I walked swiftly and silently down to the jetty.  Yes, the boat was all right!  I looked to her fires, and left her moored by one rope ready to be launched into the calm black sea in an instant.  Then I strolled along by the harbor side.  Here I met a couple of sentries.  Innocently I entered into conversation with them, condoling on their hard fate in being kept on duty while pleasure was at the helm in the Piazza.  Gently deprecating such excess of caution, I pointed out to them the stationary lights of The Songstress four or five miles out to sea, and with a respectful smile at the colonel’s uneasiness, left the seed I had sown to grow in prepared soil.  I dared do no more, and had to trust for the rest to their natural inclination to the neglect of duty.

When I got back to the bottom of Liberty Street, I ensconced myself in the shelter of a little group of trees which stood at one side of the roadway.  Just across the road, which ran at right angles to the street, the wood began, and a quarter of an hour’s walk through its shades would bring us to the jetty where the boat lay.  My trees made a perfect screen, and here I stood awaiting events.  For some time nothing was audible but an ever-increasing tumult of joviality from the Piazza.  But after about twenty minutes I awoke to the fact that a constant dribble of men, singly or in pairs, had begun to flow past me from the Piazza, down Liberty Street, across the road behind me, and into the wood.  Some were in uniform, others dressed in common clothes; one or two I recognized as members of Johnny Carr’s missing band.  The strong contrast between the prevailing revelry and the stealthy, cautious air of these passers-by would alone have suggested that they were bent on business; putting two and two together I had not the least doubt that they were the President’s adherents making their way down to the water’s edge to receive their chief.  So he was coming; the letter had done its work!  Some fifty or more must have come and gone before the stream ceased, and I reflected, with great satisfaction, that the colonel was likely to have his hands very full in the next hour or two.

Half an hour or so passed uneventfully; the bonfire still blazed; the songs and dancing were still in full swing.  I was close upon the fearful hour of two, when, looking from my hiding-place, I saw a slight figure in black coming quickly and fearfully along the road.

I recognized the signorina at once, as I should recognize her any day among a thousand; and, as she paused nearly opposite where I was, I gently called her name and showed myself for a moment.  She ran to me at once.

“Is it all right?” she asked breathlessly.

“We shall see in a moment,” said I.  “The attack is coming off; it will begin directly.”

But the attack was not the next thing we saw.  We had both retreated again to the friendly shadow whence we could see without being seen.  Hardly had we settled ourselves than the signorina whispered to me, pointing across the road to the wood: