6.2
"You chose the wrong girl to blackmail to do your dirty work." growled Grazia, her eyes filled with anger. "And I won't be an accomplice for this beast's escape, for sure!"
Incredibly, in the general shock that such an unexpected twist had caused, it was Carlotta who spoke first.
"Miss, please. It's not neces..."
"No, Carlotta. No more nice guy!"
Grazia then pulled out the hand that she had slid inside the bag onto the horse, from which took a large envelope of pressed paper, tightly tied together, and after igniting the fuze on the lantern, she threw it towards them.
At first it might have looked like the device used by the young Orsini during the escape from Rome, but that one had actually one more ingredient. Grazia had casually heard of powdered magnesium during her Neapolitan exile from a French naturalist, who had told her of that recently discovered expedient to create sudden bursts of light, to facilitate the overexposure of the daguerreotypes.
Getting a few fireworks and extract their mixture had been enough.
If Grazia was quick to bury her face on her horse, covering her eyes as well, the same could not be said for the others, who all of a sudden ended up dazed by an unbearable noise and blinded by an abrupt and incredibly strong flash, so strong that it could be seen from miles from both the sea and along the coast.
Taken by surprise, both Carlotta and the kidnappers stood shaken and unable to see, and Grazia took advantage of it by running towards her friend-
"Quick!" she said, grabbing her hand and dragging her away. "Onto the horse, get away from here!"
"Miss!" Carlotta shot back, seemingly rather reluctant to collaborate.
Despite still being groggy and with useless eyes, though, her guardian realized what was happened, and instinctively grabbed the pistol he had on the back of his belt.
"Damn it all." he cursed, trying to aim.
Maybe by chance, maybe by him being unable to see clearly, or maybe even because of a conscious choice, his shot missed by a mile.
But the same was not true for the one fired by Grazia, who, realizing the danger, had not hesitated to fire straight at him, even though the mighty recoil ruined the effect, and it did not more than open quite the hole in the arm of her opponent, if it weren't enough.
The first thing that Carlotta saw, as she slowly regained her sight, was thus her gaoler falling to his knees, holding his arm and with his face twisting in pain. And what she did left Grazia speechless.
"Mister Nino!" she blurted, and letting go of her friend's hand, she immediately ran back to him and kneeling besides him. "Does it hurt?"
"N...Nothing serious." 'Nino' protested. "I won't die for such a thing."
Grazia could not believe her eyes. Her hands quivered, and her eyes threatened to be invaded by tears at any moment.
In an instant, so many things, so many small details she had not noticed, or she had outright refused to look at in her heart, returned to her. The fact that Carlotta, despite having shown time and again to be able to defend herself, had let herself be captured that easily. The fact that she hadn't even attempted to struggle for freedom; even the relaxed, far from scared expression of those last minutes, hardly reasonable for a hostage.
Carlotta, taking out a kerchief from her pocket, quickly began to dab Nino's wound, but any other thought went away when, half shocked half resigned, she saw the pistol being aimed at her.
"Miss..." she murmured, meeting the desperate yet incredibly furious glare of Grazia.
"You... you're one of them..." said the young Orsini, her teeth clenched and the hand far from firm.
"No, Miss, wait. I can explain..."
"Do you have any idea of what I went through these last two days? I couldn't help but think of what could happen to you if I hadn't followed through, and now I learn it was all a pretense?"
"Please, Miss, believe me. I never wanted to get you in any danger..."
In the meantime, the hooded man had almost completely recovered his sight, but Grazia wasted no time in scratching his leg with a bullet to convince him that, no matter how shocked, she was more than determined to empty the chamber of her pistol in the first one to even try and make a move.
"Mister Govone." said Carlotta, revealing that she was in close confidence even with her would-be kidnapper-
"You were my friend!" growled the young Orsini, the pistol aimed at her once more, her face flush with anger and desperation. "I thought of you as my own sister! And you used me!"
