I was loth to emerge from my hiding place into the open air in sight of men, as, besides startling them, I should myself become an object of wonderment and create a scene I particularly wished to avoid. So I resolved to pause awhile until they should presently pass on, when I could emerge alone and unobserved. In this I was disappointed; they seemed to have no intention whatever of moving on. There they sat apparently over their meal, chatting at intervals. It was impossible but that I should thus overhear some fragments of their conversation, and what I _did_ hear made my blood run cold. "Dost remember, Gaspero," said one, "on our last sally, when we captured the fat landowner from Montefiascone, and sent him back to his friends with his nose and his ears slit because they wouldn't send the ransom in time?" "_Corpo di Bacco!_ don't I?" answered another. "But I'll tell you what, if the 'Cavalli leggeri' get wind of our whereabouts this time, it will be short shrift for all of us." "Bah!" said a third, "haven't we good spies enough always on the alert to warn us of their approach?" "True," said the former, "but don't let us talk, or we shall miss the signal." Then silence reigned for a brief space, broken now and again by some casual remark hardly audible. Here was a pretty to do! Had I been rescued from death by starvation only to stumble upon a nest of brigands? Oh, the irony of it! I trembled for the loss of the little gold I had upon me, but more still for the precious ring upon my finger. "I must risk nothing," I said to myself, "and bide here in patience at any cost till they depart." I dreaded lest the beating of my own heart--so audible to myself--should betray me. Thus a full hour or more passed away, when on a sudden I heard a sound like the hooting of an owl in the distance. "The signal--the signal!" exclaimed several voices at once, and up they jumped like one man and took to their heels with the speed of lightning. I began to emerge from my cavern, and just managed to catch a glimpse of some peaked hats, carbines, and sandalled legs, which soon disappeared for ever from my view. I was now once more under the clear dome of Heaven. The sky was absolutely cloudless, the heat intense. I shaded my eyes with my hand to protect them from the glare of the hot sun which now shone mercilessly down upon my bare head, for my hat had been left far behind me in that subterranean burial place. I tried to realise my situation. Where was I? I was in the centre of a very arid plain with blue mountains on the horizon and lines of ruined aqueducts in the middle distance. Not a hut within sight. The sun was intolerable, and I felt ready to faint from hunger and exhaustion. I gathered some broad green leaves to protect my head, and then looked around me for something to assuage the pangs of hunger.