The wiry old peasant struggled desperately, and at last threw himself free of them and staggered to his feet.

“Quick, Bastianello!” shouted Ruggiero.

In the twinkling of an eye they were over the fence and running at full speed for the valley.  Don Pietro bruised, dazed and half-blinded, struggled after them, crashing through hedges and stumbling into ditches while he shouted for help in his pursuit.  But his heavy shoes hampered him, and at best he was no match for them in speed.  His face was covered with purple blotches and his eyelids were swelling at a terrible rate.  Out of breath and utterly worn out he stood still and steadied himself against a crooked olive-tree.  He could no longer hear even the footsteps of the lads before him.

They were beyond his reach now.  The last of the Children of the King had left Verbicaro, where their fathers had lived and died since darker ages than Calabrian history has accurately recorded.

CHAPTER II.

“We shall never see him again,” said Ruggiero, stopping at last and looking back over the stone wall he had just cleared.

Sebastiano listened intently.  He was not tall enough to see over, but his ears were sharp.

“I do not hear him any more,” he answered.  “I hurt my hands on his nose,” he added, thoughtfully, as he glanced at his bruised knuckles.

“So did I,” returned his brother.  “He will remember us.  Come along—­it is far to Scalea.”

“To Scalea?  Are we going to Scalea?”

“Eh!  If not, where?  And where else can we eat?  Don Antonino will give us a piece of bread.”

“There are figs here,” suggested Sebastiano, looking up into the trees around them.

“It has not rained yet, and if you eat figs from the tree before it has rained you will have pain.  But if we are very hungry we will eat them, all the same.”

Little Sebastiano yielded rather reluctantly before his brother’s superior wisdom.  Besides, Padre Michele had given them a little cold bean porridge at the monastery early in the morning.  So they went on their way cautiously, and looking about them at every step now that there was no more need of haste.  For they had got amongst the vineyards and orchards where they had no business, and if the peasants saw them, the stones would begin to fly.  They knew their way about, however, and reached an open footpath without any adventure, so that in half an hour they were on the mule track to Scalea.  They walked much faster than a grown peasant would have done, and they knew the road.  Instead of turning to the left after going down the hill beyond the tower, they took the right hand path to the Scalea river, and as it had not rained they got across without getting very wet.  But that road is not so good as the one to Diamante, because the river is sometimes swollen, and people with laden mules have to wait even as much as three days before they can try the ford, and moreover there is bad air there, which brings fever.