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

38 MILITARY LIFE,
his face with his hands, tottered, and fell at the foot of his
sentry box :
a stone had hit him on the forehead.
All the soldiers rushed forward, the crowd dispersed and
disappeared ;
the wounded man was carried into the guardroom
with his face and chest bleeding ;
the wound was instantly
washed, his
head bound up, he was given something to drink,
and a bed was prepared for him on the table with the camp
blankets of the other soldiers. While they were all gathering
around him, and overwhelming him with questions and words
of comfort, and the sergeant was scolding him for not having
asked assistance at the first insult of those people, an officer
suddenly entered, and behind him the first file of a squad of
soldiers.
At the same moment, plunged forward by a vigorous
push, there dashed into the middle of the room a man with
distorted face, hair hanging over his forehead, and clothes in
rags. He had been arrested on that same little square by the
soldiers of a squad who were passing, and to whom he had
offered a violent resistance.
At the first appearance of the prisoner
the wounded soldier
sprang up from the table, made a dash at him, placed himself
face to face with him, looked at him a moment with flashing eyes,
uttered a cry, which came broken and hoarse from between his
clinched teeth, took a step backward, and resting proudly on
his right foot, and raising his left hand, with the first finger
pointing to the face of the man, who was watching him with fear :
" Ah, you are the one ! he shrieked in a tone that froze one's
blood ;
" I recognize you ! You
called me hangman in the
street and have broken my head with a stone on the square ;
now it 's
your turn "
Saying which, he ! sprang at him, seized
him by the collar of his jacket and shirt, pinned him with one