sena, with a sardonic grin; 'so now to business, Giorgio. You
know the Chiavari road--what is't like?'

'Good enough to look at, but mined in four places.'

The general gave a significant glance at the staff, and bade him go on.

'The white-coats are strong in that quarter, and have eight guns to bear
upon the road, where it passes beneath Monte Ratte.'

'Why, I was told that the pass was undefended!' cried Massena
angrily--'that a few skirmishers were all that could be seen near it.'

'All that could be seen!--so they are; but there are eight
twelve-pounder guns in the brushwood, with shot and shell enough to be
seen, and felt too.'

Massena now turned to the officers near him, and conversed with them
eagerly for some time. The debated point I subsequently heard was how
to make a feint attack on the Chiavari road, to mask the _coup de main_
intended for the Monte Faccio. To give the false attack any colour of
reality, required a larger force and greater preparation than they could
afford, and this was now the great difficulty. At last it was resolved
that this should be a mere demonstration, not to push far beyond the
walls, but, by all the semblance of a serious advance, to attract as
much attention as possible from the enemy.

Another and a greater embarrassment lay in the fact, that the troops
intended for the _coup de main_ had no other exit than the gate which
led to Chiavari, so that the two lines of march would intersect and
interfere with each other. Could we even have passed out our tirailleurs
in advance, the support would easily follow; but the enemy would, of
course, notice the direction our advance would take, and our object be
immediately detected.

'Why not pass the skirmishers out by the embrasures, to the left
yonder,' said I; 'I see many a track where men have gone already.'

'It is steep as a wall,' cried one.

'And there's a breast of rock in front that no foot could scale.'

'You have at least a thousand feet of precipice above you, when you
reach the glen, if ever you do reach it alive.'

'And this to be done in the darkness of a night!' Such were the
discouraging comments which rattled, quick as musketry, around me.

'The lieutenant's right, nevertheless,' said Giorgio. 'Half the
voltigeurs of the garrison know the path well already; and as to
darkness--if there were a moon you dared not attempt it.'

'There's some truth in that,' observed an old major.

'Could you promise to gui