Henty George Alfred
Out with Garibaldi: A story of the liberation of Italy

“Now, signor,” the officer said, when they had left the last of the large rooms, “there are only the four special prisoners to visit.”

The first of these was a man in the prime of life, although with long unkempt hair and beard. As Frank repeated the words he had used before, the man looked at him with an unmeaning smile. Again and again he spoke to him, but a low childish laugh was the only answer. Frank turned angrily to the officer.

“The poor fellow’s mind has gone,” he said. “How long has he been a prisoner here?”

“About eight years, signor; for some time his mind has been getting weaker.”

“The brutes!” Frank exclaimed passionately. “Here, men, take this poor fellow out to the courtyard, and remain with him: I will ask the general presently what had best be done with him. Are the others like this?” he asked the officer, with a thrill of fear that overpowered the hope that he had lately been feeling.

“One of them is silent, and seldom speaks, but he is, I believe, quite sensible; the other two are well. The man we shall next see is perfectly so; he never speaks to us, but when alone here, or when upon the wall for exercise, he talks incessantly to himself: sometimes in Italian; sometimes, as one of the officers who understands that language says, in English; sometimes in what I have heard our priests say is Latin; sometimes in other languages.”

“Before you open the door, tell me what age he is,” Frank asked, in a low strained voice.

“I should say that he was about sixty, signor; he has been here nearly three years,” the man said.

“Now open the door.”

Frank entered almost timidly. A tall man rose from a palette, which was the sole article of furniture in the room.

“Is it treason, lieutenant,” he asked quietly, “to ask what has been going on?”

Frank with an exclamation of joy stepped forward: “Grandfather,” he said, “thank God I have found you!”

The prisoner started, looked at him searchingly, and exclaimed, “Frank! yes, it is Frank: is this a miracle, or am I dreaming?”

“Neither, grandfather. Garibaldi has landed; we have taken the castle, and, thank God, you are free.”

The professor sank back on his bed and sat for a minute or two with his face buried in his hands; then he rose, put his hands upon Frank’s shoulders, and then clasped him in his arms, bursting as he did so into tears, while Frank’s own cheeks were wet. The professor was the first to recover himself.

“I had fancied, Frank,” he said, “that I was a philosopher, but I see I am not; I thought that all emotion for me was over, but I feel now like a child. And can I really go out?”

“Yes,” Frank said; “but I have two more doors to open, and then I will go with you.”

“I will wait here for you, Frank: I shall be glad to be for a few minutes alone, to persuade myself that this is not a dream, and to thank God for His mercy. One moment, though, before you leave me: is my wife alive and well, and my daughter?”

“Both are well,” Frank said; “it is five months since I saw them, but I had letters from both four days ago.” Then he left the cell.

“This is the silent man,” the officer said, as he opened the next door. Frank repeated his usual speech to the dark-bearded man who faced him when he entered.

“You are young to lie, sir,” the man said sternly. “This, I suppose, is a fresh trick to see whether I still hate the accursed government that has sent me here.”

“It is no lie, signor,” Frank said quietly. “I am an officer of General Garibaldi’s. He has conquered all Sicily, and with some four thousand men crossed the straits three days ago to Melito, and has now captured this place.”

The man burst into a wild fit of laughter, and then, with another cry of “You lie!” he sprang upon Frank, and had it not been for the officer and the two Garibaldian soldiers, who still accompanied them, would assuredly have strangled him; for, strong as he was, Frank was but an infant in the man’s hands. After a desperate struggle, he was pulled off, and forced down on his bed.

“Leave him,” Frank said: “he will be quiet now. – Signor, I can understand your feelings; you think what I have said is impossible. You will soon see that it is not. As soon as you calm yourself, one of my men will accompany you to the courtyard, which is, you will find, full of Garibaldians; and the general himself will assure you that you are a free man, and can, if you choose, quit this place immediately.”

