The proscribed pursued the soldiers only to the farther edge of the meadow, where they contented themselves with a few parting shots, and then turned their attention to the wounded of both sides. Those of the enemy they sent to Viterbo, under the escort of the prisoners, and dispatched their own to the interior of the wood, but retained Captain Tortiglio a little while, more as a hostage than a prisoner. Clelia and Irene were praised and complimented by all for their promptitude and courage. Muzio, after kissing their hands, made them a little speech of victory: "It becomes you well, brave and worthy daughters of Rome," he said, "to set such an example to our companions, but more especially to the slothful among Italy's sons, who appear to expect the manna of freedom to fall from heaven, and basely await their country's liberation at the hand of the foreigner. They are not ashamed to kiss the rod of a foreign tyrant, patron, and master; to renounce their own Rome--the natural and legitimate metropolis of Italy--voted the capital by parliament, and desired by the whole nation. They are not ashamed to let her remain a den of priests, of creatures who are the scourge and the shame of humanity. To women! yes, to women, is descended the task of extirpating this infamy, since men are afraid or incapable of doing it." Muzio at this point in his vehement oration in honor of the fair sex, was suddenly struck dumb by the apparition of another representative of it in the form of a lovely woman, with the face and carriage, as he afterwards said, of an angel of heaven, who appeared to him to have fallen from the clouds, and was standing before him on the road leading to Viterbo. His eloquence vanished, and he remained motionless as a statue, although the very silence of the youth showed that he recognized her to be the adored queen of his heart, English Julia. Muzio's embarrassment was the less noticed because of Jack's headlong demonstration, for the sailor, with a hitch at his waistband, sprang forward towards his beautiful mistress, throwing at the same time even his precious carbine on the ground, which he never would have abandoned under any other circumstances for all the surprises in the universe. When he at last reached Julia, he nearly plucked his forelock out by the root, so perpetually and persistently did he twitch at it, saluting the English lady. Poor fellow! a thousand affections and remembrances of family, friends, and country were centred for him in the person of that beloved mistress. Julia took the English boy's hand gracefully and kindly, and Clelia and Silvia embraced her with transports of friendship, and then presented her to Irene, whose romantic history had been repeated to her, and whom she had much desired to know personally.