ng that Franco was going to
Cressogno they were filled with amazement, and Pedraglio gave vent to
his indignation, saying it was shameful to forsake his friends in this
fashion, when they were in trouble. When the prefect realised how
matters stood he took Pedraglio's part, and offered to explain Franco's
absence to his grandmother, and proposed that Franco should write a line
or two, which he himself would carry to Cressogno. But Franco was
convinced that his Maria wished him to take this step, and he would not
yield. He suddenly remembered that the prefect was as familiar as a hare
with all the mountain paths. "You go!" said he, addressing the priest.
"You accompany them!" The prefect was about to reply that perhaps the
Signora Marchesa might need him, when the lawyer exclaimed: "Hush! Look
there!"

Directly in front of the house, where the shadow of Monte Bisgnago lay
obliquely upon the rippling water, a boat had stopped. Franco recognised
the customs-guards' launch.

"I am willing to wager those hogs are watching for us," Pedraglio
murmured. "They are afraid we shall escape by boat. Anyway, they are on
the lookout."

"Hush!" the lawyer repeated, approaching the window that overlooked the
church-place.

All held their breath in silence.

"Children," said V., turning quickly from the window, "we are done for!"
Franco went to the window, and saw a solitary figure running towards
the house. He concluded the lawyer had given a false alarm, but the
man--it was he who went by the nickname of "the hunted hare," and who
knew and saw everything--flung two words upwards as he passed beneath
the window: "The police!" At the same moment they heard the noise of
many feet. "Come with me! You also, Prefect!" cried Franco, and the
others following, he made for the little courtyard between the house and
the hillside, and, passing through a woodshed, reached the short cut
that leads to Albogasio Superiore. It was so dark that no one noticed a
customs-guard, standing, carbine in hand, not two steps from the door of
the wood-shed. Fortunately this guard, a certain Filippini, from Busto,
was an honest fellow, who ate the bread of Austria unwillingly, and
simply because he could find no other. "Be quick!" said he in an
undertone. "Cut across the fields, and then take the Boglia road! The
path below the Madonnina on the left." Franco thanked the man, and, with
his companions, started up the steep path that comes out on the narrow
co