"Believe me, I never wished for things to go this way. The circumstances made it inevitable. They told me there was no way something would happen to you, and..."
Any other word died in Carlotta's throat, as Grazia cocked the hammer once again.
Several very tense moments followed, during which nobody dared to move a finger, in fear of it causing tragic consequences-
Then, under the disbelieving eyes of everyone present, Carlotta slowly got to her feet, standing immobile before Grazia, who kept the gun pointed at her.
"If you want to kill me, I won't stop you." she said with eyes filled with loving candor, despite everything. "But please, I'm begging you. Give those documents to these people. You have no idea how much important they are."
"Shut up!" cried Grazia, unable to keep her hand steady. "Shut up!"
"You are right when you say I used you. But please believe me when I tell you that all this had a most important purpose, and no matter what you may have heard, Giuseppe Pane is not the person you think he is."
"Shut up! Shut up!" Grazia kept repeating, her soul breaking every time, and unable to choose between what she was hearing and what she believed.
At that, Carlotta came closer, placing the barrel against her chest to everybody's shock, not least Grazia's.
"Carlotta..."
"I do deserve all the hate you may feel in this moment, towards me. I thought you were just a spoiled girl trying to find a way to pass the time. Only afterwards, I realized that your ideals were true. That is why I tried to make so that you wouldn't be involved in this mess. And believe me, my heart bled at the thought of having to deceive you, but we were afraid you wouldn't have believed us if we had just tried to explain ourselves to you."
Another long, tense silence ensued. And even though in her eyes the rage had been replaced by despair, in Grazia's heart a storm was still raging on.
"Where is Giuseppe Pane?" she yelled, almost as if asking the universe. "I want to see him! Let him show himself!"
"Easily done." a strong, very charismatic voice cut in, who silenced everybody.
"No, General." Carlotta instinctively said. "It's dangerous."
The door of the hut nearby opened, and a figure strode out of it, at first shrouded by the darkness of the night.
Grazia at first stood motionless, with the expression and the shock of someone who believes to be hallucinating, and then the pistol still aimed towards her best friend fell from her hand, partly sinking into the sand.
Before her stood a man, neither young nor old, looking rough yet respectable, with long and thick straw hair, deep blue eyes and an elegant beard around his face, making him look like an adventurer.
"Here I am. I am the person you asked for. I am Giuseppe Pane."
No. It wasn't possible.
Grazia had never seen that man in person before then, but she had heard of him. And she knew his name was most assuredly not Giuseppe Pane.
"Messer... Garibaldi..."
Giuseppe Garibaldi, the fugitive that the whole of Europe was looking for, was before her in all of his simple appearance, clothed like any other average gentleman, and was looking at her with a mixture of compassion and regret.
Without saying anything more, the General, as many already called him, made a few steps and, kneeling himself near Bixio, tightly tied together his own kerchief around his hand.
"My compliments, Miss Orsini. You shoot better than many so-called soldiers." he said, before turning to the hooded kidnapper. "Good heavens, Govone. There was no mention of involving little girls."
"My apologies, General." replied the man, removing his hood at last, and thus showing the distinguished and reputable features of a thirty-something year old gentleman, with an enigmatic smile and short black hair. "We had to be sure that they wouldn't pat down our couriers. Who would ever suspect of two innocent-looking girls?"
For a long time Grazia stood motionless, as if struck down by everything that was happening to her. Then, all of a sudden, as if waking up from a dream, a shiver ran down her spine, and painted fear onto her face.
"No! This isn't good!" she screeched. "General, quick! You have to leave!"
"Don't worry, it will happen soon. We caused enough problems for you."
"No, you don't understand! That flash bomb wasn't just something to help me save Carlotta! It was a signal!"
Everybody else jumped up at that, and a surreal silence fell upon them again.
"A signal for whom?" said Bixio, the only one who had the spirit to open his mouth.
