But the younger men listened to him more readily, being less bent and broken by long labour, and poor food, and many years of unanswered prayers.  Of these some had served their time in regiments, and aided him to give some knowledge of drill and of the use of weapons to those who agreed with him to dispute by force the claim of strangers to the Edera water.

These gatherings took place on waste lands or bare heaths, or in clearings or hollows in the woods, and the tramp of feet and click of weapons scared the affrighted fox and the astounded badger.  They dared not fire lest the sound should betray their whereabouts to some unfriendly ear; but they went through all other military exercises as far as it lay in their power to do so.

The extreme loneliness of the Edera valley was in their favour.  Once in half a year, perhaps, half a troop of carabineers might ride through the district, but this was only if there had been any notable assassination or robbery; and of police there was none nearer than the town of San Beda.

It was to arrange these nightly exercises, and summon to or warn off men from them, as might be expedient, that Nernia was usually sent upon her nocturnal errands.  One night when she had been bidden by Adone to go to a certain hamlet in the woods to the north, the child, as she was about to slip back the great steel bolts which fastened the house door, saw a light upon the stairs which she had just descended, and turning round, her hand upon the lock, saw Clelia Alba.

“Why are you out of your bed at this hour?” said the elder woman.  Her face was stern and dark.

Nernia did not answer; her gay courage forsook her; she trembled.

“Why?” asked Adone’s mother.

“I was going out,” answered the child.  Her voice shook.  She was clothed as usual in the daytime, but she had over her head a woollen wrapper.  She had not her musket, for she kept it in the hen-house, and was accustomed to take it as she passed that place.

“Going out!  At the fourth hour of the night?  Is that an answer for a decent maiden?”

Nernia was silent.

“Go back to your room, and I will lock you in it; in the morning you will account to me.”

Nernia recovered her self-possession, though she trembled still.

“Pardon me, Madama Clelia,” she said humbly, “I must go out.”

She did not look ashamed, and her small brown face had a resolute expression.

A great anguish seized and wrung the heart of Clelia Alba.  She knew that Adone was not in the house, Did he, the soul of purity and honour, seduce a girl who dwelt under his own roof? —­ carry on an intrigue with a little beggar, to his own shame and the outrage of his mother?  Was this the true cause of his frequent absence, his many nights abroad?  Her dark brows contracted, her black eyes blazed.

“Go to your room, wanton!” she said in tones of thunder.  “In the morning you will answer to me.”