CHAPTER LXVIII. THE SUBTERRANEAN PASSAGE.
Amongst the surviving workmen who were defending the large frontentrance to the manufactory was an old gray-headed man, who listenedintently to the above conversation of the two chiefs. When Muzio utteredthe last words, he exclaimed, "_Coraggio, signors!_ If you wish toretire from this place, and to save the women, I know of a passage thatwill lead us out of danger."
A ray of hope broke upon the minds of the two friends when they heardthere was a way of saving their beloved ones, and they immediatelyproceeded to avail themselves of it, for there was no time to be lost,as the enemy was preparing for a fresh attack.
Muzio approached Julia and Clelia, who were not far off, and obtaineda promise, on the condition that he and Attilio would soon follow them,that they would take refuge under the escort of old Dentato and Jack inthe subterranean passage. The other women would follow after them, andlastly our friends with all the remaining defenders of the factory.
And the wounded? Ah! if there be a circumstance that is harrowing andterrible in those butcheries of men called "battles," it is certainlythat of abandoning one's own wounded to the enemy!
_Povyri!_ In one moment the faces of your friends--of your brothers, whobewailed your hurt, who tended you with such gentleness, will disappear,to be succeeded by the revolting, horrible, and triumphant faces ofthe mercenaries. At the best they will be brutal; at the worst, they,infringing every right of war and of people, will steep their basebayonets in your precious blood! Cowards! who fled before you, and towhom you so often generously conceded their lives.
Supported by the 20,000 soldiers of the 2d of December, they haveregained once more their spirits, and have forgotten that they owe theirignoble existences to you.
In St. Antonio (America), Italians fought against the soldiers ofdespotism, and many, very many were wounded. There, carried on theirbrothers' backs, or transported on horses, the wounded were removed. Notone was left* alive to be at the mercy of Rosa's cannibals.
And are the hirelings of the priests less cruel? At the station atMonte Rotondo, after the glorious assault of the 25th of October, threewounded men were lying awaiting the convoy that was to convey themto Terni, when the Pope's soldiers arrived. Worthy followers ofthe Inquisitors, they amused themselves with murdering our unhappycompanions by stabbing them with their bayonets, and giving them blowswith the butt-end of their guns.**
Oh, Italians, leave not in your enemy's power your wounded! It is tooheart-rending a spectacle. If they be not murdered, they will remain atleast to be mocked and jested at by those who are accustomed to outrageItaly.
Attilio and Muzio, though tired and wounded themselves, would notabandon their helpless comrades to the insults and the steel of thepriests' soldiers.
In the lowest part of the factory, at the extremity of an immense roomused for washing the wool, was a massive oak door, which appeared atfirst sight to lead to a channel of water which discharged itself intothe Tiber. The canal really existed, but the door we have referred todid not lead to it, but to a subterranean passage, gained by a bridgebuilt across this same canal. Into this underground vault a processionof the devoted women, the wounded, and the workmen, began to defile.
But in the priestly city, where education consists in being taught toplay the hypocrite and to lie, traitors abound. And a traitor threw fromone of the upper windows of the factory a written paper, whilst thesebrave people were retiring, informing the soldiery of the retreat of thedefenders.
* It is painful to state it, but one man, hopelessly wounded, was killed so that he should not be in the enemy's power, who usually cut the throats of those they found alive on the field,
** An historical fact.
The attack was no longer deferred, and an ever-increasing crowd ofmercenaries and police threw themselves upon the barricade at the door,and rushed in. Only a few defenders remained. Had Attilio and Muzio beenmore careful of themselves, and taken to flight, they might perhaps havesaved their lives. But too lavish of their blood were this pair of nobleRomans. They did not fly; they remained to fight desperately for sometime against that in-pouring stream of slaves.
Many were the assailants cut down upon the heap of dying and of dead.But heroes, like cowards, have only one life. The assailants were toonumerous, and side by side the valorous champions of Roman liberty felltogether, and exhaled their last breath.
Dentato, who had assisted in this last struggle, seeing that all hopeof a successful resistance was over, favored by the darkness, and hisacquaintance with the establishment, gained the washing-house, andthence the subterranean passage, closing the oak door from the outsideupon that scene of blood, and barring it as well as he was able.
The hired assassins of the priesthood having no other motives thanrapine and slaughter, inundated the factory with the hope of securingplunder and wreaking revenge. They never thought of the oaken back-doorby which the surviving defenders of Italian liberty had escaped, untiltoo late. Having discovered by-and-by that the building contained onlycorpses, they were reminded of the subterranean passage. They searched,inquired, and at length discovered the door leading to it. Some timeelapsed before they succeeded in forcing open the obstacles which barredit, as well as in organizing an entry into the darkness, and all thisgave the fugitives sufficient opportunity of placing themselves insafety.
In the first week of November, 1867, three females, an old man, and alad in the bloom of youth, descended at the Leghorn station. At the headof this party stood one of those daughters of England, from whose pureand lofty countenance, sad though she was, and dressed in mourning, theheart derived new ideas of the dignity and happiness of life. Her ladycompanion was not less beautiful nor less sad, and displayed in thelovely lineaments of her face a different but exquisite femininedelicacy of the Southern type, such as Raphael portrayed in hisFornarina. The third woman was also comely; but sorrow had furrowed herforehead deeply, and a look of vacancy had settled upon her melancholyfeatures. The old man, Dentato, whom Julia would not leave to misery andwant, was occupying himself about the luggage.
Jack, with the vivacity of sixteen years, offered his arm to the ladies,to assist them as they alighted from the railway carriage. He quicklydiscovered Captain Thompson and his wife, the Signora Aurelia, who wereawaiting them, and saluted the latter, who had a high regard for oursailor-lad. Jack alone was able to relate what had passed.
"Oh!" he said, "I have kissed their corpses," and a tear rolled downhis cheek, cheek of Britannia's fair son. He spoke of the dead bodiesof Orazio and Irene, who loved him so much, and who had been hispreservers. They had been removed for burial along with the other sadrelics of our noble friends.
The women embraced, weeping on each other's bosoms, but unable toarticulate a word. After assisting at this mute scene for some time, andshowing himself also much affected, Captain Thompson raised his head,and, approaching his mistress, addressed her, cap in hand, saying-
"Madam, the yacht is anchored off the pier, awaiting your orders; do youdesire to go on board?"
"Yes, Thompson," she replied, "let us go on board, and set sailimmediately, so as to get out of Italy; it has become the grave of allits best and most beautiful."
Julia sailed for merry England, and took kind care of her adoptedfamily, to whom were added, after a time, Manlio and Silvia. Until theyjoined her in England, they had remained on the island of the Recluse.
Julia vowed she would not return to that unhappy country until Rome,freed from priestly despotism, would permit her to raise a worthynational monument to her heart's beloved, and to his heroic companions.
APPENDIX.
Rule of the Monk; Or, Rome in the Nineteenth Century Page 69