The man’s mood changed. “I am calm,” he said, rising to his feet. “Perhaps this man will take me out to execution, but it will be welcome to me. I have prayed for death so long that I can only rejoice if it has come.” Then he quietly walked out of the cell, followed by one of the soldiers, who, being by no means satisfied that the prisoner had ceased to be dangerous, slipped his bayonet on to his musket before following him.

The fourth prisoner was very feeble, but he received the news with tranquillity. “It does not make much difference to me now,” he said; “but it will be some satisfaction to know that I shall be buried outside the prison.”

“You must not look at it in that light, signor,” Frank said. “No doubt you will pick up health and strength when you rejoin your friends, and find that the tyranny and oppression you struggled against are at an end.”

Leaving the last of his men to give the poor fellow his arm and lead him out, Frank returned to Professor Forli. The latter rose briskly as he came in.

“I am myself again,” he said. “Your coming here so strangely, and the news you brought, were so great a surprise, that everything seemed confused, and I was unable to grasp the fact. I have heard that a good swimmer, if he falls suddenly into deep water, behaves for a few moments like one who is ignorant of the art, striking out wildly, swallowing much water before he fairly grasps the situation and his skill returns to him. So it was with me: my equanimity has never been shaken since I was first seized. I perceived at once that what was to come was inevitable. I reflected that I was vastly better off than most; that my mind was stored with knowledge accumulated by the great thinkers of all ages, and that, so fortified, I could afford to be indifferent to imprisonment or persecution. But you see the suddenness of the knowledge that I was free, did what captivity, even as hopeless as mine, had failed to do. Now, Frank, let us go out: you shall take me down to the sea-shore, and then tell me by what marvel you come to be here. If it had been your father, I should not have been so surprised; but that you, whom I had thought of as a boy at Harrow, should throw open my prison-door, is past my understanding at present. Of course, your father is here with you?”

“I am sorry to say that he is not,” Frank said quietly; “but I will tell you all about it when we get down to the shore. I must, before we start, tell the general that all the prisoners have been freed, and that I have found you, and ask if he will require me just at present.”

Going into the courtyard, Frank left his grandfather to look on at a scene so novel to him, and went into the room where Garibaldi and Bixio were examining, with the syndic, a map of the district. He stood at the door till the general looked round.

“Pardon me, sir, for interrupting you, but I wish to report to you that among the other prisoners I have found Signor Forli, and that he is in good health.”

Garibaldi rose from his seat, and holding out both hands grasped those of Frank.

“I am glad – I am glad indeed, lad,” he said with deep feeling, “that my old friend is rescued; glad that the sacrifice that your mother made in parting with you has not been in vain, and that your own bravery and good conduct have been thus rewarded. I pray God that that other that you are seeking for, still nearer and more loved, may also be found.”

“Excuse me,” he said to Bixio and the syndic: “I must shake Signor Forli by the hand before I go farther into this.”

As he hurried out, Frank said, – “I have not told him about my father yet, sir. He suggested himself that we should go down together to the sea-shore, where we could talk matters over quietly; and I came in partly to ask you if you would require my services for the next hour or two?”

“Certainly not, Percival. Yes, I will be careful; it would be a shock to him to be told suddenly that your father had lost his life in his search for him.”

Led by Frank, he hurried to the spot where the professor was standing, quietly regarding the Garibaldians laughing and chatting, and the groups of the Neapolitan troops, who, now disarmed, were standing talking together with disheartened and sombre faces.

“Ah, professor,” he exclaimed, as he came up to him; “glad indeed am I that you have been found and rescued. Your friends were right in not despairing of you. It seems an age since we parted twelve years ago at Rome. You are little changed. I feared that if found you would be like so many of the others whose prison doors we have opened – mere wrecks of themselves.”

“Nor have you changed much,” Signor Forli said, as he stood holding the general’s hand; “a line or two on the forehead, but that is all. And so you have taken up again the work that seemed postponed for another century at Rome?”

“Yes; and this time I hope that all Italy will be freed. Now, old friend, you must excuse me for the present – I am full of business; this evening we must have a long talk together; much has happened in the three years that have passed since you disappeared. You can keep this youngster with you. He has well earned a day’s holiday.” So saying, Garibaldi hurried off.

