d perish, because
of the traitress: all with a great sullen air of composure and an odd
distension of the eyelids. When they released him, he smiled and thanked
them, though they knew, that had he chosen, he could have thrown off a
dozen of them, such was his strength. The woman went down on her knees
to him to get his consent that she should dress and bandage his head
afresh. The sound of the regimental bugles drew him from the house,
rather than any immediate settled scheme to watch at the gates.

Artillery and infantry were in motion before sunrise, from various
points of the city, bearing toward the Palio and Zeno gates, and the
people turned out to see them, for it was a march that looked like the
beginning of things. The soldiers had green twigs in their hats, and
kissed their hands good-humouredly to the gazing crowd, shouting bits of
verses:

'I'm off! I'm off! Farewell, Mariandl! if I come back a sergeant-major
or a Field-Marshal, don't turn up your nose at me: Swear you will be
faithful all the while; because, when a woman swears, it's a comfort,
somehow: Farewell! Squeeze the cow's udders: I shall be thirsty enough:
You pretty wriggler! don't you know, the first cup of wine and the
last, I shall float your name on it? Luck to the lads we leave behind!
Farewell, Mariandl!'

The kindly fellows waved their hands and would take no rebuff. The
soldiery of Austria are kindlier than most, until their blood is up.
A Tyrolese regiment passed, singing splendidly in chorus. Songs of
sentiment prevailed, but the traditions of a soldier's experience of the
sex have informed his ballads with strange touches of irony, that help
him to his (so to say) philosophy, which is recklessness. The Tyroler's
'Katchen' here, was a saturnine Giulia, who gave him no response, either
of eye or lip.

'Little mother, little sister, little sweetheart, 'ade! ade!' My little
sweetheart, your meadow is half-way up the mountain; it's such a green
spot on the eyeballs of a roving boy! and the chapel just above it, I
shall see it as I've seen it a thousand times; and the cloud hangs near
it, and moves to the door and enters, for it is an angel, not a cloud; a
white angel gone in to pray for Katerlein and me: Little mother, little
sister, little sweetheart, 'ade! ade!' Keep single, Katerlein, as long
as you can: as long as you can hold out, keep single: 'ade!''

Fifteen hundred men and six guns were counted as they marched on to one
gate.