ON the following morning Frank was riding with a message from the general, when he heard a sudden outburst of firing at some distance ahead of him. He checked his horse to listen. “That must be near the Porto Termini,” he said, “and yet there are none of the enemy anywhere near there. It must be either some fresh body of troops that have arrived from the south of the island, or Bosco’s column returned from their fool’s errand in search of us. If so, we are in a desperate mess. Six thousand Neapolitan troops, under one of their best generals, would turn the scale against us; they must be stopped, if possible, till the general can collect our scattered troops.”
Frank’s second supposition was the correct one. The two columns that had, as they believed, been in pursuit of Garibaldi, had returned to the town. So unanimous were the country people in their hatred of the Neapolitans, that it was only on the previous day that they had learned that the enemy, who they believed were fugitives, had entered Palermo with their whole force. Furious at having been so tricked, they made a tremendous march, and arriving at the Termini gate early in the morning, made a determined attack on the guard there, who defended themselves bravely, but were driven back, contesting every step.
Frank hesitated for a moment, and then shouted to a soldier near him: “Run with all speed to the palace; demand to see the general at once. Say that you have come from me, and that I sent you to say that the Porto Termini is attacked, I know not with what force, and that I am going on to try to arrest their progress until he arrives with help. As you run, tell every man you meet to hasten to oppose the enemy.”
The man started to run, and Frank galloped on, shouting to every armed man he met to follow him. The roar of battle increased as he rode. When he reached the long street leading to the gate, he saw that the enemy had already forced their way in, and that a barricade was being desperately defended by the little force that had fallen back before them. His horse would be useless now, and he called to a boy who was looking round the corner of a house.
“Look here, my lad: take this horse and lead him to the general’s headquarters. Here is a five-franc piece. Don’t get on his back, but lead him. Can I trust you?”
“I will do it, signor; you can depend upon me.”
Frank ran forward. The tremendous roll of fire beyond the barricade showed how strong was the force there, and he felt sure that the defenders must speedily be overpowered. Numbers of men were running along the street; he shouted to them: “The barricade cannot hold out; enter the houses and man every window; we must keep them back to the last. Garibaldi will be here before long.”
He himself kept on until within some two hundred yards of the barricade; then he stopped at the door of a house at the corner of a lane at right angles to the street, and ran into it. He waited until a score of men came up.
“Come in here,” he said: “we will defend this house till the last.”
The men closed the door behind them, and running into the lower rooms, fetched out furniture and piled it against it. They were assisted by five or six women, who, with some children, were the sole occupants of the house.
“Bring all the mattresses and bedding that you have,” Frank said to them, “to the windows of the first floor. We will place them on the balconies.”
In three or four minutes every balcony was lined with mattresses, and Frank sheltered his men behind them. Looking out, he saw that the fighting had just ceased, and that a dense mass of the enemy were pouring over the barricade; while at the same moment a crackling fire broke out from the houses near, into which its defenders had run, when they saw that the barricade could be no longer defended. Along both sides of the street, preparations similar to those he had ordered had been hastily made; and the men who were still coming up were all turning into the houses. Directly the Neapolitans crossed the barricade, they opened fire down the street, which was speedily deserted; but Frank had no doubt that, as the Garibaldian supports came up, they would make their way in at the back and strengthen the defenders. A hundred yards higher up the street was another barricade; behind this the townspeople were already gathering. Frank ordered his men to keep back inside the rooms until the enemy came along.
“Your powder is no good till they are close,” he said, “but it is as good as the best at close quarters.”
 
 
“THE HINGES OF THE DOOR WERE BROKEN OFF” 
“THE HINGES OF THE DOOR WERE BROKEN OFF”
 
From time to time he looked out. The roar of musketry was continuous; from every window came puffs of smoke, while the enemy replied by a storm of musketry fire at the defenders. While the column was still moving forward, its officers were telling off parties of men to burst open the doors and bayonet all found in the houses. He could mark the progress made, as women threw themselves out of the windows, preferring death that way to being murdered by the infuriated soldiers. It was not long before the head of the column approached the house; then Frank gave the word, and from every window a discharge was poured into the crowded mass. Stepping back from the balconies to load, the men ran out and fired again as soon as they were ready; while through the upper part of the open windows a shower of bullets flew into the room, bringing down portions of the ceiling, smashing looking-glasses, and striking thickly against the back walls.