The literal answer came a second later, in the shape of a cannonball that, missing the group by an inch, caused a veritable eruption, sending sand everywhere.
"But what in the..."
Just a few seconds passed, and from the rocky point to the right of the beach a couple of cutters came out, with just a few light on; they flew no flag, each had some twenty men aboard, and were armed with just small guns, but they were more than enough to pulverize anything they could find on that sandy strip of land.
Grazia desperately tried to calm down her horse, but that poor animal was so scared that it freed itself and ran away in no time. And as if that were not enough, almost at the same time as a new salvo, from one of the beach's access points came galloping in a dozen of men with torches and pistols, that immediately opened fire against the small group. Some wore civilian cloaks and clothes, but the majority could be easily recognized as French cuirassiers of the Roman garrison, surely warned by their new Austrian friends.
"We are surrounded!" cried Carlotta, who immediately drew Bixio's revolver from its holster and fired against one of the horsemen, hitting him dead on.
Another gunshot brought down the hut near the beach, and as they desperately looked for another refuge, Grazia was the first to spot one, barely visible behind a natural embankment at the limit of the beach.
"Hurry, in there!"
Aboard one of the cutters, General D'Aspre looked upon the scene with visible appreciation, his hands behind them and a pose worthy of a statue.
"Sir." said his aide. "We have seen a weak light some two miles off the port bow, to the south-west. It's likely a small boat."
"Send the other ship to intercept her. We go ashore."
"Ashore? But sir, we can destroy them easily without making a move."
"The rat is in the trap." replied the General, his eyes injected with fire. "This time I'll be sure he won't be able to run."
The second hut on the beach might have been a small custom house or something like that, because it was a solid stone construction and with a small wall surrounding it.
Just as Grazia and the others reached it, the horsemen coming from the north stopped some ten yards away, and, flattened against the sand behind some dunes, began to fire at will.
The young Orsini and the others had nothing on themselves but some pistols, daggers and some cutlasses, but despite everything they did manage to inflict some losses to the enemy; then, when some of them tried a sneak attack, Govone surprisingly took the initiative, and bolting from behind the wall with a sword in his hand and a handful of knives in the other, he started slashing and hacking like an Angel of Death, cutting them to pieces and forcing the few survivors to run back.
For just a moment, it looked like the besieged might somehow match their assailants, but everything went crashing down when Carlotta noticed two small boats coming ashore, laden with soldiers.
"Hurry, inside!" ordered the General.
Everybody obeyed, maintaining their fire to cover each other's back, and when Govone himself was back after a new daring sortie to gain time, the door was closed and barricaded, with a half-rotten tree trunk.
"We are trapped..." said Grazia. "It's all my fault."
"Don't worry, miss, if they want our lives, they'll have to work for it!" yelled Carlotta, the first of them to kick open one of the small windows to resume fire.
They awaited for their enemies, gone from ten to more than forty, to launch the final assault, or worse, for them to fire a few shells and end it all. Instead, all of a sudden, the gunshots ceased, and the soldiers quickly went to get cover behind the wall, keeping their weapons aimed at the hut still.
"Now what are they doing?" Bixio grumbled.
A few seconds later, the voice of General D'Aspre echoed from behind enemy lines.
"Miss Orsini! You've done well! You kept your part of the accords! Now you have to let us do our work!"
"You deceived me!" was Grazia's irate answer.
"It was you who believed my words. Maybe in your heart you knew there was something strange in this matter, yet you accepted to collaborate! Moreover, it was not me who first lied to you! The people who truly used you are the ones that are around you in this very moment!"
Grazia did not miss Carlotta staring at the floor, and the way she pointedly refused to look at her.
"They lied to me just to make sure that the General would not end up in the hands of people like you!"
"Miss..." said Carlotta, shocked.
"And do you care to know? If they had told me the truth from the beginning, I would've helped them still!"
