the carriage.  Hitherto Luigi had avoided her.  Under pretence of doubling Count Karl’s cloak as a pillow for her head, he whispered, “If the signorina hears shots let her lie on the ground flat as a sheet.”  The peacefulness surrounding her precluded alarm.  There was brilliant moonlight, and the host of stars, all dim; and first they beckoned her up to come away from trouble, and then, through long gazing, she had the fancy that they bent and swam about her, making her feel that she lay in the hollows of a warm hushed sea.  She wished for her lover.

Men and officers were lying at a stone’s-throw distant.  The Tyrolese had lit a fire for cooking purposes, by which four of them stood, and, lifting hands, sang one of their mountain songs, that seemed to her to spring like clear water into air, and fall wavering as a feather falls, or the light about a stone in water.  It lulled her to a half-sleep, during which she fancied hearing a broad imitation of a cat’s-call from the mountains, that was answered out of the camp, and a talk of officers arose in connection with the response, and subsided.  The carriage was in the shadows of the fire.  In a little while Luigi and the driver began putting the horses to, and she saw Count Karl and Weisspriess go up to Luigi, who declared loudly that it was time.  The woman inside was aroused.  Weisspriess helped to drag her out.  Luigi kept making much noise, and apologized for it by saying that he desired to awaken his master, who was stretched in a secure circle among the Tyrolese.  Presently Vittoria beheld the woman’s arms thrown out free; the next minute they were around the body of Weisspriess, and a shrewd cry issued from Count Karl.  Shots rang from the outposts; the Tyrolese sprang to arms; “Sandra!” was shouted by Pericles; and once more she heard the ‘Venite fratelli!’ of the bull’s voice, and a stream of volunteers dashed at the Tyrolese with sword and dagger and bayonet.  The Austro-Italians stood in a crescent line—­the ominous form of incipient military insubordination.  Their officers stormed at them, and called for Count Karl and for Weisspriess.  The latter replied like a man stifling, but Count Karl’s voice was silent.

“Weisspriess! here, to me!” the captain sang out in Italian.

“Ammiani! here, to me!” was replied.

Vittoria struck her hands together in electrical gladness at her lover’s voice and name.  It rang most cheerfully.  Her home was in the conflict where her lover fought, and she muttered with ecstasy, “We have met! we have met!” The sound of the keen steel, so exciting to dream of, paralyzed her nerves in a way that powder, more terrible for a woman’s imagination, would not have done, and she could only feebly advance.  It was a spacious moonlight, but the moonlight appeared to have got of a brassy hue to her eyes, though the sparkle of the steel was white; and she felt too, and wondered at it, that the cries and the noise went to her throat, as if threatening to choke her.  Very soon she found herself standing there, watching for the issue of the strife, almost as dead as a weight in scales, incapable of clear vision.