I had not
better strike a light and write some verses. All of a sudden through
the stillness of night I heard two shots, then again others, and from
the direction in which they came I judged that they must be somewhere
near the captain's villa. '_Corpo della Madonna!_' thought I, 'what can
he be about! Is he shooting bats or owls?' But they did not sound like
the English rifle of Signor Gustavo, and they succeeded each other too
rapidly and irregularly to be fired by any one man, and all at once
I jumped horrified out of bed, for I no longer had any doubt about
it,--what I had long silently feared had happened: Il Rosso and his
banditti had fallen upon the lonely man, and they were fighting there
in the vineyard for life and death. I got on my clothes, snatched a
pair of old pistols from the wall, wakened up my apprentice, and told
him to run through the streets, and call out 'help! murder!' as loud as
ever he could. I myself knocked up a couple of neighbours, and
encouraged all who were already roused to follow me. When we came down
from the village we were a party of ten or twelve, each armed with
rifle or pistol. And to be sure the firing did come from the vineyard,
and we to whom the moon fortunately served instead of lanterns,
scrambled over hedge and ditch towards the house, where we saw firing
going on from the windows. That comforted me somewhat. He had withdrawn
then into his fortress, and those rascals had to content themselves
with firing into the room at him at random. I was just about to explain
my plan of operations to our party,--how we were to form four
divisions, surround the enemy, and attack him in the rear; but some
out-post must have observed us, for there was a shrill whistle, and at
the same moment the attack came to an end, and here and there where the
moon shone on the open space between the rocks and the wood, we saw the
band scatter, some of them so lame that we might have captured them if
that had been our aim--over and above defending the captain--to take Il
Rosso, our own fellow-citizen, prisoner. But we wished to spare his
father the pain of that, and thanked God that we had come just in time,
for at our loud call we saw Signor Gustavo step out on the balcony into
the bright moonlight, and wave a white handkerchief to us. But when we
saw the handkerchief nearer, it proved by no means pure white, but had
large spots of blood, from a bullet having grazed his temple. It was
nothing of any con