"It is of no consequence now!" shot back the General, shaken, if not that much, by this turnabout. "Your maid has proven herself as an accomplice, but you can still walk away clean! Throw down your weapon and come out with your hands raised! If you do, I give you my word as a soldier that no harm shall come to you! Nobody will ever hear the smallest thing about this matter! Not even your father! But you must surrender, now!"
A long silence followed.
General Garibaldi and the others felt the adrenaline, that had pushed them forwards until them, dissipate all in one go, leaving them exhausted and breathing heavily after the battle.
"Maybe you should accept his offer." said Govone. "We are dead all the same."
"He is right, Miss." said Carlotta. "In the end, it was us who dragged you in all this. You have the right to walk away."
Grazia did not answer, looking around with lost eyes and meeting the gaze of everyone else, in which she could see resignation, but at the same time the sincere wish to see at least one of them get out of that inescapable nightmare.
For a single moment, the girl looked like she might consider the idea, but as her eyes met again those of Carlotta, Grazia felt a fire blaze inside her.
Only a few moments more passed, and a grenade came from one of the small windows, arcing upwards and then falling down among the enemy soldiers, who were however quick to get away before the detonation.
"Here is my answer!"
"In this case, more's the pity." was the answer, simple and definite, of General D'Aspre. "I gave you a chance."
At his gesture, the soldiers prepared to resume fire, and even aboard the cutter, standing still just a few dozen yards from the shore, some movement could be seen.
Grazia and the others got ready for their last stand, decided more than ever to not give that butcher the pleasure to hang them. And just a moment before the assault resumed, Grazia was the first of them to notice a couple of lights beyond the small hill at the end of the beach, that rose high in the nocturnal sky before falling down like shooting starts, leaving behind long wakes.
Everybody liked fireworks. But it was hardly a good thing when they burst at one's own feet.
In a moment, D'Aspre's soldiers found themselves the target of rockets, firecrackers, and every other sort of pyrotechnic device, that detonating in their midst began to take their toll, in some cases cutting away whole pieces of leg, so powerful they were.
"What in the..."
"What is happening?" said a dumbfounded Carlotta.
An uncountable number of rockets were fired, sowing panic and confusion among the Austrian and French soldiers, then above the hill, one after the other, some ten shapes appeared, and as she recognized a few of them Grazia almost fainted out of shock.
"Olga!"
And she was not alone. Behind the Grand Duchess and the loyal Vladimir came a huge number of people, armed with a motley array of tools and some rifles, almost everyone belonging to the lower class, but a few respectable-looking gentlemen and whose faces Grazia did not fail to recognize.
The last to appear was Salsiccia, with a group of other undercity girls, and it was the young maverick of Rione Ponte to give the signal to charge.
"Avanti gente! Spacchiamo un po' di teste!" [C'mon, people! Let's bash some heads!]
At her command, almost everyone ran down the hill at the enemies, while the others stood back and kept pelting the still shocked soldiers with fireworks and other improvised explosives.
The Grand Duchess herself did not shy away from the attack, leading some gentlemen against the enemy's right flank and slashing and parrying like a competent fencer, always at the side of Vladimir, whose two days of forced rest had done wonders for him.
"Now!" she then said, almost usurping the General in the command of the small force. "It's time for a sortie!" And, kicked open the door, Grazia threw herself into the melee after grabbing a sword from the lifeless body of an opponent, shortly followed by her companions.
The engagement was brief but very bloody, with losses on both parts, even though the girls following Salsiccia proved themselves so agile and slippery that the enemies were almost completely unable to hit them, so much that at the end they could boast only a few scratches.
D'Aspre, more and more appalled, was closely guarded by five of his men, including his aide, but when he gazed into the fight and saw the General Garibaldi dueling close by, his eyes became red from the blood rushing in.
"Damn you!" he shrieked, and, escaping his protectors, unable to follow him as they were pressed on all sides, he threw himself at his nemesis with his sword drawn. "If I end up in hell, this time I'll make sure you won't get out of this alive!"
