Andreano

"Halt! Close up. there!" The order rang out sharply, echoing from rock to rock. and seeming to die away in hollow mnimurs up the precipitóos and bleak sides of the hills. The little band of Italian soldiery closed np rapidly as their grizzled old captain spoke and faced hira silently with their carbines grounded aud the look of dull and apathetic discipline on their faces that is characteristic of their class. "Mymen," said the weather beaten and gray headed leader, regarding them sharply from uuder his shaggy eyebrows, "the wolf is driven to his last lair. All, or nearly all, of his people have been killed off during the weeks that we have been following them over these dreary hills. He - the bandit, the robber, the Andreano of the hills - cannot last out longer now. His hour is oome, if we are but watchful. Up and up he has been driven, often nearly falling into our hands, yet as often escaping. Now, behind him rises the sheer straight line of the hills, on either side are two good companies of our men ; we stand in the front. The great Andreano, terror of our hills" - the captain langhed softly in his throat - "is already as one dead. You ksow your orders ; he is tó be shot down like a dog by the first man who sights him. You understand?" A low, deep murmnr went up from the men, and then a single voice spoke ; the speaker, who stood in the front rank, giving the salute rapidly. "But, my captain, whatof thechild?" The old man turned on him fiercely. "Thechild! Whatchild?" The soldier - a little, lithe, swarthy man, with gleaming white teeth shining under his brown mnstache - saluted again. "The child, my captain, he brought from Massaflno, below there in the valley. The child of the woman who had loved him." The captain, interested in spite of himself , knitted his brows and bade the soldier proceed. "What of this child? You may speak." Thns encouraged, the little man with the gleaming teeth saluted once more, and with many a gestare of fingers, shoulders and eyebrows rapidly told his story. " 'Twas but a year ago, my captain. The woman - I know not her name - had loved him in the days when he was a lad tilling the fields down there. She was alone. Her friends were dead or had left her. There was no one but the priest who could help her, and the priest was too poor. What would yon?" with an appealing glance at his fellows and a rapid shrug of his shoulders. "She had been married - this woman who had loved the Andreano - and had a child, a girl child, but her man lay in the sandy graveyard over against the village church yonder, dead.a yearbefore, of the f ever. So she sent to Andreano. ' ' He paused for a moment, spat quickly upon the ground and went on again. "She sent a message to him up here in the hills, my captain, and he carne to her. He came down in the night and saw her; came, armed to the teeth, and daring all or any to touch him. And in the morning, when the sun was coming up over the hills, he had gone, and the child with him, and the woman who had loved him lay dead, with asmile on her face. That is all, my captain. ' ' The man saluted again and drew back. "And the child - where is it now:" asked the captain slowly. "The child is with him, my captain. " "Whatmatters it?" muttered the captain. "Kill thechild too. Ki 11 off the whole brood. Come, we waste time. Forward!' Yet for all that, as the captain marched at the head of his men with knitted brows, he was very silent and very thoughtful and might almost have been thought to have been in doubt. Once or twice he shook his head slowly and muttered something beneath his breath. He, too, had heard the strange story at an eai-lier time - had heard how this terrible and sin stained man, with a price npon his head, had gone down into the valley - into the midst of men ready and willing to sell him - carrying his lif e in his hand, to see a peasant woman who had sent for him ; he had heard, too, how the robber had carried the child into the hills and had carefully tended it there ever since. It was late in the afternoon when the little company drew near the end of its quest, and, with leveled carbines, crept silently on amid the rocks that lay strewn about the place. Suddenly one man - the little soldier with the gleaming teeth, who had spoken bef ore - cried out sharply : "See, my captain, he comes - with thechild!" It was true ; even as they looked they saw an active, picturesqne figure spring ing from rock to rock toward them, bearing on its shoulders a laughing, crowing, dark haired child. One hand of the man held the baby, the other grasped a carbine, and the late afternoon sun gleamed on the weapons in his belt. They saw, too, that the baby had, fastened lightly to one chubby fist, a tering white cloth. Seeing them, the i man stood quite still watching them, S only the white cloth fluttering in the i wied. "A flag of truce!" grnnted the tain, sharply calliüg a halt - he was too true a soldier not to regard such a sign. "What does h want, I wonder? Lówer yonr arms there, men, there is plenty of j time," he. added grïhrfy. The rol; ;r carne ouagain rapidlyana finally hal eed a little distance above Í tiiom, witli the baby still perched upon his shoulder. Thenhe, too, krwered his carbine and stood there, with head upraised, looking at them deflantly. "Yon have me!" he cried at last, his voice ringing ont clearly throngh the still air. " You have tracked me up here - you, a hundred against one man. Yet, even now, you should not have taken me calmly thus, even though 1 stand alone - you shonld not have taken me thus, but for the little one. ' ' He glanced up for a .moment at the baby on his shoulder and drew one little hand down to his lips, and then faced the soldiery again, speaking directly for the first time to the old offleer : "Yon are a brave man, captain," he added almost appealingly, "and such meu do not rnake war on infants. What do you do with the little one, my captain?" The captain shrugged his shoulders. "The child is nothing, Andreano, " he said eternly. "She may die with you. " With a bound the bandit had sprang back froni them, and in an instant the child was off his shoulder and behind him, and he knelt there with his carbine leveled, fiercely facing them. "Beasts!" he cried. "I cometo yon nnder the white flag, well knowing that I must die, and asking nothing for myself. I crave only that you should spare the innocent liule one. Know this, then, since you will not - I will kill the child rather than she shall fall beneath your murderous blows, and will die such a death as few men have died, with a dozen coward souls to bear mine own to heil. Now, what say you?" He knelt there quite calmly, with his carbine leveled and with the child thrnst behind him. But the old captain had stepped f orward and raised his hand. "Stop, Andreano!" he cried. "You are right. We raake not war on babes. This hunting down of one man is but littie to my liking, and I will not foul it more. The child is safe. ' ' The man rose and laid down his car bine and took up the child again. "And the little one shall go with yon down into the valley in safety?" he asked slowly. "I have given my word. No harm shall come to the little one. öive it to me." The robber kissed the baby's soft face passionately- once, twice, thrice - and then moved quickly toward the captain, down the rocks, and passed the child into his arms. "I thauk you, my captain," he said gravely. "And now you are to shoot me?" "Such are our orders, Andreano. " The other shrugged his shoulders. "So be it, " he said softly, "only cover the face of the little one that she may not see. ' ' The captain passed the child into the hands of the little soldier of the swarthy face, and they took it quickly out of his sight. Thencame an order rapidly given and another; a volleyrang out startling the echoes on those lonely hills for a moment ; there was a half sobbing cry and Andreano's course was run. So it carne about that when the soldiers marched down into the valley agaiu one of them bore upon a lïght pdle the head of the notorious bandit, for all the wide eyed peasantry to gape at, and, strangest sight of all, upon the front of the captain's saddle, with the captain 's arm abouS her, sat alaughing, crowmg, dark hairsd