"They are so happy to be free," he replied,
apologetically.

"But what right have they to be happy
while their dead lie unburied at their very
doors?" asked Saxon, indignantly. "What
right have they to forget the hundreds of innocent
women and children crushed and burned
in their homes, or the Neapolitans who massacred
them?"

"Ah, gli assassini! we will pay them out at
Melazzo," was the quick reply.

And this was the Sicilian temperament.
Sights which filled Saxon and the Earl with
pity and horror, brought but a passing cloud
upon the brow of their new acquaintance. He
had seen them daily for three weeks, and grown
familiar with them. He talked and laughed in
the very precincts of death; scrambled up the
barricades; showed where the Regi had been
repulsed, and at which point the Garibaldians
had come in; chattered about the cession of
Nice, the probable duration of the war, the
priests, the sbirri, the foreign volunteers, and
all the thousand-and-one topics connected with
the revolutionary cause; and thought a great
deal more of the coming expedition than of the
past bombardment.

At length, just as they came out upon the
Marina, a gun was fired from Fort Galita, and
their Sicilian friend bade them a hasty farewell.

"That is our signal for assembling on board,"
said he. " If you reach Melazzo before the
work is begun, ask for me. I may be able to
do something for you. At all events, I will
try."

"We won't forget that promise!" replied
Saxon, eagerly.

"Addio, fratelli."

And these young men who looked forward to
the coming fight as if it were a pleasure-party,
who were total strangers to each other one
short hour ago, but who were brought into
contact by accident, and into sympathy by their
love of liberty, their careless courage, and their
faith in a common cause, embraced and parted,
literally, as brothers.

The friends then went straight to the Trinacria
Hotel, and, learning that Colonna had not yet
arrived, turned at once towards the quay. Here
they found a dense crowd assembled, and the
City of Aberdeen with her steam up, and all the
troops on board.

The people were frothing over with excitement,
and so densely packed that the young
men might as reasonably have tried to elbow
their way through a stone wall as through the
solid human mass interposed between themselves
and the landing-place. They gathered
from the exclamations of those around them
that the troops were drawn up on deck, and
that Garibaldi was known to be in the saloon.
Now and then a shout was raised for some
officer who appeared for a moment on deck;
and sometimes, when nothing else was doing,
a voice from the crowd would give the signal
for a storm of vivas.

Presently an officer of Cacciatori, with the
well-known plume of cocks' feathers in his hat,
came hurrying down the quay. The crowd
parted right and left, as if by magic, and he
passed through amid a shower of benedictions
and addios.

"Do you know who that is?" asked Saxon
of those around.

"No — God bless him!" said one.

"We only know that he is going to fight for
us," said another.

"The Holy Virgin and all the saints have
him in their keeping!" added a third.

At this moment the crowd surged suddenly
back again — a great roar burst from the thousand-throated
throng — a gun was fired — and
the City of Aberdeen was under weigh!

In another second the mass had wavered,
parted, turned like a mighty tide, and begun
flowing out through the Porta Felice, and following
the course of the steamer along the
Marina Promenade. The soldiers on board stood
motionless, with their hands to the sides of their
hats, saluting the crowd. The crowd raced
tumultuously along the shore, weeping, raving,
clapping its hands for the soldiers, and shouting
"Viva Garibaldi! Viva la Liberta!" One woman
fell on her knees upon the quay, with her little
infant in her arms, and prayed aloud for the
liberators.

Saxon and the Earl stood still, side by side,
look ing after the lessening steamer, and listening
to the shouts, which grew momentarily fainter
and more distant.

"Good Heavens!" said Castletowers, " what
a terrific thing human emotion is, when one
beholds it on such a scale as this! I should
have liked to see this people demolishing the
Castello."

Saxon drew a deep breath before replying,
and when he spoke his words were no answer
to the Earl's remark.

"I tell you what it is, Castletowers," he
said; " I feel as if we had no business to remain
here another hour. For God's sake, let us buy
a couple of red shirts, and be after the rest as
fast as the little Albula can get us through the
water!"

NEW WORK BY MR. DICKENS,
In Monthly Parts, uniform with the Original Editions of
"Pickwick," "Copperfield," &c.
Now publishing, PART XVIII., price 1s., of
OUR MUTUAL FRIEND.
BY CHARLES DICKENS.
IN TWENTY MONTHLY PARTS.
With illustrations by MARCUS STONE.
London: CHAPMAN and HALL, 193, Piccadilly.