Lucia Rudini Part 5

The rain was coming down in earnest now, and it was hard to keep from losing her footing on the slippery rocks. She stumbled on regardless of the danger, hoping against hope that she had chosen the right path, and that each step was bringing her nearer to Beppi. Between calling and climbing, she was tired, and she stopped for a moment to catch her breath.

A sound, faint but unmistakable, reached her.

"Naa, Naa!"

Garibaldi was complaining about the weather, at no very great distance away from her.

In her relief Lucia laughed excitedly.

"Beppi, Beppi, where are you?" she shouted, and waited eagerly for a reply, but none came. She looked puzzled and then Garibaldi answered her:

"Naa! Naa!"

The sound came from directly over her head, and she climbed up the steep rock as fast as she could. Garibaldi was standing at the opening of a cave. Lucia ran to her.

"Oh, my pet, I have found you at last. Where is Beppi?" she cried.

Garibaldi did not exactly reply, but she stepped a little to one side, and Lucia saw Beppino curled up on a bed of dry leaves sheltered and snug from the storm, and sleeping quite as contentedly as he did on the mattress in the attic at home.

Lucia ran to him and shook him. He opened his eyes, and a dazed look came into them, then he said:

"Oh, yes, I remember, it began to rain and we were lost, your old crosspatch Garibaldi and I, so I found this nice little place, and I was going to pretend that I was a gypsy brigand, but I fell asleep."

Lucia was far too happy to attempt the scolding that she knew Beppi deserved. She picked him up in her arms, and hugged and kissed him, then she encircled Garibaldi's neck and kissed her too.

"My darlings, I thought you were both lost. What a terrible fright you have given me! But we are safe now, and we will wait until sunrise to-morrow, and then we will go home," she said happily.

"I saw the soldiers go away," Beppi said, pus.h.i.+ng her face from him as she tried to kiss him again, "and they looked so fine with their s.h.i.+ny hats. It was while I looked at them that old crosspatch ran away. I did have a chase, I can tell you, she had such a big start."

"Are you very hungry, little one?" Lucia asked gently. "I should have brought bread with me, but I did not think."

Beppi giggled, and from the pocket of his little tunic he produced the pink paper bag.

"Two left," he announced as he opened it, "and both long ones. Here's yours and here's mine. Garibaldi's been eating gra.s.s all day, so she's not hungry."

Lucia accepted the candy, and they both had a drink of milk. Then Beppi snuggled down in his sister's arms and his eyelids grew heavy.

"Go on with that story," he said, "the one about the soldier at the gate."

Lucia smiled in the dark and hugged him tight. The guns were silent, and only occasional peals of thunder broke the stillness.

"Well, one day," she began, "a very cross girl came to the gate, and the soldier who was always on the lookout for the stolen princess stopped her and spoke to her. But the cross girl was feeling very mean indeed, and she teased the soldier and made him very unhappy. But later on in the afternoon she was ashamed, and so she found the nice girl who was really the stolen princess, and took her with her to the gate, and the soldier--"

Lucia broke off and sat up suddenly to listen. A queer "rat, tat, tat," detached itself from the other night noises. Beppi was sound asleep, and she rolled him gently into the nest of leaves, then she listened again. The sound came again.

"Rat, tat, tat." It was a sharp staccato hammering, m.u.f.fled by the wall of rock behind her.

She stood up and crept softly to the mouth of the cave.

The wind and the rain made such a noise that she could hear nothing, and it was already too dark to distinguish anything but the vaguest outlines. She crept back into the shelter, believing that she had just imagined what she had heard, but she had not taken her place beside Beppi before she heard it again--a persistent "rat, tat, tat," too metallic and too regular to be accounted for by a natural cause.

Lucia's mind was alert at once. She put her ear up against the rock and listened again. m.u.f.fled sounds too indistinct to recognize came to her. Whatever they were, they were not far off, and right in a line with the back of the cave.

Lucia thought of several explanations, but could accept none of them.

She tried to argue against her fears by saying over and over again that if it was a sound made by men, those men were surely Italian soldiers, but her arguments could not still the frightened beating of her heart, as the voice became more distinct. She was filled with terror.

Rumors of underground tunnels and mines blowing off whole mountain tops, that she had heard from the soldiers, came back to her and left her cold with fear.

Beppi had rolled over beside the goat for warmth, and was sleeping soundly. Lucia looked at him and then went once more to the mouth of the cave.

The cold rain in her face gave her back her courage, and she felt her way around the cliff and up between the crevices of the two rocks, until she was on the roof of the cave. It was flat and the ground seemed to stretch out level for quite a distance before her. She listened for a moment, but the rain beating down made it impossible for her to distinguish any other sound.

She lay down flat on the wet ground, and crawled forward for a few feet, then listened again. At first she heard only the rain and the wind, but after a little wait there was a m.u.f.fled bang as if a bomb had exploded deep down in the earth, and the ground beneath her trembled.

Lucia sprang to her feet and ran terrified back to the cave. It was fortunate that she was as sure-footed as her goats, for the way was steep and slippery, and she did not pause to take care.

Over in the cave, with her hand on Beppi's curly head, she sat down to think. Her mind was not capable of arriving at any logical explanation. Two thoughts stood out clearly and beyond doubt. First, the enemy was doing something of which the Italians were unaware, and second, the Italians must be warned before it was too late. That she must warn them she realized at once, but the way was not easy to determine.

The mountains were tricky. From one side they might look deserted, and yet a whole army could be in hiding just over the other side. The giant peaks formed formidable and wellnigh impa.s.sable barriers between one range and the next. Lucia had seen the troops disappear that morning, as if the great rocks had opened and devoured them, and she knew that at this moment they might be within a half a mile of her, but where to begin to find them she did not know.

The close proximity of the Austrians frightened her, and she was afraid to go off at random, or even to call. Throughout the night she tried to think and plan as she sat up with her back against the rock listening for the rat, tat, tat, which began again after she returned to the cave, and continued at regular intervals.

Before dawn the rain stopped and the wind blew the clouds away. At the first streak of light Lucia stole softly away from the sleeping Beppi and Garibaldi, and crept down the tiny path to the plateau below. Once there she was on familiar ground and even in the pale light she could tell her way.

During the night she had decided to go to the rock where she took her milk in the morning, surely the mysterious hand that left the pennies for her would be there, and she was determined, to wait for him.

She reached the spot without encountering any difficulties, and sat down to wait. The sun rose east of Cellino, and she watched it as it climbed over the hill and lighted the windows of the church with its yellow low rays.

All the world looked as if it had just been bathed and freshly clothed to step out glistening and very clean to greet the day. The air was chilly, but so fresh and sweet that Lucia took long grateful breaths of it. She was just wondering how long she would have to wait, when a stone rolled down beside her and hit her foot. She jumped and turned around. A soldier with a broad smile that showed all his fine white teeth was climbing down towards her.

Lucia put her fingers to her lip to caution silence, and his smile changed to a look of sudden anxiety.

"What is it?" he demanded.

"Don't make any noise," Lucia warned. "Listen to me."

She told him all that she had discovered during the night.

"Are you sure of what you say?" the soldier questioned her seriously.

"Oh, yes, sir, I tell you I crawled out and listened. The sound was very near."

"Can you show me the place?"

"Yes, yes, I have just come from there, but it is a slippery climb."

Lucia looked at him interrogatively.

The man nodded. "Never mind that, lead the way."