that they were sure
her boys were good sons, and no banditti. And while they knelt crouching
there, La Madre knocked on the floor and in rushed the banditti, armed
with great knives. They caught and bound the two soldiers, and took away
their weapons, and jumped on their horses, and fled.

"La Madre took her knitting again, and sat down quietly by the side
of the bound men, until a half hour later some twelve more soldiers
cantered up. As they rode by, all the people came to their doorways, and
the soldiers stopped and asked if they had seen two horsemen. Then La
Madre gathered up her knitting and went quietly out into the crowd. She
made a low bow to the man with the biggest feather in his cap, and she
told him her story. 'I have two sons,' she said, 'whom I love so well.'
Then she told how the soldiers mistook her sons for banditti, and tried
to take them from her in her own house. 'Though I am old, I have a good
life among my friends and neighbors here, and I fought a while in my
own mind before I said to my sons: Go, my boys, your mother will die for
you. But I did it. I bade them bind the soldiers and steal away. Then I
sat guarding the men till you came. You will find them safe in my little
house there. Now, take me to prison--kill me, but look in my eyes first,
and then, whoever lays a hand on me, take La Madre Ilkana's curse.'

"And the people all swore that there were two snakes coiled up in La
Madre's eyes then, and they hissed, and struck out with their fiery
tongues, and the crowd fell on their knees, and the neighbors all set up
a great shout of 'La Madre Ilkana,' so that they quite drowned the voice
of the man with the big feather."

"Is that all?" asked Mae, as Lisetta paused. "What did the soldiers do?"

"O, they hired a passing carriage to take the men whose horses were
stolen back to Castellamare, and they all cantered off, without saying
a word to La Madre, and when they had turned a corner of the road, she
began to laugh. O, how she laughed! All the people laughed with her, and
the children crowed and the dogs barked, for the rest of that whole day.

"And a neighbor who passed La Madre's at midnight, said she was laughing
out loud then."

CHAPTER IX.

"Signorina." Mae was passing down the long hall when she heard the
whisper. She turned and saw Lisetta, with shining eyes and pink cheeks,
standing at her side. Her pretty plump shoulders were only half covered,
and the array of colors abo