Carmine, and the Gardens, the Austrians were reaping the white flag of the inhabitants of that district.  Thitherward his cry of “Down with the Tedeschi!” led the boiling tide.  Rinaldo drew Wilfrid and Jenna to an open doorway, counselling the latter to strip the gold from his coat and speak his Italian in monosyllables.  A woman of the house gave her promise to shelter and to pass them forward.  Romara, Ammiani, and the Guidascarpi, went straight to the Casa Gonfalonieri, where they hoped to see stray members of the Council of War, and hear a correction of certain unpleasant rumours concerning the dealings of the Provisional Government with Charles Albert.

The first crack of a division between the patriot force and the aristocracy commenced this day; the day following it was a breach.

A little before dusk the bells of the city ceased their hammering, and when they ceased, all noises of men and musketry seemed childish.  The woman who had promised to lead Wilfrid and Jenna to the citadel, feared no longer either for herself or them, and passed them on up the Corso Francesco past the Contrada del Monte.  Jenna pointed out the Duchess of Graatli’s house, saying, “By the way, the Lenkensteins are here; they left Venice last week.  Of course you know, or don’t you?—­and there they must stop, I suppose.”  Wilfrid nodded an immediate good-bye to him, and crossed to the house-door.  His eccentric fashion of acting had given him fame in the army, but Jenna stormed at it now, and begged him to come on and present himself to General Schoneck, if not to General Pierson.  Wilfrid refused even to look behind him.  In fact, it was a part of the gallant fellow’s coxcombry (or nationality) to play the Englishman.  He remained fixed by the housedoor till midnight, when a body of men in the garb of citizens, volubly and violently Italian in their talk, struck thrice at the door.  Wilfrid perceived Count Lenkenstein among them.  The ladies Bianca, Anna, and Lena issued mantled and hooded between the lights of two barricade watchfires.  Wilfrid stepped after them.  They had the password, for the barricades were crossed.  The captain of the head-barricade in the Corso demurred, requiring a counter-sign.  Straightway he was cut down.  He blew an alarm-call, when up sprang a hundred torches.  The band of Germans dashed at the barricade as at the tusks of a boar.  They were picked men, most of them officers, but a scanty number in the thick of an armed populace.  Wilfrid saw the lighted passage into the great house, and thither, throwing out his arms, he bore the affrighted group of ladies, as a careful shepherd might do.  Returning to Count Lenkenstein’s side, “Where are they?” the count said, in mortal dread.  “Safe,” Wilfrid replied.  The count frowned at him inquisitively.  “Cut your way through, and on!” he cried to three or four who hung near him; and these went to the slaughter.

“Why do you stand by me, sir?” said the count.  Interior barricades were pouring their combatants to the spot; Count Lenkenstein was plunged upon the door-steps.  Wilfrid gained half-a-minute’s parley by shouting in his foreign accent, “Would you hurt an Englishman?” Some one took him by the arm, and helping to raise the count, hurried them both into the house.