Our officers kept whispering to us, "Stand firm. Not just now. He will return. See how the Tanara regiment is standing--would you have them put us to shame before our father?" So the Milanese men stood quivering each like a tuning-fork while their General passed by. Bordone was with him, and Ricciotti rode on the side farthest from the lines. I saw him clearly, and noted the waxen pallor of his face. But his eye was still bright, and the smile kindly on his lips as he passed down the lines. It was the face of a philosopher, a thinker, or a prophet, rather than that of the greatest leader of irregular troops the world had ever seen. But when the carriage turned at the end of the square, the men could no longer be held. They surrounded the old barouche, hanging round it in clusters, like grapes, or more exactly like bees about their queen in her summer flight. Hugh Deventer and I stood a little back, for we felt that this was, as one might say, a family matter, and no concern of ours. But Ricciotti spied us out, and putting his horse into the press, brought us forward to introduce us personally to his father. The old man extended his hand which, instead of kissing, we shook in the English fashion. The difference pleased him. "It is like Sicily to see you here. I had once over eight hundred of you, and not a white feather or a faint heart among them all. I trusted them as I trusted my children. They were as my children. Well may I love England. They fought for me seeking no reward, and afterwards when there was talk of expelling me, they bought my island and gave it to me, so that none could take it away for ever." He moved on, nodding his head and smiling, while Bordone glooming on the seat opposite seemed vastly relieved. Ricciotti was in high spirits. "The Chief is better to-day than I have seen him for years," he confided to us. "He said we had done well against Manteuffel--yes, even I, his son whom he never praises." Victor Dor and Marius Girr came and shook hands with us repeatedly. It was an honour to the company that the General had so distinguished us, and would we tell them what he had said--yes, every word. From their archway Keller and Linn had beheld, one standing on either side of the door, and a slight vibration of the window curtains suggested that perhaps Alida herself was not wholly without curiosity.