Neither the temperaments nor the clothes of these Italians had been equal to the exigencies of their march in the cruel Northern winter. As they tramped, a dismal, silent band across Belgium, the snow was several feet deep under foot, and on all sides it stretched hopelessly to the horizon, falling mercilessly the while. Their light clothing was ill adapted to the rigours of the season; boots gave out, food was scanty or non-existent, and they had to rely entirely on the fickle chances of fortune to keep body and soul together. By night, when chance allowed, they had crept unobserved into barns and stables, and, lying close up against the dormant cattle, they had striven to restore animation to their frozen limbs by means of the beasts' warm breath. Once an old farm-woman had found them, and, taking pity on their woebegone condition, had regaled the whole party on hot milk and bread; and this was now looked back on as a gala day, for not every day had afforded such fare. At times in the course of their weary tramp the Anarchists had made an effort to keep up their flagging spirits by means of song, revolutionary and erotic, but such attempts had usually fallen flat, and the little band of exiles had relapsed into gloomy silence as they tramped on noiselessly through the snow. One of their number had quite broken down on the road and they had been compelled to leave him behind. "Lucky fellow, that Morelli," exclaimed Meneghino, "enjoying good broth in a hospital while we were still trudging on through that infernal snow!" "And Antonietta?" inquired Giannoli, when the relation of these adventures had terminated. "You have not yet told us her end, nor how she incurred your displeasure." "Oh, Antonietta!" exclaimed Beppe. "I was forgetting. You who believed her to be such a sincere comrade will scarcely credit her baseness. She ran away with a horrible bourgeois; she was lured away from the Cause by a bicycle! Yes, Antonietta weighed a bicycle in the scales against the Social Revolution, and found the Social Revolution wanting! So much for the idealism of women! Never speak to me of them again. The last we saw of her she was cycling away in a pair of breeches with a disgusting banker. She laughed and waved her hand to us mockingly, and before we had time to utter a word she was gone. I never shall believe in a woman again!" His indignation choked him at this point, and only the expression of his mouth and eye told of the depth of scorn and disgust which he felt for the young lady who had thus unblushingly cycled away from the Social Revolution. CHAPTER VII THE OFFICE OF THE _TOCSIN_