As if a demon had possessed his limbs, restoring the energies of his youth, D'Aspre fought like a madman, enabling him to match a Garibaldi that, no longer a strapping lad himself, was still more than twenty years his junior.
Blow after blow was exchanged, and their fight soon brought them out of the thick of the battle, inside the hut from where everything had started, and they clashed in a personal struggle while outside that hell was still ongoing.
What few outside of his confidants knew was that, since a few years, Garibaldi had begun to suffer from premature and violent rheumatic attacks, and right at the worst possible moment his back decided to make itself known again. A harsh cramp paralyzed him from the chest to the elbow right as he was preparing to parry a high slash, leaving him immobile and completely open.
The curve of the saber luckily ensured that the blow was not fatal, even though by an inch, but the General came out of it with an ugly wound in his left arm. Instinctively, Garibaldi waved his arm right as blood was beginning to come out, and like a squirt of acid some of it ended up in D'Aspre's eyes; blinded for a moment too long, he was first disarmed, then ran through his right shoulder, and ultimately brought down by a kick.
The pain for him was atrocious, but his years as a soldier allowed him to hide it behind an anonymous and low gritting of his teeth, that turned into a gesture of rage when he found the sword of his eternal nemesis pointed at his brow.
"So, this is where it ends." he hissed, a hand clasped onto his open wound. "I have just one regret in my life. That I missed the right chance that day at Ravenna. If I hadn't, now you'd be down in hell together with that whore of a wife of yours! That's the right place for anarchic bandits like you!"
Garibaldi did not reply, glaring at his opponent almost with compassion.
"What is it, why do you hesitate? Yet you killed many in your criminal life! What are you waiting for?"
And instead, in the end Garibaldi sheathed his blade, under the dismayed eyes of D'Aspre.
"What does this mean?"
"It means it's over, General. Did you know? I had sworn before my dying wife that if I had found myself before you, I would have killed you with my own hands. But now I realize that if I did, I'd become just like you. A beast."
"You... Damn..."
"Besides, it would be senseless to kill you. You're already dying, General. You and all those like you, are dying together with your old world of which you are the last, decrepit supporters. Forcing you to see the end of your world is the most cruel punishment I could think of."
That said, and holding his bleeding arm, Garibaldi turned his back on his enemy and strode towards the door.
D'Aspre followed him with his gaze for a few moments, as the pain in his arm turned more and more unbearable. But the hate in his eyes had not dimmed, and instead, faced with the words of his nemesis, it violently burst. Struggling to ignore the pain, the Austrian general slipped a hand in his coat, and laboriously rising to his knee he turned towards Garibaldi, pointing his gun at him.
A gunshot was heard.
Garibaldi barely had the time to turn around, after recognizing beyong the open door the shadow of the young Orsini, with the weapon aimed behind him, before General D'Aspre fell dead at his feet, his throat pierced right through.
"Miss..."
"I told them, they had chosen the wrong person to involve." Grazia exhaled.
Meanwhile, the battle outside was dying down, and had turned into an Austro-French defeat. Then, as everybody saw the lone Grazia and the General Garibaldi coming out of the hut, it became clear what had been the fate of their commander.
"Retreat! Retreat!" somebody shouted.
Everybody ran after that, except the General's aide, who stubbornly kept fighting to the point of forcing Bixio to put an end of his empty existence of an aide without a chief. The survivors logically tried to ran for their ship, but right as they made for the boats they saw the cutter blow up, straddled by a salvo, before sinking in the shallow water, and the appearance from the darkness, in a few moments, of a second ship, visibly weathered by an earlier engagement, but still perfectly able to fight; that spelled their end.
"We surrender!"
The victory yells of Salsiccia, of the Grand Duchess and of everyone else echoed all over the beach, and as the enemies threw down their weapons they were all pushed to one side, watched closely by a small group of watchers.
