The moral effect of the victory was tremendous.  The world at large had made absolutely sure of the destruction of the expedition.  ’Garibaldi has chosen to go his own way,’ said Victor Emmanuel; ’but if you only knew the fright I was in about him and the brave lads with him!’ In Sicily, where the insurrectionary activity of April was almost totally spent, the news sent an electric shock of revolution through the whole island.  In the mountains Rosalino Pilo still resisted, weary of waiting for the help that came not, discouraged or hopeless, but unyielding.  Food and ammunition were almost gone; his ragged band, held together only by the magnetism of his personal influence, began to feel the pangs of hunger.  A price was set on his head, and he was harassed on all sides by the Neapolitan troops, whose attacks became more frequent now that the Government realised that there was danger.  He knew nothing of Garibaldi’s movements; but he was resolved to keep his promise as long as he could:  to hold out till the chief came.  At the hour when everything looked most desperate, a messenger arrived in his camp with a letter in Garibaldi’s handwriting, which bore the date of the 16th of May.  ‘Yesterday,’ it ran, we fought and conquered.’  Never was unexpected news more welcome.  Filled with a joy such as few men have tasted, Rosalino read the glad tidings to his men.  ’The cause is won,’ he said.  ’In a few days, if the enemy’s balls respect me, we shall be in Palermo.’

Meanwhile Garibaldi had occupied Calatafimi, and was proceeding towards Monreale, from which side he contemplated a descent on the capital.  On the high tableland of Renda he met Rosalino Pilo with his reanimated band.  That day the Garibaldian army, all told, amounted to 5,000 men.  On the 21st of May, Rosalino was ordered to make a reconnaissance in the direction of Monreale; while carrying out this order a Neapolitan bullet struck his forehead, causing almost instantaneous death.  ’I am happy to be able to give my blood to Italy, but may heaven be propitious once for all,’ he had written when he first landed, words realised to the letter.

The Neapolitans were put in high spirits by Rosalino Pilo’s death; the discomfiture of Calatafimi was forgotten; they represented Garibaldi as a mouse that was obligingly walking into a well-laid trap.  In fact, his position could not have been more critical, but he had recourse to a stratagem which saved him.  He succeeded in placing the enemy upon a completely false scent.  Abandoning the idea of reaching Palermo from the east (Monreale), he decided to attempt the assault from the south (Piana de’ Greci and Misilmeri), but, all the while, he continued to throw the Sicilian Picciotti on the Monreale route, and gave them orders to fire stray shots in every direction and to light innumerable camp-fires.  These troops frequently came in contact with the Neapolitans in trifling skirmishes, and kept their attention so well occupied that General Colonna, in command of