CHAPTER XV.
THE ADVANCE FROM REGGIO

PROFESSOR FORLI was silent until he and Frank had passed out through the gate of the castle, then he took a long breath.

“The air of freedom,” he said, “is no different from that I have breathed daily on the walls there, for well-nigh three years, and yet it seems different. It is a comfort that my prison lay in this fair spot, and not in some place where I could see but little beyond the walls. Often and often have I thanked God that it was so, and that, even as a free man and with the world before me, I could see no more lovely scene than this. There was change, too: there was the passage of the ships; I used to wonder where each was sailing; and about the passengers, and how hopefully many of these were going abroad to strange countries in search of fortunes, and how few were returning with their hopes fully satisfied. I smiled sometimes to think of the struggle for wealth and advancement going on in the world round me, while I had no need to think of the future; but my needs, always, as you know, few and simple, were ministered to; and though cut off from converse with all around me, I had the best company in the world in my cell. How thankful I was that my memory was so good – that I could discourse with the great men of the world, could talk with Plato and argue with Demosthenes; could discuss old age with Cicero, or travel with either Homer or Virgil; visit the Inferno with Dante, or the Heavens with Milton; knew by heart many of the masterpieces of Shakespeare and Goethe, and could laugh over the fun of Terence and Plutarch: it was a grand company.”

So the professor continued to talk until they reached the shore. Frank was not called upon to speak. The professor was talking to himself rather than to him, continuing the habit of which the officer of the prison had spoken. As yet his brain was working in its old groove. Once on the strand, he stood silently gazing for two or three minutes, then he passed his hand across his forehead, and with an evident effort broke the chain of his thoughts and turned to Frank.

“Strange talk, no doubt you are thinking, Frank, for a man so suddenly and unexpectedly released from a living grave; but you see, lad, that the body can be emancipated more quickly than the mind from its bonds, and I am as one awaking from a deep sleep and still wondering whether it is I myself, and how I came to be here, and what has happened to me. I fear that it will be some time before I can quite shake off my dreams. Now, lad, once more tell me about my wife and your mother. But no, you have told me that they are well. You have said naught of your father, save that he is not here. Where is he? and how is he?”

“I can answer neither question, grandfather. He, like you, has been lost to us; he disappeared a few months after you did, and we were led to believe that he was killed.”

The professor was himself again in an instant. The mood that had dominated him was shaken off, and he was keen, sharp, and alert again, as Frank remembered him.

“He is lost?” he repeated: “you heard that he was killed? How was it? tell me everything. In the early days of my imprisonment, when I thought of many things outside the walls of my gaol, one thing troubled me more than others. My wife had her daughter; no harm would come to her, save the first grief at my loss and the slow process of hope dying out. My daughter had everything that a woman could wish to make her happy; but your father, I knew him so well, he would not rest when the days passed and no news of me came – he would move heaven and earth to find me; and a man in this country who dares to enquire after a political prisoner incurs no small danger. Is it so that he was missing? Tell me all, and spare no detail; we have the rest of the day before us. We will sit down on this seat. Now begin.”

Frank told, at length, how, on the news of the professor’s disappearance, his father had interested the English government in the matter, and how to all enquiries made the government of Naples had replied that they knew nothing whatever concerning his disappearance; and how, at last, he himself started with an order obtained from Naples for him to search all the prisons of southern Italy.

“It was just like him; it was noble and chivalrous,” the professor said; “but he should have known better. An Englishman unacquainted with Italy might have believed that with such an order he might safely search for one who he suspected was lying in a Neapolitan prison, but your father should have known better. Notice would assuredly be sent before he arrived; and had he come here, for example, I should a week before have been carried away up into the mountains, till he had gone. He would have been shown the register of prisoners, he would not have found my name among them, he would have been told that no such person as he described had ever been confined here, – it was hopeless. But go on with your story.”

Frank told how his father had visited several prisons, and how he wrote letters, exposing their horrors, that had appeared in the English papers, and had created an immense impression throughout the country.

