g what would happen to Charley if that absurd man
failed. "A la casa, Ignacio," she cried at the motionless broad back of
the coachman, who gathered the reins without haste, mumbling to himself
under his breath, "Si, la casa. Si, si nina."

The carriage rolled noiselessly on the soft track, the shadows fell
long on the dusty little plain interspersed with dark bushes, mounds
of turned-up earth, low wooden buildings with iron roofs of the Railway
Company; the sparse row of telegraph poles strode obliquely clear of
the town, bearing a single, almost invisible wire far into the great
campo--like a slender, vibrating feeler of that progress waiting outside
for a moment of peace to enter and twine itself about the weary heart of
the land.

The cafe window of the Albergo d'ltalia Una was full of sunburnt,
whiskered faces of railway men. But at the other end of the house, the
end of the Signori Inglesi, old Giorgio, at the door with one of his
girls on each side, bared his bushy head, as white as the snows of
Higuerota. Mrs. Gould stopped the carriage. She seldom failed to speak
to her protege; moreover, the excitement, the heat, and the dust had
made her thirsty. She asked for a glass of water. Giorgio sent the
children indoors for it, and approached with pleasure expressed in his
whole rugged countenance. It was not often that he had occasion to see
his benefactress, who was also an Englishwoman--another title to his
regard. He offered some excuses for his wife. It was a bad day with her;
her oppressions--he tapped his own broad chest. She could not move from
her chair that day.

Decoud, ensconced in the corner of his seat, observed gloomily Mrs.
Gould's old revolutionist, then, offhand--

"Well, and what do you think of it all, Garibaldino?"

Old Giorgio, looking at him with some curiosity, said civilly that the
troops had marched very well. One-eyed Barrios and his officers had done
wonders with the recruits in a short time. Those Indios, only caught
the other day, had gone swinging past in double quick time, like
bersaglieri; they looked well fed, too, and had whole uniforms.
"Uniforms!" he repeated with a half-smile of pity. A look of grim
retrospect stole over his piercing, steady eyes. It had been otherwise
in his time when men fought against tyranny, in the forests of Brazil,
or on the plains of Uruguay, starving on half-raw beef without salt,
half naked, with often only a knife tied to a stick for a weapon. "And