They bethought them of going over to the group of houses which they had been sketching, on the other side of the road. One of these they found was a rather good inn, the landlord of which was perfectly willing to receive them. He remarked to them, had they understood Italian,

"Live men to-day, dead men tomorrow. An inn to-day, a hospital the day after. Come in, gentlemen, but pay beforehand; the dead do not pay, as a rule."

They understood his demand of payment beforehand, and satisfied him. Then they had their supper, and discussed whether it was worth while or not to follow Count Frangipanni and his light horse so late. They could easily follow him in the morning, they agreed, and the quarters were good. So they stayed, and went out in the front of the inn to smoke.

The jollity of their march seemed to have departed. None of the officers from the battalion of French which was lying so close to them were swarming in and out of the inn, as is their custom. There was none of that brisk, merry, good-humoured babble between officers, men, and civilians which makes the arrival of a French regiment so agreeable. The officers seemed all to be lying down by the brook with their men to-night, thinking of quite other things than absinthe and dominoes. Our friends began to get sorry that they had not gone on with Frangipanni's light horse.

Only one French officer was in front of the inn when they sauntered out to smoke, a thickset man, with a grey moustache and shaven cheeks, with the scarlet side of his cloak turned outside, and much gold about him, who also walked up and down smoking. "Evidently," said James, "a swell; the very man to consult." If he had known that it was General Forey it would not have made much difference; for, if he had ever known, he had completely forgotten, what General Forey had done, or had left undone. How many of my readers remember?

No. 93.-VOL. XVI.

James, cap in hand, and schoolboy French in his mouth, went up to General Forey, and confided to him that they, two young English artists, were travelling with Frangipanni's light horse, and had got left behind. The General, also cap in hand, told him politely that if he remained where he was he would be extremely likely to meet his friends, Messieurs of the Sardinian light horse, once more; and so bowed himself politely out of the audience.

They saw soon afterwards that he was joined by two staff-officers, that his orderly brought his horse from the stable, and that he rode sharply off, in the direction by which they had come.

They lay in the field in front of the house till it was late, and then went to bed and slept quite quietly. They had no Italian, either of them, or might have learnt much. In the morning, trusting to the French General's opinion that their friends would return by the same route, they quietly had their breakfast, went across the road, and lay in the shade of a mulberry tree, smoking, and touching up their sketches.

There was the broad and dusty road, divided from the field by shaped stones; beyond, the yellow-and-red pile of buildings, one of which was their inn; beyond, the pleasant wooded hill; to the left, heights crowned with important looking buildings. And now came their incident.

In a cloud of dust their friends of the Sardinian light horse came along the highway at a slinging trot the way they had gone, fulfilling General Forey's prediction. Our youths knew nearly every face in the regiment, and a merrier set of fellows they had never seen; yet every face was grave enough now. Thelast man who passed them was Frangipanni, bringing up the rear. The regi ment passed them about three hundred yards, and then, at a few notes of thebugle, wheeled each man in his own ground, and was at once formed in column of squadrons on the road; Frangipanni, having wheeled with them, standing sole and solitary at their head.

For a few minutes there was silence. The Sardinian light horse had scarcely

settled themselves in their places when the silence was broken. James and Reginald were still innocently looking at their old friends, drawn up across the road, and trying to make out the faces of the officers who were most familiar to them, when they were startled by the infinitely inharmonious, yet deeply terrible, crashing, trampling, and clanking of another regiment of cavalry, approaching along the high road from their left.

Reginald saw them first, for James was staring at Frangipanni. "Here is "Here is another regiment," said Reginald, "all in white. These will be the French."

James looked round once, and shook him fiercely by the shoulder. "Get up!" he said, "here are the Austrians upon us, and we are in the thick of the whole thing."

"The who?" said Reginald.

"The Austrians, you ass," said James. “Get up, will you! Who in heaven or earth would ever have thought of this? Run, scud, get out of the way, get on your legs at any rate, and, if we get involved in it keep your arms above your head, and keep on your feet. Get hold of a stirrup if you can, but run with the horses, and get out of it as quick as you are able. By Jove, who would have thought of this?"

Reginald, though he scarcely understood what was coming, behaved very well. He ran with James some ten yards into the meadow, and then they both turned to look on war itself, as few have looked on it.

The Austrians halted. They knew that the French were there, and the French had got a terrible prestige since the Crimea, which they have maintained. The Austrian colonel halted his men for one instant, and rode forward towards the ravine alone before them all to see if the concealed French could be tempted into opening fire at him. He went within pistol-shot of Count Frangipanni; but the French know the business of war, and he saw nothing but the Sardinian regiment of light horse.

"Look at that glorious Austrian

"What are they going to do?" said the excited James. "Viva Italia! By heavens, our fellows are going to charge!"

