Military life in Italy : sketches - Societa italiana di storia militare

26O
MILITA R Y LIFE.
of caves, precipices, thick bushes, and mounds, without any
pathways.
Several narrow paths climb up zig-zag, and are lost
in the midst of the great rocks and thickets. A few dwellings
appear here and there, half hidden among the projections of
the rocks ;
some bits of level and verdant earth, but on every
other side there is only the rough, wild face of nature.
It was a rainy, autumn evening. A patrol of a few soldiers,
one behind the other, were passing through that portion of
the
valley, climbing, descending, and winding according to the elevations
of ground and the rocks which filled the small pathway
worn by the feet of pedestrians during the long
series of
years.
A soldier preceded the patrol by about forty paces ;
another
followed it at about the same distance. They were walking
slowly and silently with lowered heads,
their arms.
their muskets under
Suddenly, the soldier who was ahead, heard a sound of
hurrying steps, saw three heads appear above a rock, three
gun-barrels gleaming, and three flashes, felt his fatigue-cap
taken off, and heard two balls whistle to the right and
left of his head. In an instant three brigands dashed out
upon him. He discharged his musket, and one of them
gave a cry and fell to the ground. He rushed upon the
other, and with a powerful blow from his musket pushed his
carbine aside, and dashed his bayonet into his stomach. But
the third, who was behind, attacked him before he could turn
against him, seized the musket with one hand, and raised a
dagger with the other. The soldier abandoned his weapon,
grasped the armed hand of the brigand with his left one,
clasped his throat with the right arm, squeezed it like a serpent,