Attilio and Muzio were now fully aware of the fate that was reserved for them, and they also learned that it was impossible for the women to escape by the back premises of the factory. To accomplish this they would have needed the nimbleness and agility of the young sailor. Muzio, therefore, replied thus to his friend's injunctions: "I will tell the ladies what you say; but I believe first, that it is impossible for them to leave; and, secondly, that they would not leave us if they could." CHAPTER LXVIII. THE SUBTERRANEAN PASSAGE. Amongst the surviving workmen who were defending the large front entrance to the manufactory was an old gray-headed man, who listened intently to the above conversation of the two chiefs. When Muzio uttered the last words, he exclaimed, "_Coraggio, signors!_ If you wish to retire from this place, and to save the women, I know of a passage that will lead us out of danger." A ray of hope broke upon the minds of the two friends when they heard there was a way of saving their beloved ones, and they immediately proceeded to avail themselves of it, for there was no time to be lost, as the enemy was preparing for a fresh attack. Muzio approached Julia and Clelia, who were not far off, and obtained a promise, on the condition that he and Attilio would soon follow them, that they would take refuge under the escort of old Dentato and Jack in the subterranean passage. The other women would follow after them, and lastly our friends with all the remaining defenders of the factory. And the wounded? Ah! if there be a circumstance that is harrowing and terrible in those butcheries of men called "battles," it is certainly that of abandoning one's own wounded to the enemy! _Povyri!_ In one moment the faces of your friends--of your brothers, who bewailed your hurt, who tended you with such gentleness, will disappear, to be succeeded by the revolting, horrible, and triumphant faces of the mercenaries. At the best they will be brutal; at the worst, they, infringing every right of war and of people, will steep their base bayonets in your precious blood! Cowards! who fled before you, and to whom you so often generously conceded their lives. Supported by the 20,000 soldiers of the 2d of December, they have regained once more their spirits, and have forgotten that they owe their ignoble existences to you. In St. Antonio (America), Italians fought against the soldiers of despotism, and many, very many were wounded. There, carried on their brothers' backs, or transported on horses, the wounded were removed. Not one was left* alive to be at the mercy of Rosa's cannibals.