very cross girl came to the gate, and
the soldier who was always on the lookout for the stolen princess
stopped her and spoke to her. But the cross girl was feeling very mean
indeed, and she teased the soldier and made him very unhappy. But
later on in the afternoon she was ashamed, and so she found the nice
girl who was really the stolen princess, and took her with her to the
gate, and the soldier--"

Lucia broke off and sat up suddenly to listen. A queer "rat, tat,
tat," detached itself from the other night noises. Beppi was sound
asleep, and she rolled him gently into the nest of leaves, then she
listened again. The sound came again.

"Rat, tat, tat." It was a sharp staccato hammering, muffled by the
wall of rock behind her.

She stood up and crept softly to the mouth of the cave.

The wind and the rain made such a noise that she could hear nothing,
and it was already too dark to distinguish anything but the vaguest
outlines. She crept back into the shelter, believing that she had just
imagined what she had heard, but she had not taken her place beside
Beppi before she heard it again--a persistent "rat, tat, tat," too
metallic and too regular to be accounted for by a natural cause.

Lucia's mind was alert at once. She put her ear up against the rock
and listened again. Muffled sounds too indistinct to recognize came to
her. Whatever they were, they were not far off, and right in a line
with the back of the cave.

Lucia thought of several explanations, but could accept none of them.
She tried to argue against her fears by saying over and over again that
if it was a sound made by men, those men were surely Italian soldiers,
but her arguments could not still the frightened beating of her heart,
as the voice became more distinct. She was filled with terror.

Rumors of underground tunnels and mines blowing off whole mountain
tops, that she had heard from the soldiers, came back to her and left
her cold with fear.

Beppi had rolled over beside the goat for warmth, and was sleeping
soundly. Lucia looked at him and then went once more to the mouth of
the cave.

The cold rain in her face gave her back her courage, and she felt her
way around the cliff and up between the crevices of the two rocks,
until she was on the roof of the cave. It was flat and the ground
seemed to stretch out level for quite a distance before her. She
listened for a moment, but the rain beating down made it impossible for
her