the chained watch-dog bolted into his kennel with a great rattle. Luis,
a cinnamon-coloured mulatto with a sprouting moustache and thick, dark
lips, would stop sweeping the cafe with a broom of palm-leaves to let
a gentle shudder run down his spine. His languishing almond eyes would
remain closed for a long time.

This was the staff of the Casa Viola, but all these people had fled
early that morning at the first sounds of the riot, preferring to hide
on the plain rather than trust themselves in the house; a preference for
which they were in no way to blame, since, whether true or not, it
was generally believed in the town that the Garibaldino had some money
buried under the clay floor of the kitchen. The dog, an irritable,
shaggy brute, barked violently and whined plaintively in turns at the
back, running in and out of his kennel as rage or fear prompted him.

Bursts of great shouting rose and died away, like wild gusts of wind on
the plain round the barricaded house; the fitful popping of shots
grew louder above the yelling. Sometimes there were intervals of
unaccountable stillness outside, and nothing could have been more gaily
peaceful than the narrow bright lines of sunlight from the cracks in the
shutters, ruled straight across the cafe over the disarranged chairs
and tables to the wall opposite. Old Giorgio had chosen that bare,
whitewashed room for a retreat. It had only one window, and its only
door swung out upon the track of thick dust fenced by aloe hedges
between the harbour and the town, where clumsy carts used to creak along
behind slow yokes of oxen guided by boys on horseback.

In a pause of stillness Giorgio cocked his gun. The ominous sound wrung
a low moan from the rigid figure of the woman sitting by his side. A
sudden outbreak of defiant yelling quite near the house sank all at once