“No one to meet us! They can’t have received letter or telegram,” said Patsy. “Just as well, nothing like taking our friends unawares. Now they won’t have time to smarten up for us.” “Will that old rabbit-hutch hold us all?” I asked, looking distrustfully at the only vehicle in sight. The driver understood; he seized the wheel of the battered old cab and shook it violently to show how strong it was. “This is a most excellent and signorial carriage, Signorino. It needs paint; why should it not? I dug it out myself from the ruins, and the horse too. That blessed animal has cost me a lot of fatigue. It was nine days before I could get him out, nine days _sotto le macerie_!” “How much to the Case Americane?” asked Patsy. “Two francs, Excellency, with a slight token for myself. The Comandante himself set the price. He drives with no other; I am the official coachman of the Americans.” For a horse that had been nine days buried, the poor little rat of a pony drew the cab bravely through the Via San Martino, one smooth lake of yellow mud. “There’s Old Glory!” shouted Patsy. I had been so much taken up with looking back at the desolate streets, at the Tell Tale Tower, I did not know we had arrived at camp. Two Italian soldiers, on guard at the entrance, halted the cab. “Stop, thou knowest thou canst go no [Illustration: HOTEL REGINA ELENA AND CHURCH OF SANTA CROCE, AMERICAN VILLAGE, MESSINA. _Page 284._] farther,” said the elder, evidently a friend of the driver’s. “What dost thou say? I, who drive to the door of the barracks four times every day at least! Mayst thou die of an accident!” “Never, unless there is an officer in thy cab. These be strangers, without a written pass from the Comandante; they cannot enter!” “Archpriest, I say! Mayst thou be stricken with--“ “Oh, come now, officer,” Patsy interrupted persuasively, “you will not make the lady walk through this mud! We are friends of the American Comandante. He expects us.” The soldier was firm; we could not pass. “Peace, I will inform the Sor Comandante,” said a new voice. It was Gasperone; I recognized him from J.’s description. He put his finger to his lips and tapped gently at the door of the small neat wooden cottage nearest the flag. “Behold a lady and two gentlemen, who have driven up in a cab,” said Gasperone through the half-opened door. “Shall they be sent away or allowed to enter the camp?” J., standing at his drawing-board, looked from the window. “Good Lord,” I heard him cry, “they’ve come!” Our plan was to spend the afternoon at the camp and push on that night to Taormina, an hour and a half distant by train. Captain Belknap received us most kindly and showed us about the camp. What had been accomplished was a miracle; the place had already begun to look like a neat, well laid out American village. “We save every tree we possibly can,” said Belknap. “Each lemon tree brings an income of at least ten francs, the mulberries even more.”