"If we meet again we can laugh at all this, Roma."

"Yes, we can laugh at all this," she faltered.

"If not ... Adieu!"

"Adieu!"

She disengaged her clinging arms with one last caress; there was an instant of unconsciousness, and when she recovered herself he was gone.

At the next moment there came through the darkness the measured tramp, tramp, tramp of the patrol. With a quivering heart Roma stood and listened. There was a slight movement among the soldiers, a scarcely perceptible pause, and then the tramp, tramp, tramp as before. Rossi looked back as he turned the corner, and saw Roma, in her light cloak, gliding across the silent street like a ghost.

Three or four hundred yards inside the gate of St. John Lateran in one of the half-finished tenement houses on the outskirts of Rome, there is a cellar used as a resting-place and eating-house by the carriers from the country who bring wine into the city. This cellar was the only place that seemed to be awake when Rossi walked towards the city walls. Some eight or nine men, in the rude dress of wine-carriers, lay dozing or talking on the floor. They had been kept in Rome overnight by the closing of the gate, and were waiting for it to be opened in the morning.

Without a moment's hesitation David Rossi stepped down and spoke to the men.

"Gentlemen," he said, "you know who I am. I am Rossi. The police have orders to arrest me. Will you help me to get out of Rome?"

"What's that?" shouted a drowsy voice from the smoky shadows of the cellar.

"It's the Honourable Rossi," said a lad who had shambled up. "The oysters are after him, and will we help him to escape?"

"Will we? It's not _will_ we; it's _can_ we, Honourable," said a thick-set man, who lifted his head from an upturned horse-saddle.

In a moment the men were all on their feet, asking questions and discussing chances. The gate was to be opened at six, and the first train north was to go out at half-past nine. But the difficulty was that everybody in Rome knew Rossi. Even if he got through the gate he could not get on to the train within ten miles of the city without the certainty of recognition.

"I have it!" said the thick-set man with the drowsy voice. "There's young Carlo. He got a scratch in the leg last night from one of the wet nurses of the Government, and he'll have to lie upstairs for a week at least. Why can't he lend his clothes to the Honourable? And why can't the Honourable drive Carlo's cart back to Monte Rotondo, and then go where he likes when he gets there?"

"That will do," said Rossi, and so it was settled.

When the train which left Rome for Florence and Milan at 9.30 in the morning arrived at the country station of Monte Rotondo, eighteen miles out, a man in top-boots, blue trousers, a white waistband and a red-lined overcoat got into the people's compartment. The train was crowded with foreigners who were flying from the risks of insurrection, and even the third-class carriages were filled with well-dressed strangers. They were talking bitterly of their experiences the night before. Most of them had been compelled to barricade their bedroom doors at the hotels, and some had even passed the night at the railway station.

"It all comes of letting men like this Rossi go at large," said a young Englishman with the voice of a pea-hen. "For my part, I would put all these anarchists on an uninhabited island and leave them to fight it out among themselves."

"Say, Rossi isn't an anarchist," said a man with an American intonation.

"What is he?"

"A dreamer of dreams."

"Bad dreams, then," said the voice of the pea-hen, and there was general laughter.

PART SIX--THE ROMAN OF ROME

I

Roma awoke next morning with a feeling of joy. The dangers of last night were over and David Rossi had escaped. Where would he be by this time?

She looked at her little round watch and reckoned the hours that had passed against the speed of the train.

Natalina came with the tea and the morning newspaper. The maid's tongue went faster than her hands as she rattled on about the terrors of the night and the news of the morning. Meantime Roma glanced eagerly over the columns of the paper for its references to Rossi. He was gone. The authorities were unable to say what had become of him.

With boundless relief Roma turned to the other items of intelligence.

The journal was the organ of the Government, and it contained an extract from the Official Gazette and the text of a proclamation by the Prefect.

The first announced that the riot was at an end and Rome was quiet; the second notified the public that by royal decree the city was declared to be in a state of siege, and that the King had nominated a Royal Commissioner with full powers.