Who gave the order for the first charge at Genestrello, Tom Silcote or Aurelio Frangipanni? The result is the same. A thousand men on each side, mounted on horseback, with drawn swords in their hands, in column of troops, rode fiercely at one another, trying to slay one another, happily with little effect. The first two

troops on either side got themselves, to a certain extent, bruised, shaken, and cut about with swords; while the rearward troops drew rein, and did nothing until the bugle gave the word to the Italian cavalry to right about face, which they did accordingly.

Count Frangipanni and Colonel Silcote, however, seemed rather loth to part, for each had found in the other a good swordsman. For full half a minute, after the Italian retreat had sounded, these two were alone together, fencing cautiously and keenly, yet with apparently perfect good humour. Colonel Silcote was the first to rein his horse back and say, "You must follow your men, Colonel. Your major, seeing you so busy, has sounded the retreat." Frangipanni saluted politely, smiled, and trotted off after his regi ment, while the Austrians prepared to advance.

"Our fellows are beaten, then?" said James, with an air of discontent. "I cannot see why; they seemed to do quite as well as the others; but I suppose that the Major knows what he is about. Frangipanni gave no orders. There goes my Austrian colonel off at

a sling trot after them. I hope he won't come to grief."

“Your Austrian colonel, you turncoat!" said Reginald.

"Yes, mine," said James, emphatically. "I like the look of that man. I would go to the devil after that man." "He is one of the accursed Tedeschi," said Reginald. "What would our comrades say?"

"I don't know, and I don't care," replied James. "He is a much finer fellow than any of the Italians, except Frangipanni. He saved Frangipanni from being taken prisoner. I heard him give him the office to cheese it," went on James, reproducing, in his admiration, a very old London vulgarism. "That man is a noble gentleman, if he were fifty Tedeschi."

"So he is," said a voice, apparently from high up in the air. "You never

said a truer word than that, James Sugden. Who ever dared to say that he was not? Do you remember the night when he carried you, a poor bruised and bleeding little hind, into Silcotes, away from the poachers, and made your fortune at the expense of his own?"

To turn and find our old friend, the Princess-sitting on a tall bay horse, in a blue riding skirt, with a white bodice, a wideawake hat and cock's feathers, and a revolver at her right pommel was a very small surprise. After having looked on, at twenty yards' distance, at a charge of cavalry, in which some eight were killed, and some twelve left howling and moaning in the road, one is not inclined to be surprised at anything. James merely took off his hat, and said, "Madam, I scarcely hoped to have the pleasure of seeing you here.' Reginald said nothing whatever, but stared at his aunt, open-1 -mouthed.

"I

"I dare say not," she answered. am following Colonel Silcote's regiment. How did you come here?"

"We came with the Sardinian light horse, sketching, my lady."

"You might have been in better company," said the Princess. "Why did you not come on our side?"

"Our sympathies are Italian, my lady. Do I understand you that the colonel we saw just now was Colonel Silcote?"

"Did you not recognise him?"

"I do now. Reginald, you said that you thought you knew him. But I should scarcely have recognised my own father, in such a place, and in such a uniform."

"Are you here on foot? Where are your horses?"

"Across the road, my lady." "You had better get them. Is there any force of French on this brook here, the Fossagazzo?"

"I decline to answer that question, my lady," said James."Reginald, I hope you were not going to speak. Hold your tongue, sir. How dare you?".

"Well, I suppose you are right," said the Princess, good-humouredly. "Here comes Urban; we shall know soon. Hark! there is infantry there, and French infantry. You might have told me without doing any harm. They are in force, are they not? Is it Forey? Get your horses, you young fools, get your horses, and come back across the road to me again. Do not lose a moment."

They ran across and got out their horses and were back with her in less than five minutes, abandoning their heavy baggage; for there was a sound in their ears, familiar to us now, which they had never heard before.

Rapid musketry firing. At first only crackling like the burning of the gorse on the hills above St. Mary's, but growing heavier every moment, until it roared out in heavy crashes, which shook the air even where they stood, and brought a few heavy drops of rain. from the summer clouds which floated overhead. When they got back to her they found her in the same position, gazing intensely at the dip in the broad dusty road about a quarter of a mile to their right, from which came furious volleys of musketry, and a general raging confusion, which showed them that they had pushed too far for safety, and were actually at the very point

"You are right. Well, with his present reputation, he will fight hard to regain his former one. You will take care of a poor old woman in case the poor Tedeschi are beaten back?"

"My lady, I am entirely at your service," said James.

"You will keep with me, then?"
"Certainly," said James.

"The Italians would murder me, and you are well répandu among them. Keep by me. I hold you on your honour as a gentleman."

"Here come the Austrians back again," exclaimed James.

And indeed the cavalry were returning along the road in some confusion, followed by their friends of the light horse. At the same moment, possibly the very first rifled-cannon bullet ever fired in anger tore up the ground near the Princess, and covered her with dust.

"We may as well move a little further," she said; "this is too close to be pleasant."

It was a very reasonable suggestion; so they trotted along till they were fairly past the village of Genestrello, and then paused and looked about them.

