Being reinforced by other companies, the mercenaries entrenched themselves behind the heights of Mount St. Giuliano, from whence they kept up a fearfully destructive fire with their superior arms. The Cairolis, with their intrepid companions, crippled by the inferiority of their fire-arms, many of which would not go off, resolved to charge them at the point of the bayonet, and made one of those assaults that so often decide battles. The mercenaries, completely daunted, left upon the field their wounded and dead. The young soldiers of Liberty lost their heroic chief and friend, and many of them were seriously 'wounded. Night came, and put an end to that unequal but gallant strife. CHAPTER LXIV. CUCCHI AND HIS COMRADES And in Rome, what were Cucchi and his companions doing, and the Roman and provincial patriots consecrated to freedom and death? Cucchi, of Bergamo, was one of the most excellent men the revolution gave to Italy. Handsome, young, and wealthy, he belonged to one of the first families in Lombardy. Guerzoni, Bossi, Adamoli, and many others, despising the tortures of the Inquisition, and all other dangers, directed the Roman insurrection, under the command of that intrepid Bergamasco. The unhappy Roman people received with obedience the directions of those valiant youths, and asked to be supplied with arms. Arms in plenty had been sent down to the Volunteers from all parts of Italy; but the Government of Florence, expert in every form of cunning, took means to stop them, so that there were very few weapons to be dispensed to the Romans. Add to this the treachery prepared for this unhappy people, viz., the tacit promise that a few shots should be fired in the air, and that then the Italian army from the frontier would fly to their assistance. By such false pretenses and underhand proceedings at Florence, the people of Rome, as well as their heroic friends, were deceived. Those shots were fired, but no help came for Italy. Poor Romans! they fought with rude weapons in the streets against an immense number of well-armed soldiery, who were backed by armed priests, monks, and police. They succeeded in mining and blowing up a Zouave barrack, and with the knife alone fought desperately against the new-fashioned carbines of the mercenaries. In Trastevere, our old acquaintances, Attilio, Muzio, Orazio, Silvio, and Gasparo, had re-united with all those remaining of the Three Hundred on whom the police had not laid their hands. The people having thus found capable leaders did their duty. Some of the old carbines that had done execution in the Roman campaign now reappeared in the city in the hands of Orazio and his companions, who made them serve as an efficacious auxiliary to the Trasteverini's naked knife.