Besides this news there was a general account of the insurrection. The ringleaders were anarchists, socialists, and professed atheists, determined on the destruction of both throne and altar by any means, however horrible. Their victims had been drawn, without seeing where they were going, into a vortex of disorder, and the soldiers had defended society and the law. Happily the casualties were few. The only fatal incident had been the death of a child, seven years of age, the son of a workman. The people of Rome had to congratulate themselves on the promptness of a Government which had reinstated authority with so small a loss of blood.

Roma remembered what Rossi had said about Elena--"Think of Elena when she awakes in the morning, alone with her terrible grief"--and putting on a plain dark cloth dress she set off for the Piazza Navona.

It was eleven o'clock, and the sun was shining on the melting snow. Rome was like a dead city. The breath of revolution had passed over it.

Broken tiles lay on the pavement of the slushy streets, and here and there were the remains of abandoned barricades. The shops, which are the eyes of a city, were nearly all closed and asleep.

At a flower-shop, which was opened to her knock, Roma bought a wreath of white chrysanthemums. A group of men and women stood at the door in the Piazza Navona, and she received their kisses on her hands. The Garibaldian followed her up the stairs, and his old wife, who stood at the top, called her "Little Sister," and then burst into tears.

The boy lay on the couch, just where Roma had first seen him, when David Rossi was lifting him up asleep. He might have been asleep now, so peaceful was his expression under the mysterious seal of death. The blinds were drawn, and the sun came through them with a yellow light.

Four candles were burning on chairs at the head and two at the feet. The little body was still dressed in the gay clothes of the festival, and the cocked hat and gilt-headed mace lay beside it. But the chubby hands were clasped over a tiny crucifix, and the hair of the shock head was brushed smooth and flat.

"There he is," said Elena, in a cracked voice, and she went down on her knees between the candles.

Roma, who could not speak, put the wreath of chrysanthemums on the brave little breast, and knelt by the mother's side. At that they all broke down together.

The old Garibaldian wiped his rheumy eyes and began to talk of David Rossi. He was as fond of Joseph as if the boy had been his own son. But what had become of the Honourable? Before daybreak the police had made a domiciliary perquisition in the apartment, carried off his papers and sealed up his rooms.

"Have no fear for him," said Roma, and then she asked about Bruno. All they knew was that Bruno had been arrested and locked up in the prison called Regina C[oe]li.

"Poor Bruno! He'll be dying to know what is happening here," said Elena.

"I'll see him," said Roma.

It was well she had come early. In the stupefaction of their sorrow the three poor souls were like helpless children and had done nothing. Roma sent the Garibaldian to the sanitary office for the doctor who was to verify the death, to the office of health to register it, and to the municipal office to arrange for the funeral. It was to be a funeral of the third category, with a funeral car of two horses and a coach with liveried coachmen. The grave was to be one of the little vaults, the Fornelli, set apart for children. The priest was to be instructed to buy many candles and order several Frati. The expense would be great, but Roma undertook to bear it, and when she left the house the old people kissed her hands again and loaded her with blessings.

II

The Roman prison with the extraordinary name, "The Queen of Heaven," is a vast yellow building on the Trastevere side of the river. Behind it rises the Janiculum, in front of it runs the Tiber, and on both sides of it are narrow lanes cut off by high walls.

On the morning after the insurrection a great many persons had gathered at the entrance of this prison. Old men, who were lame or sick or nearly blind, stood by a dead wall which divides the street from the Tiber, and looked on with dazed and vacant eyes. Younger men nearer the entrance read the proclamations posted up on the pilasters. One of these was the proclamation of the Prefect announcing the state of siege; another was the proclamation of the Royal Commissioner calling on citizens to consign all the arms in their possession to the Chief of Police under pain of imprisonment.

In the entrance-hall there was a crowd of women, each carrying a basket or a bundle in a handkerchief. They were young and old, dressed variously as if from different provinces, but nearly all poor, untidy, and unkempt.

An iron gate was opened, and an officer, two soldiers, and a warder came out to take the food which the women had brought for their relatives imprisoned within. Then there was a terrible tumult. "Mr. Officer, please!" "Please, Mr. Officer!" "Be kind to Giuseppe, and the saints bless you!" "My turn next!" "No, mine!" "Don't push!" "You're pushing yourself!" "You're knocking the basket out of my hands!" "Getaway!" "You cat! You...."