"Li mortacci tua!" shouted a joyous Salsiccia, enveloping Grazia into a tight hug. "Che'tte credevi de fa?" [Curse you! What were you thinking?]
"What in blazes are you doing here?"
"C'ha 'ddetto tutto lei." replied the young commoner, gesturing towards Olga. "Tu forse un te credi, ma tieni gran begli amici. Quand'ho ddetto n'do stavi che stava a succede, so 'ttutti voluti venitte ad aiutà." [She told us everything. You may not believe it, but you have some great friends. When I said what was going to happen, everybody wanted to come and help.]
With that introduction, Olga stepped forwards with a kind smile.
"Why did you do that?" asked a surprised Grazia. "After what I told you..."
"You were right. I cannot understand what you and your people are going through. But I can still understand when a friend needs help. And I've never been someone who turns her back on one."
Grazia, despite her ferocious control of her feelings, was unable to hold them back any longer, and almost to the point of tears went to hug one of the very few persons who had ever called her friend, and she had considered one.
"Thank you..."
"And let this be the last time you avoid asking for help when you need it, alright? Because now you know that there are people ready to lay down everything for your sake."
But this was nothing compared to what happened when it was Carlotta facing Grazia, whose grim and severe face was enough to push the would-be maid to keep her eyes down low.
"I... I am sorry, miss. I admit it, I had approached and convinced you to enter your family's service only to keep an eye on the Grand Duke. And when I saw the kind of person you truly were, I was so ashamed that for a moment I really thought about telling you the truth. If only..."
She couldn't say anything further, because her cheek was struck by such a strong slap that she fell down; however, before she could even feel any kind of pain, that same hand that had struck her was now closed around her, in the shape of a mighty and freeing hug.
"Miss..."
"Never again! Don't do anything of the sorts to me never again! I was so scared for you!"
Carlotta stood speechless for a moment, but then, under the relieved and knowing looks of those present, she returned the hug with a smile.
"Thank you. And please, forgive me."
And in the end, it was the moment for Grazia to face General Garibaldi, and it was her own turn to look ashamed.
"I have no words to tell you how sorry I am, General. I was a fool; I trusted that man's words, and my actions endangered you all."
At her protests, the General smiled under his beard, one of the sincere and charming smiles for which he was famous.
"I owe you my life, Miss Orsini. You have done nothing to apologize for."
"But, General..."
"Miss Carlotta did tell much about you, and told me how much you fought to defend your ideas."
"But for what, General?" the girl asked, with the sad and melancholic eyes of somebody trying to look for a light amid darkness. "I saw it with my own eyes. The worst obstacle for the birth of Italy are not the Austrians, or the French. It's us; us who would rather make war and despise each other, where we should stand together."
"Look around you, Grazia." Olga butted in, driving Grazia to look around and watch the large group of people, bourgeois and commoners, soldiers and civilians, Romans and foreigners, who were celebrating together the victory, helping each other and the wounded, passing around the cups, and singing all together. "Italy is right here, before your very eyes. You only need to make sure that others see it as well, and decide to work for it. And it's thanks to people like you, who look at the horizon rather than the finger pointing at it, that this dream of yours may be realized yet."
In the meantime, a boat had left the only surviving ship of that battle, and a reputable commander, some fifty years old and in civilian attire without any insignia (except for a Military Order of Savoy on his coat), came ashore.
This man began to review the captured enemies, and ended up before a French sub-lieutenant, who returned his icy stare with an insulting smirk, an almost challenging one. The commander stood motionless for a few moments, then almost casually he drew his pistol and shot the prisoner right amid his eyes, under the shocked eyes of the patriots and the terrified ones of the other prisoners.
"For my son." he said, sheathing the weapon.
"Giorgio." Garibaldi admonished him. "It wasn't necessary; he had surrendered."
"Those like him deserve nothing better."
