hand a very neat little Italian
soldier. "Now listen to me," he was saying, "and I will tell you a
story. Once upon a time there was a country called Austria...."

There was a characteristic little affair at Saint Anna on March 23. A
few minutes after Zanella had left the Lubi['c] Inn a suspicious-looking
person appeared. He began observing the customers and their
surroundings, when the Police-Commissary Per[vs]i['c] came up to him and
asked for his passport. "Take yourself off!" shouted the intruder, as he
pulled a bomb out of his trouser pocket. Per[vs]i['c] grappled with him
and soon overpowered him. And outside the house four other fascisti,
Armano Viola, Carpinelli, Bellia and Murolo, were captured. They claimed
to be journalists, and it is quite true that Viola is on the staff of
the notorious _Vedetta Italiana_; but when he comes into a foreign
country as a special correspondent and is teaching others how to go
about that business--for until then they had been otherwise engaged,
Murolo being charged with numerous thefts and attempted murders, while
Bellia and Carpinelli were accused of breaking into the Abbazia
Casino--if Viola was teaching them how to be journalists he would on
this occasion have been better advised if he had restricted them to the
conventional tools of the profession instead of bombs, revolvers and
daggers. Little use did they get out of them, for a trio of these armed
individuals were seized and disarmed by one Yugoslav gendarme, who was
himself very meagrely equipped. With tears in their eyes they begged for
mercy. "Pieta, Pieta!" they exclaimed. So long as their own lives were
spared they were very willing to forgo the 60,000 lire which had been
put on Zanella's head.

Unfortunately it seems obvious that this exploit, if not ordered by the
Italian Government was, at any rate, permitted by them. How otherwise
could the automobile containing these men have got past the sentries at
the Su[vs]ak bridge and two other Italian sentry posts? Moreover, these
men were in possession of documents which proved that official Italian
circles at Rieka were privy to their undertaking, and that they proposed
to investigate the Yugoslav military positions on the frontier....
These five fascisti brigands--who were also lieutenants of the Italian
army--would therefore have to be tried not only for attempted murder but
for attempted espionage. They were put into a train and transported to
the prison at Zagreb.