“It was mad of him,” the professor murmured; “noble, but mad.”

Then Frank told how the news came of his being carried off by brigands, of the steps that had been taken, of the evidence of the courier who saw him fall, and of some of his effects being found in the hut on the mountain when this was captured and the brigand chief killed, of the report given by one of the prisoners that his father had died and been buried shortly after he was taken there, and of the vain search that had been made for his body.

“And was this tale believed?” Signor Forli exclaimed, leaping to his feet. “No Italian would for a moment have thought it true – at least, none who had the misfortune to be born under the Neapolitan rule. Surely my wife never believed it?”

“In her heart I know now that she did not,” Frank said, “but she kept her doubts to herself for the sake of my mother. She thought that it was far better that she should believe that father was dead than that she should believe him buried in one of the foul prisons he had described.”

“She was right – she was right,” the professor said: “it was certainly better. And your mother – did she lose hope?”

“She told me that she would not allow herself to believe that he might still be alive, and I believe that she and the signora never said one word on the subject to each other until just before I started.” He then related how the courier had been brought over, how he had been installed in the house in Cadogan Place, and how no suspicion of his being a spy had been entertained until after the receipt of Garibaldi’s letter, and how they were convinced at last that he had overheard all the arrangements made for his leaving for Italy.

“And you are alive, Frank, to tell me this! By what miracle did you escape from the net that was thrown around you?”

This part of the story was also told.

“It was well arranged and bravely carried through, Frank. So you took up the mission which had cost your father either his life or his liberty? It was a great undertaking for a lad, and I wonder indeed that your mother, after the losses she had suffered, permitted you to enter upon it. Well, contrary to all human anticipations, you have succeeded in one half of it, and you will, I trust, succeed in the other. What seemed hardly possible – that you should enter the castle of Reggio as one of its conquerors, and so have free access to the secrets of its prison – has been accomplished; and if Garibaldi succeeds in carrying his arms farther, and other prison doors are opened, we may yet find your father. What you have told me has explained what has hitherto been a puzzle to me: why I should have been treated as a special prisoner, and kept in solitary confinement. Now I understand it. England had taken the matter up; and as the government of Naples had denied all knowledge of me, it was necessary that neither any prisoner, who, perhaps, some day might be liberated, nor any prison official should know me, and be able to report my existence to the British representative. You may be sure that, had your father come here, and examined every prisoner and official, privately, he would have obtained no intelligence of me. Giuseppe Borani would not have been here, he would have been removed, and none would dream that he was the prisoner for whom search was made. And now tell me briefly about this expedition of Garibaldi. Is all Europe at war, that he has managed to bring an army here?”

“First of all, grandfather, I must tell you what happened last year.”

He then related the incidents of the war of 1859, whereby France and Sardinia united and wrested Milan and Lombardy from the Austrians; the brilliant achievements of the Garibaldians; the disappointment felt by Italy at Nice and a part of Savoy being handed over to Napoleon as the price of the services that he had rendered; how Bologna and Florence, Palma, Ferrara, Forli, and Ravenna, had all expelled their rulers and united themselves with Sardinia; and how, Garibaldi having been badly treated and his volunteers disbanded, he himself had retired disappointed and hurt to Caprera.

Then he related briefly the secret gathering of the expedition; the obstacles thrown in its way; its successful landing in Sicily, and the events that had terminated with the expulsion of the Neapolitan forces from the island.

“Garibaldi began with but a thousand men,” he said in conclusion. “He is now at the head of twenty thousand, and it will grow every hour; for we have news of risings throughout southern Calabria. If a thousand sufficed for the conquest of Sicily, twenty thousand will surely be sufficient for that of the mainland. The easy capture of this place will strike terror into the enemy, and raise the enthusiasm of the troops and the Calabrians to the utmost. Garibaldi has but four thousand men with him now; but by this time to-morrow ten thousand at least will have crossed, and I think it is possible that we shall reach Naples without having to fight another battle. At any rate, one pitched battle should be enough to free all Southern Italy. The Papal States will come next, and then, as Garibaldi hopes, Venice; though this will be a far more serious affair, for the Austrians are very different foes from the Neapolitans, and have the advantage of tremendously strong fortifications, which could only be taken by siege operations with heavy artillery, and certainly could not be accomplished by troops like Garibaldi’s.