Opposite to them were two abrupt, rounded, and partly wooded hills, about half a mile off, the one on their right crowned by a single large building with a campanile, the one to the left by a village with another campanile. A small hollow divided the two hills, and they saw that the French army, battalion after battalion, was already swarming up the right-hand hill towards the solitary building, under a heavy fire from the solitary building, the summit of the hill, and the village on the other hill.

The firing got more fast and furious every moment. The right-hand hill was rapidly blackening with the swarming

French, who were bringing up artillery; and far away some Sardinian cavalry were seen charging up the hill. The first hill seemed to be doomed, in which case there seemed but small chance for the second.

Genestrello was carried too, for the roar grew louder and nearer, and broken regiments began to pass them, from which men fell out, and sat down and began feebly and pitiably to try to get at their wounds. It was certainly time to move, for the cannon-shot were ripping and crashing amongst the trees, and the summit of the first hill was a mere raging volcano. And which way were they to go, except away from the French?

As they went, they saw the village on the second hill carried; and lo, it was evening, and the day had passed like an hour. The battle of Montebello was over and won. Night was coming on, and the Austrians were in retreat. They had "felt" for the French, and had found them. Montebello showed pretty clearly which way the campaign was to go. If they were unable to hold such a position as that, what would be the result elsewhere ?

CHAPTER LII.

JAMES AND HIS FATHER.

THE Princess cared little for Montebello. Her horror at Tom Silcote's going to the campaign had ended in her determining to go with him, and she had accompanied his regiment in the way we have seen; riding parallel with his regiment, with which she was quite familiar, and which she may be said to have joined; and seeing almost the very first blood drawn, and having witnessed the battle of Montebello from a quiet field, without being very dangerously under fire at all.

This would have been enough for the ambition of most amateur lady-soldiers, but she thought nothing of it. The day of Montebello was a triumph for her foolish soul, for she had succeeded in deluding James hopelessly across into the

Austrian lines, and she considered that a great stroke of business.

The foolish plans which they had made against this young man have been discussed before. None of his enemies had the slightest idea about his real claims to be a dangerous person, with regard to the Silcotes succession, and its almost hopeless entanglement. He was looked on as the "dangerous horse," however; and she prided herself on her dexterity in tempting him into the Austrian lines. "We have him in our power now," she said to herself, scarcely knowing what she meant.

She could not dream, of course, that she was only in the way of introducing the boy to his own father. Let our story tell itself.

The Austrian left was withdrawn hastily that night towards the Sesia: there was great confusion. The Princess and our two friends rode together into Casteggio about eight o'clock; and there found ranged warlike order, with warlike disorder dribbling through it to the rear of it, to become orderly again.

Our friends had lost their Austrian regiment, and waited for it at Casteggio. It was in a sad plight. General Blanchard had brought up with him some of this infernal new artillery, and had played sad mischief with them. The regiment was passed on through Casteggio towards the rear, wearied, disheartened, and half cut to pieces. They thought for a time that Tom Silcote was not with them, but was killed; but last of all, bringing up the rear of his straggling and wearied squadrons, he came with a bloody face, bareheaded, holding his reins in his sword-hand, and his left arm hanging loosely beside him.

"He is hit," said the Princess. And they joined him.

"I have got a graze on my left arm from a French bullet," he said, cheerily, "not to mention a wipe over the head from that jolly old Italian colonel. I thought I was a swordsman till I met kim."

"Wretch!" said the Princess; "after your saving his life this morning!"

"Not at all, Aunt. A jolly old cock,

every inch of him. We only politely renewed our fencing match, and he only cut me over the head and apologised."

"What is the name of this Italian colonel of yours," asked the Princess of James, "who accepts his life in the morning, and tries to assassinate the man who saved him an hour afterwards?"

"Count Frangipanni," said James, without comment.

"Good Heavens !" exclaimed the Princess. "How strangely things come round. He might have been excused for cutting off my head, I don't deny. In fact, I should have told him so afterwards, the very next time I met him. But he has no grudge against you."

"He hasn't any grudge. Don't be silly. Who are these two young men with you?"

"Your nephew Reggy, and his friend."

"Then-not you, Reggy, but Reggy's friend-I am going to give you some trouble. Strange, I seem to have said those very words before. I am sure I have. I am very slightly hit, and am not in the least degree feverish. I am certain that I said those words before, at some time or another, or, at least, words almost exactly like them."

"You did, sir," said James, quietly; "and to me."

"I think I remember your face; and I am sure that I like it. Our billet is at Pozzo d'Orno. Will you come on with us?"

"Certainly, sir."

"Have you a good set of nerves? Can you help a surgeon? I am hit, but not heavily. I must be with my regiment in three or four days. I don't know whether the ball is in my arm or not. Will you nurse me? I can't reward you, but I am determined to see this thing out. Will you help me to it by nursing me?"

"I will, most cheerfully, sir."

"I am the person to nurse you, Tom," broke out the Princess. "I will have no interference from any quarter whatever between you and me. At all events, I will not see you poisoned or assassinated under my own eyes, and me