‘Ah-h—Signor Siberti!’ the young fellow cried as he lunged forward with a stiletto. ‘You have betrayed us!’ Sybert shut his lips, and reversing the truncheon, struck him with the handle a ringing blow on the head. Tarquinio fell forward into the darkness of the room, and the moonlight streamed in on his bloody face. Sybert bent over him a moment with white lips. ‘You poor fool!’ he muttered. ‘I had to do it.’ The next moment Marcia uttered a joyous cry that rang through the rooms. ‘Listen!’ A silence of ten seconds followed, while both besieged and besiegers held their breath. The sound was unmistakable—a shout far down the avenue and the beat of galloping hoofs. ‘The soldiers!’ she cried, and the men outside, as if they had understood the word, echoed the cry. ‘_I soldati! I soldati!_’ The next moment a dozen carabinieri swept into sight, the moonlight gleaming brightly on their white cross-belts and polished mountings. The men on the loggia dropped their weapons and dashed for cover, while the soldiers leaped from their horses and with spiked muskets chased them into the trees. Sybert hastily bent over Tarquinio and dragged him back into the shadow. ‘Is he alive?’ Marcia whispered. ‘He’s only stunned. And, poor fellow, he doesn’t know any better; he was nothing but their dupe. It’s a pity to send him to the galleys for life.’ They dropped a rug over the man and turned into the hall, which was hot with the smell of powder and smoking candles. Sybert threw the door wide and let the moonlight stream in. It was a queer sight it looked upon. Copley, weak from his wound, had collapsed into a tall carved chair, while the two ladies, in blood-stained evening dresses, were anxiously bending over him. Melville, with the still smoking revolver in his hand and a jewelled dagger sticking from his pocket, was frenziedly inquiring, ‘For the Lord’s sake, has any one got any whisky?’ Gerald, in his white nightgown and little bare legs, was howling dismally on the stairway; while Granton, from the landing, looked grimly down upon the scene with the air of an avenging Nemesis. The next moment the soldiers had come trooping in, and everything was a babel of cries and ejaculations and excited questions. In the midst of the confusion Mrs. Copley suddenly drew herself up and pronounced her ultimatum. ‘On the very first steamer that sails, we are going back to America to _live_!’ Marcia uttered a little hysterical laugh, and Melville joined in. ‘And I think you’d better go with them, my boy,’ he said, laying a grimy hand on Sybert’s arm. ‘I suspect that your goose is pretty thoroughly cooked in Italy.’ Sybert shook the elder man’s hand off, with a short laugh that was not very mirthful. ‘I’ve suspected that for some time.’ And he turned on his heel and strode out to the loggia, where he began talking with the soldiers.