Several of the party had fallen in the first two or three minutes, and Frank, taking one of their muskets and ammunition, was working with the rest, when a woman whom he had posted below ran up to say that they were attacking the door, and that it was already yielding. Two or three shots fired through the keyhole had indeed broken the lock, and it was only the furniture piled against it that kept it in its place. Already, by his instructions, the women had brought out on to the landing sofas, chests of drawers, and other articles, to form a barricade there. Frank ran down the stone stairs with six of the men, directing the others to form the barricade on the first floor, and to be prepared to help them over as they returned. It was two or three minutes before the hinges of the door were broken off, by shots from the assailants, and as it fell it was dragged out, and a number of men rushed in and began to pull down the furniture behind.
Now Frank and his party opened fire, aiming coolly and steadily. But the soldiers rushed in in such numbers that he soon gave the word, and his party ran upstairs, and, covered by the fire of their comrades, climbed up over the barricade on to the landing. Here they defended themselves desperately. The enemy thronged the staircase, those who were in front using their bayonets, while the men in the passage below fired over their heads at the defenders. Momentarily the little band decreased in number, until but two remained on their feet by the side of Frank. The women, knowing that no mercy would be shown, picked up the muskets of the fallen, and fired them into the faces of the men trying to pull down or scale the barricades. But the end was close at hand, when there came a tremendous crash, a blinding smoke and dust. The house shook to its foundations, and for a moment a dead silence took the place of the din that had before prevailed.
Frank and his two companions had been thrown down by the shock. Half stunned, and ignorant of what had happened, he struggled to his feet. His left hand hung helpless by his side. He took his pistol, which he had reserved for the last extremity, from his belt, and looked over the barricade. At first he could see nothing, so dense was the smoke and dust. As it cleared away a little, he gave an exclamation of surprise and thankfulness: the stairs were gone.
“Thank God!” he said, turning round to the women behind him, who were standing paralysed by the explosion and shock. “We are safe: the stairs have gone.”
Still he could scarce understand what had happened, until he saw a yawning hole in the wall near the stairs, and then understood what had taken place. The ships-of-war were again at work bombarding the town. One of their shells had passed through the house and exploded under the stairs, carrying them away, with all upon them. Below was a chaos of blocks of stone, mingled with the bodies of their late assailants; but while he looked, a fierce jet of flame burst up.
“What was there under the stairs?” he asked the women.
“The store of firewood, signor, was there.”
“The shell which blew up the stairs has set it alight,” he said. “We are safe from the enemy; but we are not safe from the fire. I suppose there is a way out on to the roof?”
“Yes, signor.”
“Then do one of you see that all the children upstairs are taken out there; let the rest examine all the bodies of the men who have fallen; if any are alive they must be carried up.”
He looked down at the two men who had stood by him till the last: one had been almost decapitated by a fragment of stone, the other was still breathing; only three of the others were found to be alive, for almost all, either at the windows or the barricade, had been shot through the head or upper part of the body.
Frank assisted the women, as well as he was able, to carry the four men still alive up to the roof. The houses were divided by party walls some seven or eight feet high. Frank told the women to fetch a chair, a chest of drawers, and a large blanket, from below. The chest of drawers was placed against the wall separating the terrace from that of the next house down the lane, and the chair by the side of it. With the aid of this, Frank directed one of the women to mount on to the chest of drawers, and then took his place beside her.
“You had better get up first,” he said, “and then help me a little, for with this disabled arm I should not be able to manage it without hurting myself badly.” With her aid, however, he had no difficulty in getting up. There were several women on the next roof, but they had not heard him, so intent were they in watching the fray; and it was not until he had shouted several times that they caught the sound of his voice above the din of fighting.
“I am going to hand some children and four wounded men down to you,” he said, as they ran up.
The children were first passed down; the women placed the wounded men one by one on a blanket, and standing on two chairs raised it until Frank and the woman beside him could get hold. Then they lowered it down on the other side until the women there could reach it. Only three had to be lifted over, for when it came to the turn of the fourth he was found to be dead.
“You will all have to move on,” Frank said, as he dropped on to the terrace; “the next house is on fire: whether it will spread or not I cannot say, but at any rate you had better bring up your valuables, and move along two or three houses farther. You cannot go out into the street; you would only be shot down as soon as you issued out. I think that if you go two houses farther you will be safe; the fire will take some time to reach there, and the enemy’s column may have passed across the end of the street before you are driven out.”