The General chose not to reply, and turned to the other prisoners.
"You will be spared. But you'll have to deal with your superiors; I hope you are ready for what awaits you."
By then the dawn was close, and it was time for the General, after receiving at last from Grazia the documents that so much fuss had caused, to depart, before the sea could fill of French and Roman ships alarmed by all that racket.
"How much time will you stay away?" Grazia asked.
"It's difficult to say." Garibaldi laughed. "Right now, as you may have noticed, there is half of Europe that would like a few words for me; even Vittorio Emanuele does not consider me in a very positive light, so much that Messers. Govone and Mameli have taken no small risk to help me out. As you can see, even in the least likely of places there is still someone who believes in Italy."
"I see. Well... take care of yourself."
"I will try." Then, the General shifted his gaze to Olga. "I was never much of a friend of kings and emperors, but this much I can say: blessed be the people that will have the luck of having you as its sovereign, Highness. And if you ever need it one day, the sword of Garibaldi will be at your service."
"I am happy to hear it. And it was a honor for me to get to know you, General, no matter how little."
Yet another pointed look of Commander Mameli to his watch and his nervous tapping of the foot made everybody understand that the time for goodbyes was over, so the General, taking his leave one last time from his benefactors, turned on his heels to make for the boat.
"Wait!" shouted a voice, just as he was about to set foot into it.
As an eagle from whose leg the ring had been removed, Grazia strode forwards, under the aghast eyes of everybody.
"You know," she said ironically. "Now that I think about it, I've always dreamed to see America. Is there room for me on that boat?"
To call what appeared on everyone's face 'shock' would have been a huge understatement.
"Miss..."
"Grazia, what...?"
The General needed but a moment to see that it was most assuredly not a boutade, or an empty phrase of somebody still high on adrenaline.
"Are you really sure about it? I warn you, the life that awaits you there would be far from happy."
"The General is right." said Olga. "Have you considered this properly?"
"Want the truth? I think this may be the first sensible decision I have taken so far in my life."
Long moments went by, until Garibaldi, scooting aside, gestured towards Grazia, pointing to a place close to him on the boat.
Olga with that grabbed hold of her hand, as did Carlotta.
"Take care of yourself."
"The same to you. Remember that I'm watching you; better that you become a good queen, or else..."
"Miss, I..."
"Enough with that 'Miss'. Besides, I won't stay away forever; and when I'm back, I promise you we'll be standing together in making Italy."
Hearing those words, Carlotta was brought to tears, and gave a last, heartfelt hug to that mistress of hers who had by then become just a dear and precious friend.
"So, do we have anything else to wait for?" the Commander chastised.
So, with a wistful and somewhat thoughtful look, but hardly one of somebody regretting his decision, Grazia climbed aboard the boat, standing tall to say goodbye to all of her friends from the bulwark of the ship until she set sail, pushed to the south by the tepid morning wind.
"Well." commented Carlotta, as the sun began to shine upon the clear sea. "All's well that ends well."
"Absolutely." replied Olga. "But there's still something that bugs me."
"What is it?"
"Now what do I tell her father?"
Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807 – 1882) is considered one of the Founding Fathers of Italy; involved since his youth in patriotic activities, he rose to prominence fighting in South America, before returning to Italy and rising to fame during the defense of the Roman Republic. Escaping before the city fell, he managed to avoid several armies chasing him, and escape to safety. He would go on and play a prominent part in the Unification of Italy, most importantly during the Expedition of the Thousands, where he conquered the Kingdom of Two Sicilies and brought it under the House of Savoy.
Nino Bixio (1821 – 1873) was a Genoese patriot who became one of Garibaldi's top lieutenants.
Giorgio Mameli (1798 – 1871) was a Sardinian admiral, whose son Goffredo (1827 – 1849) famously composed the text of the current Italian national hymn (the Canto degli Italiani), before dying of his wounds taken during the last resistance of the Roman Republic.