fore a wayside cross, her basket at her
back, and her child gazing idly by; perched hamlets, rolling
pasture-fields, the vast mountain lines. She asked all that she saw,
"Does he live?" but the life was out of everything, and these shows told
of no life, neither of joy nor of grief. She could only distantly connect
the appearance of the white-coated soldiery with the source of her
trouble. They were no more than figures on a screen that hid the flashing
of the sword which renders dumb. She had charity for one who was footsore
and sat cherishing his ankle by a village spring, and she fed him, and
not until he was far behind, thought that he might have seen the white
face of her husband.

Accurate tidings could not be obtained, though the whole course of the
vale was full of stories of escapes, conflicts, and captures. Merthyr
learnt positively that some fugitives had passed the cordon. He came
across Wilfrid and Count Karl, who both verified it in the most sanguine
manner. They knew, however, that Major Nagen continued in the mountains.
Riding by a bend of the road, Merthyr beheld a man playing among
children, with one hand and his head down apparently for concealment at
his approach. It proved to be Beppo. The man believed that Count Ammiani
had fled to Switzerland. Barto Rizzo, he said, was in the mountains
still, and Beppo invoked damnation on him, as the author of those lying
proclamations which had ruined Brescia. He had got out of the city later
than the others and was seeking to evade the outposts, that he might join
his master--"that is, my captain, for I have only one master;" he
corrected the slip of his tongue appealingly to Merthyr. His left hand
was being continually plucked at by the children while he talked, and
after Merthyr had dispersed them with a shower of small coin, he showed
the hand, saying, glad of eye, that it had taken a sword-cut intended for
Count Ammiani. Merthyr sent him back to mount the carriage, enjoining him
severely not to speak.

When Carlo and his companions descended from the mountains, they entered
a village where there was an inn recognized by Angelo as the abode of
Jacopo Cruchi. He there revived Carlo's animosity toward Weisspriess by
telling the tale of the passage to Meran, and his good reasons for
determining to keep guard over the Countess Alessandra all the way.
Subsequently Angelo went to Jacopo for food. This he procured, but he was
compelled to leave the man behind, and