e glowing sunlight.

I was loth to emerge from my hiding place into the open air in sight of
men, as, besides startling them, I should myself become an object of
wonderment and create a scene I particularly wished to avoid. So I
resolved to pause awhile until they should presently pass on, when I
could emerge alone and unobserved. In this I was disappointed; they
seemed to have no intention whatever of moving on. There they sat
apparently over their meal, chatting at intervals. It was impossible but
that I should thus overhear some fragments of their conversation, and
what I _did_ hear made my blood run cold.

"Dost remember, Gaspero," said one, "on our last sally, when we captured
the fat landowner from Montefiascone, and sent him back to his friends
with his nose and his ears slit because they wouldn't send the ransom in
time?"

"_Corpo di Bacco!_ don't I?" answered another. "But I'll tell you what,
if the 'Cavalli leggeri' get wind of our whereabouts this time, it will
be short shrift for all of us."

"Bah!" said a third, "haven't we good spies enough always on the alert
to warn us of their approach?"

"True," said the former, "but don't let us talk, or we shall miss the
signal."

Then silence reigned for a brief space, broken now and again by some
casual remark hardly audible. Here was a pretty to do! Had I been
rescued from death by starvation only to stumble upon a nest of
brigands? Oh, the irony of it! I trembled for the loss of the little
gold I had upon me, but more still for the precious ring upon my finger.

"I must risk nothing," I said to myself, "and bide here in patience at
any cost till they depart."

I dreaded lest the beating of my own heart--so audible to myself--should
betray me. Thus a full hour or more passed away, when on a sudden I
heard a sound like the hooting of an owl in the distance.

"The signal--the signal!" exclaimed several voices at once, and up they
jumped like one man and took to their heels with the speed of lightning.

I began to emerge from my cavern, and just managed to catch a glimpse of
some peaked hats, carbines, and sandalled legs, which soon disappeared
for ever from my view. I was now once more under the clear dome of
Heaven. The sky was absolutely cloudless, the heat intense. I shaded my
eyes with my hand to protect them from the glare of the hot sun which
now shone mercilessly down upon my bare head, for my hat had been left
far behind me in that subterranean b