As I walked in the woods at night disguised as a gendarme, to avoid meeting anyone, I occasionally fired a shot in air. For deserters and prisoners, on hearing these shots, would flee in the direction opposite to the one from which the shot is fired, and the very gendarmes, who amused themselves by frightening the population in this way and then entering their houses to steal, avoided the area in which they have heard the shots supposing that some of their comrades are there already. In these nocturnal peregrinations I communicated with the community teacher and doctor at Fregona, and together with the pastor we plotted a means for attempting to escape. Although I had taken all these precautions not to be discovered, someone might be shadowing me and referring my every move to the Austrians. I learnt, for instance, that the enemy knew that my beard had been cut. Therefore, I should have to be even more careful and not let anyone see me. In the middle of the night when all were asleep, very cautiously I approached the house of Maria de Luca. I climbed up and entered the hay-loft, thence I descended to the stable, from the stable to the cellar and finally entered the kitchen without making the least noise. By day now I did not feel safe even in my secluded hiding-place. I dared not stop for more than an hour anywhere and I wandered from hill to hill from wood to wood to hide my tracks. I tried to change my disguise as often as possible. Generally by day I went dressed as a woman and by night as a gendarme. I had become convinced that even the clemency used towards the sister of Giovannino was nothing but a feint done in the hope that the poor woman would try to get into communication again with her accomplices, through whom they hoped finally to reach the head of the band, the notorious man with the beard. Therefore, I broke all relations with Minelle and the house of the refugees. Occasionally, however, Rino came at night to meet me on the hill and these were the only moments in which I enjoyed a bit of calm, a bit of rest.