The women heard what he said with composure; the terrors of the past three days had excited the nerves of the whole population to such a point of tension, that the news of this fresh danger was received almost with apathy. They went down quietly to bring up their children and valuables, and with them one woman brought a pair of steps, which greatly facilitated the passage of the remaining walls. One of the wounded men had by this time so far recovered himself that he was able, with assistance, to cross without being lifted over in a blanket. A fresh contingent of fugitives here joined them, and another wall was crossed.
“I think that you are now far enough,” Frank said: “will you promise me that if the flames work this way”—and by this time the house where the fight had taken place was on fire from top to bottom—“you will carry these wounded men along as you go from roof to roof? I have my duties to perform and cannot stay here longer. Of course, if the fire spreads all the way down the lane, you must finally go down and run out from the door of the last house; but there will be comparatively small danger in this, as it will be but two or three steps round the next corner, and you will there be in shelter.”
“We promise we will carry them with us,” one of the women said earnestly: “you do not think that we could leave the men who have fought so bravely for us to be burnt?”
Frank now proceeded along the roofs. Two of the women accompanied him, to place the steps to enable him to mount and dismount the walls. There was no occasion to warn those below as to the fire, for all had by this time noticed it. He went down through the last house, opened the door, and ran round the corner, and then made his way along the streets until he reached the spot where the combat was raging. Garibaldi had, on receiving his message, hurried with what force he could collect to the scene of conflict; but, as he went, he received a letter from General Lanza, saying that he had sent negotiators on board the flag-ship of the British fleet anchored in the roadstead, Admiral Mundy having consented to allow the representatives of both parties to meet there.
The tone of the letter showed how the Sicilian viceroy’s pride was humbled. He had, in his proclamation issued four days before, denounced Garibaldi as a brigand and filibuster; he now addressed him as His Excellency General Garibaldi. Garibaldi at once went on board the English admiral’s ship, but the fire of the Neapolitan ships and their guns on shore continued unabated. General Letizia was already on board, with the conditions of the proposed convention. To the first four articles Garibaldi agreed: that there should be a suspension of arms for a period to be arranged; that during that time each party should keep its position; that convoys of wounded, and the families of officials, should be allowed to pass through the town and embark on board the Neapolitan war-ships; and that the troops in the palace should be allowed to provide themselves with daily provisions. The fifth article proposed that the municipality should address a humble petition to his majesty the king, laying before him the real wishes of the town, and that this petition should be submitted to his majesty.
This article was indignantly rejected by Garibaldi. Letizia then folded up the paper and said, “Then all communications between us must cease.”
Garibaldi then protested to Admiral Mundy against the infamy of the royal authorities in allowing the ships and forts to continue to fire upon his troops while a flag of truce was flying. Letizia, who could hardly have expected that the article would be accepted, now agreed to its being struck out, and an armistice was arranged to last for twenty-four hours. Garibaldi returned on shore, and at a great meeting of the citizens explained the terms to them, and stated the condition that he had rejected. It was greeted with a roar of approval, and the citizens at once scattered with orders to increase the strength of the barricades to the utmost. The work was carried on with enthusiasm; the balconies were all lined with mattresses, and heaped with stones and missiles of all kinds to cast down upon the enemy, and the work of manufacturing powder and cartridges went on with feverish haste. Now that the firing had ceased, officers from the British and American vessels off the town came ashore, and many of them made presents of revolvers and fowling-pieces to the volunteers. The sailors on a Sardinian frigate almost mutinied, because they were not permitted to go ashore and aid in the defence.
Before the twenty-four hours had passed, General Letizia called upon Garibaldi and asked for a further three days’ truce, as twenty-four hours was not a sufficient time to get the wounded on board. This Garibaldi readily granted, as it would give time for the barricades to be made almost impregnable, and for him to receive reinforcements, while it could not benefit the enemy. Volunteers arrived in companies from the country round, and Orsini landed with the cannon and with a considerable number of men who had joined him.
Such was the report given by Letizia, on his return to the royal palace, of the determined attitude of the population and of the formidable obstacles that would be encountered by the troops directly they were put in motion, that General Lanza must have felt his position to be desperate. He accordingly sent Letizia back again to arrange that the troops at the royal palace, the finance office, and the Termini gate should be allowed to move down towards the sea and there join hands. To this Garibaldi willingly assented, as, should hostilities be renewed, he would be able to concentrate his whole efforts at one point, instead of being obliged............