The others meantime had thrown themselves on the grass at the feet of their manifestly acknowledged leader, and looked up for Agostino to explode the last of his train of conceits.  He became aware that the moment for serious talk had arrived, and bent his body, groaning loudly, and uttering imprecations against him whom he accused of being the promoter of its excruciating stiffness, until the ground relieved him of its weight.  Carlo continued standing, while his eyes examined restlessly the slopes just surmounted by them, and occasionally the deep descent over the green-glowing Orta Lake.  It was still early morning.  The heat was tempered by a cool breeze that came with scents of thyme.  They had no sight of human creature anywhere, but companionship of Alps and birds of upper air; and though not one of them seasoned the converse with an exclamation of joy and of blessings upon a place of free speech and safety, the thought was in their hunted bosoms, delicious as a woodland rivulet that sings only to the leaves overshadowing it.

They were men who had sworn to set a nation free,—­free from the foreigner, to begin with.

(He who tells this tale is not a partisan; he would deal equally toward all.  Of strong devotion, of stout nobility, of unswerving faith and self-sacrifice, he must approve; and when these qualities are displayed in a contest of forces, the wisdom of means employed, or of ultimate views entertained, may be questioned and condemned; but the men themselves may not be.)

These men had sworn their oath, knowing the meaning of it, and the nature of the Fury against whom men who stand voluntarily pledged to any great resolve must thenceforward match themselves.  Many of the original brotherhood had fallen, on the battle-field, on the glacis, or in the dungeon.  All present, save the youthfuller Carlo, had suffered.  Imprisonment and exile marked the Chief.  Ugo Corte, of Bergamo, had seen his family swept away by the executioner and pecuniary penalties.  Thick scars of wounds covered the body and disfigured the face of Giulio Bandinelli.  Agostino had crawled but half-a-year previously out of his Piedmontese cell, and Marco Sana, the Brescian, had in such a place tasted of veritable torture.  But if the calamity of a great oath was upon them, they had now in their faithful prosecution of it the support which it gives.  They were unwearied; they had one object; the mortal anguish they had gone through had left them no sense for regrets.  Life had become the field of an endless engagement to them; and as in battle one sees beloved comrades struck down, and casts but a glance at their prostrate forms, they heard the mention of a name, perchance, and with a word or a sign told what was to be said of a passionate glorious heart at rest, thanks to Austrian or vassal-Sardinian mercy.

So they lay there and discussed their plans.

“From what quarter do you apprehend the surprise?” Ugo Corte glanced up from the maps and papers spread along the grass to question Carlo ironically, while the latter appeared to be keeping rigid watch over the safety of the position.  Carlo puffed the smoke of a cigarette rapidly, and Agostino replied for him:—­“From the quarter where the best donkeys are to be had.”