!"

"Adieu!"

She disengaged her clinging arms with one last caress; there was an
instant of unconsciousness, and when she recovered herself he was gone.

At the next moment there came through the darkness the measured tramp,
tramp, tramp of the patrol. With a quivering heart Roma stood and
listened. There was a slight movement among the soldiers, a scarcely
perceptible pause, and then the tramp, tramp, tramp as before. Rossi
looked back as he turned the corner, and saw Roma, in her light cloak,
gliding across the silent street like a ghost.

Three or four hundred yards inside the gate of St. John Lateran in one
of the half-finished tenement houses on the outskirts of Rome, there is
a cellar used as a resting-place and eating-house by the carriers from
the country who bring wine into the city. This cellar was the only place
that seemed to be awake when Rossi walked towards the city walls. Some
eight or nine men, in the rude dress of wine-carriers, lay dozing or
talking on the floor. They had been kept in Rome overnight by the
closing of the gate, and were waiting for it to be opened in the
morning.

Without a moment's hesitation David Rossi stepped down and spoke to the
men.

"Gentlemen," he said, "you know who I am. I am Rossi. The police have
orders to arrest me. Will you help me to get out of Rome?"

"What's that?" shouted a drowsy voice from the smoky shadows of the
cellar.

"It's the Honourable Rossi," said a lad who had shambled up. "The
oysters are after him, and will we help him to escape?"

"Will we? It's not _will_ we; it's _can_ we, Honourable," said a
thick-set man, who lifted his head from an upturned horse-saddle.

In a moment the men were all on their feet, asking questions and
discussing chances. The gate was to be opened at six, and the first
train north was to go out at half-past nine. But the difficulty was that
everybody in Rome knew Rossi. Even if he got through the gate he could
not get on to the train within ten miles of the city without the
certainty of recognition.

"I have it!" said the thick-set man with the drowsy voice. "There's
young Carlo. He got a scratch in the leg last night from one of the wet
nurses of the Government, and he'll have to lie upstairs for a week at
least. Why can't he lend his clothes to the Honourable? And why can't
the Honourable drive Carlo's cart back to Monte Rotondo, and then go
where he likes when he gets there?"

"That will do," said Rossi, and so