rudini | Page 9

they, dead or prisoners?"
"No, no, they are safe," Lucia protested. "They are with the Army. Don't worry, when the re?nforcements reach them they will go forward again."
But her aunt refused to be comforted. Everywhere in the street women were calling excitedly, and a number of them besieged the officers for information.
The soldiers hurried to their billets and got together their kits. The square buzzed and hummed with excitement and the guns kept up a steady bass accompaniment.
The bugle sounded a different order every little while. Some of the more prudent women went home and began packing their household treasures, but for the most part every one stayed in the market-place and argued shrilly.
"Come!" Lucia exclaimed, catching Maria's hand. "We can watch them march off from the top of the wall by the gate."
They ran quickly through the side streets, and by taking many turns they at last reached the broad top of the wall, which they ran along until they were just above the north gate.
"Here they come!" Maria exclaimed. "I can hear them."
The paved streets of the town rang with the heavy tramp, tramp of men marching, and before long they appeared before the gate. The order to walk four abreast was given. The men took their places, and then at a brisk pace they marched through the old gate, a sea of bobbing black hats and cock feathers.
The townspeople followed to cheer them excitedly. Lucia and Maria leaned dangerously over the edge of the wall in their attempt to recognize the familiar faces under the hats.
The soldiers looked up and called out gayly at sight of Lucia. She had taken off her flowered kerchief and was waving it excitedly. The wind caught her dark hair and blew it across her face, and her bright skirts in the sunshine made a vivid spot of color against the stone wall. The men turned often to look back at her as they marched along the wide road.
Maria did not lift her eyes from the sea of hats beneath her. She was waiting for one face to look up. At last she had her wish. Roderigo's place was towards the end of the column; when he walked under the gate he looked up and smiled. It was a sad smile, full of regret.
Without exactly meaning to, Maria dropped the flower she was wearing in her bodice. Roderigo caught it and tucked it, Neapolitan fashion, behind his ear, then he blew a kiss to Maria and marched on.
Lucia watched the little scene. She was half amused and half contemptuous. Her little heart under its gay bodice was filled with a fine hate that left no room for pretty romance.
CHAPTER IV
LOST
When the soldiers had climbed out of sight into the mountains, Maria walked slowly back to find her mother, and Lucia after a hurried good-by ran home to tell Nana and Beppino the news.
She was far more worried over the possible order to evacuate than she would admit. As their cottage was the farthest north on the road, it would be the nearest to the Austrian guns. Personally Lucia scorned the very idea of the Austrian guns, but she could not help realizing the danger to Nana and Beppino and Garibaldi. She was still undecided what to do when she reached the cottage.
Nana Rudini was standing in the doorway, shading her eyes with her withered old hand, and staring intently in the direction that the soldiers had taken.
"Did you see the troops, Nana?" Lucia asked cheerfully. "They were a fine lot, eh? I guess they will be able to stop the enemy from coming any nearer."
"Nearer?" queried Nana, "what are you saying?"
"We have had bad luck," Lucia explained. "Tavola has been captured, and our soldiers are retreating. In town they say we may have to evacuate before to-morrow."
The old woman received the news without comment, but a look of despair came into her usually bright eyes, and for the moment made them tragic. Long years before, when Austria had crossed the mountains and entered Cellino, she had been a young girl. Now in her old age they were to come again, and there was no reason to hope that this time they would be less brutal in their triumph than they had been formerly. The memory of their brutality was still a vivid one.
"We will leave at once," she said at last, and her decision was so unexpected, that Lucia gasped in surprise.
"Leave? But, Nana, where will we go? What will become of our things?" she exclaimed. "Surely we had better wait at least until we are ordered out."
"No, we will leave at once," Nana replied firmly. "The order may come too late, as it did before. What do those boys who swagger about in men's places know about the enemy? There is not