“Now about my father. Supposing him to be alive, where do you think he would most probably be imprisoned?”

“There is no saying. That he is alive, I feel confident – unless, indeed, he died in prison from the effect of the wound given him when he was captured. That he did not die when in the hands of the brigands, we may take to be certain, for his grave must in that case have been discovered. He must have been handed over to a party of police sent to fetch him by previous agreement with the brigands, and would have been confined in some place considered especially secure from search. I should fancy that he is probably in Naples itself, – there are several large prisons there. Then there would be the advantage that, if the British government had insisted upon a commission of their own officers searching these prisons, he could be removed secretly from one to another, so that before the one in which he was confined could be examined, he would have been taken to another, which had been previously searched.

“His case was a more serious one than mine. Although I was a naturalised British subject, I had gone of my own free will to Italy, in the vain belief that I should be unmolested after so long an absence; and probably there would have been no stir in the matter had not your father taken it up so hotly, and by the influence he possessed obtained permission to search the dungeons. But, as I said, his case was a far more serious one. He went out backed by the influence of the British government; he was assisted by the British legation; he held the order of the Neapolitan government for admission to all prisons. Thus, had it been found that he had, in spite of their own so-called safe-conduct, been seized and imprisoned, the British fleet would have been in the Bay of Naples in a very short time – especially as his letters, as you tell me, created so much feeling throughout the country. Therefore it would be an almost vital question for the government to maintain the story they had framed, and to conceal the fact that, all the time they were asserting that he had been captured and killed by the brigands, he was in one of their own prisons.

“I may say frankly that they would unhesitatingly have had him killed, perhaps starved to death in a cell, were it not that they would have put it in the power of some official or other to betray them: a discovery that would have meant the fall of the government, possibly the dethronement of the king. Had he been an Italian, he would assuredly have been murdered, for it would not have paid any prison official to betray them; whereas, being an Englishman of distinction, in whose fate the British government had actively interested itself, any man who knew the facts could have obtained a reward of a very large amount indeed for giving information. That is the sole reason, Frank, that leads me to believe that he may still be alive. He was doubtless imprisoned under another name, just as I was; but at least it would be known to the men that attended upon him that he was an Englishman, and these could scarcely have avoided suspecting that he was the man about whom such a stir had taken place. The government had already incurred a tremendous risk by his seizure; but this would have been far greater had foul means been used to get rid of him in prison.

“In the former case, should by any extraordinary chance his existence have become known to the British legation, they would have framed some deliberate lie to account for their ignorance of his being Captain Percival. They might, for instance, assert that he had been taken prisoner in the mountains, with a party of brigands; that his assertions that he was an Englishman had been wholly disbelieved, for he would naturally have spoken in Italian, and his Italian was so good that any assertions he made that he was an Englishman would have been wholly discredited. That is merely a rough guess at the story they might have invented, for probably it would have been much more plausible; but, however plausible, it would not have received the slightest credit had it been found that he had been foully done to death.

“It is difficult, Frank, when one is discussing the probable actions of men without heart, honour, or principle, and in deadly fear of discovery, to determine what course they would be likely to take in any particular circumstances. Now, the first thing that I have to do is to cross to Messina, and to telegraph and afterwards to write to my wife. Can I telegraph?”

“Yes, but not direct: the regular line is that which crosses the straits to this town and then goes up through Italy. That, of course, we have not been able to use, and could not use it now. All messages have been sent by the line from Cape Passaro to Malta, and thence through Sardinia and Corsica to Spezzia. You can send a message by that. There will be no difficulty in getting a boat across the straits. You see the war-ships have steamed away. As soon as the castle was taken they found that their anchorage was within range of its guns. They fired a few shots into the town when the castle was bombarding it, and then retired. I believe that all through the men of the navy have been very reluctant to act against us, except, of course, at Palermo.”

