It was too
dark to distinguish individuals; but, even as we looked, the silent
air wafted to our eager ears a low-voiced word of command:
"Mind, not a sound till I give the word."
"The President!" exclaimed the signorina, in a loud whisper.
"Hush, or he'll hear," said I, "and we're done."
Clearly nothing would happen from that quarter till it was called
forth by events in the opposite direction. The signorina was strongly
agitated; she clung to me closely, and I saw with alarm that the very
proximity of the man she stood in such awe of was too much for her
composure. When I had soothed, and I fear half-frightened, her into
stillness, I again turned my eyes toward the Piazza. The fire had at
last flickered out and the revels seemed on the wane. Suddenly a body
of men appeared in close order, marching down the street toward the
bank. We stood perhaps a hundred yards from that building, which was,
in its turn, about two hundred from the Piazza. Steadily they came
along; no sound reached us from the wood.
"This is getting interesting," I said. "There'll be trouble soon."
As near as I could see, the colonel's band, for such it was, no doubt,
did not number more than five-and-twenty at the outside.
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