“Then I will go at once. It is strange to me to be able to say I will go.”

“Very well, grandfather. Of course you have no money, but I can supply you with as much as you like. I have plenty of funds. I can’t say where you will find me when you come back, but you will only have to enquire where Garibaldi himself is: I am sure to be with him.”

“I shall stay a couple of days there. After that hard pallet and prison fare I cannot resist the temptation of a comfortable bed, a well-furnished room, and a civilised meal, especially as I am not likely to find any of these things on the way to Naples.”

“By the way, I should think you could telegraph from here,” Frank said. “Garibaldi sent off a message to Messina directly the castle was taken.”

“Then let us do so by all means.”

They went at once to the telegraph office, and from there the professor sent the following message: “Dearest wife, Frank has found and released me. Am well and in good health. Shall write fully this evening. Shall accompany him and aid in his search for Leonard. Love to Muriel. – Forli.”

Having handed this in, they went down to the shore again, and had no difficulty in hiring a boat. Frank took twenty sovereigns from his belt.

“You will want all this, grandfather, for indeed you must have an entirely new fit-out.”

“I suppose I must. There has not been much wear-and-tear in clothes, but three years is a long time for a single suit to last, and I have lately had some uneasiness as to what I should do when these things no longer hung together; and I certainly felt a repugnance to asking for a prison suit. I must decidedly go and get some clothes fit to be seen in before I present myself at an hotel. No respectable house would take me in as I am.”

“Will you have more, sir? I can let you have fifty if you would like it.”

“No, my boy, I don’t want to be encumbered with luggage. A suit besides that I shall wear, and a change of underclothes, will suffice. These can be carried in a small hand-bag, and whether we walk, or ride, I can take it with me.”

After seeing Signor Forli off, Frank returned to the castle.

“Where is the professor?” Garibaldi asked, when he reported himself as ready for duty.

“I have just seen him off to Messina, general. He is sorely in need of clothes, and he wants to write a long letter home, and he could scarcely find a quiet room where he could do so in Reggio. He will rejoin us as we advance.”

“That is the wisest thing he could do; for although he looks wonderfully well, he can hardly be capable of standing much fatigue after taking no exercise for three years. He will have a great deal to learn as to what has taken place since he has been here, for I don’t suppose the prisoners heard a whisper of the great changes in Northern Italy.”

“I told him in a few words, sir, but I had no time to give him any details.”

At Reggio twenty-six guns, five hundred muskets, and a large quantity of coal, ammunition, provisions, horses, and mules were captured. On the following morning, Major Nullo and the Guides with a battalion were thrown out towards San Giovanni. There was no other forward movement. The general was occupied in receiving deputations from many towns and villages, and there were arrangements to be made for the transport of such stores and ammunition as were likely to be required. The Garibaldians had crossed in large numbers. Cosenz and Medici, with a considerable portion of their commands, were already over, and the former had gone up into the hills. The next morning Garibaldi with two thousand men and six captured field-pieces moved forward. It was possible that they would meet with opposition at San Giovanni, and they had scarcely started when a messenger arrived from Nullo. Believing from the reports of the countrymen that the Neapolitans were retiring, he had ridden on with six of the Guides, till to his astonishment, at a bridge crossing a ravine close to that town, he came upon two squadrons of Neapolitan Lancers. With great presence of mind, he and his men had drawn their revolvers and summoned the officers in command to surrender.

“Surrender to whom?” the latter asked.

“To Garibaldi: he is ready to attack at once, if you refuse.”

“I will take you to the general,” the officer said.

To him Nullo repeated his command.

“I have no objection to confer with Garibaldi himself,” the general said, “and will go with you to him.”

“I cannot take you,” Nullo said: “my instructions are simply to demand your surrender; but I will go myself and inform him of your readiness to meet him. In the meantime, I demand that you withdraw your lancers from the bridge, which must be considered as the boundary between the two forces. You can leave two men on your side, and I will leave two on mine.”