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The Duke, spurred on by fear, was yet twenty paces in their rear, and in a moment he also stopped, clasping his hands in a gesture of vain entreaty. "Listen, Lugui!" his mother called to him, in a dear, high voice. "This is the child that has come between us and turned you from a man into a coward. Here alone is the cause of our troubles. Behold! I will remove it forever from our path."
They will soon be here to arrest you." Then Lugui sprang into the chest and lay fat upon the bottom. Beni tumbled in next and packed himself in the back side. Victor followed after pausing to kiss her hand to the girl in a graceful manner. Then Martha ran up to press down the lid, but could not make it catch. "You must squeeze down," she said to them. Lugui groaned.
"A hundred and twelve!" exclaimed Martha, after pretending to count them. "Then we are lost!" declared Beni; "for we could never fight so many and live." "Are they armed?" inquired Victor, who was shivering as if cold. "Oh, yes," said she. "They have guns and swords and pistols and axes and and " "And what?" demanded Lugui. "And cannons!"
How long she remained alone in the attic she never knew, but finally she heard the catlike tread of the returning bandits and saw them coming up the stairs in single file. All bore heavy loads of plunder in their arms, and Lugui was balancing a mince pie on the top of a pile of her mother's best evening dresses.
"Permit us to introduce ourselves," said the thin man, flourishing his hat gracefully. "This is Lugui," the fat man nodded; "and this is Beni," the middle-sized man bowed; "and I am Victor. We are three bandits Italian bandits." "Bandits!" cried Martha, with a look of horror. "Exactly.
You are on Prairie avenue, in Chicago. Uncle Walter sent you here from Italy in this chest." The bandits seemed greatly bewildered by this announcement. Lugui sat down on an old chair with a broken rocker and wiped his forehead with a yellow silk handkerchief. Beni and Victor fell back upon the chest and looked at her with pale faces and staring eyes.
"Oh, ecstacy!" said Beni; but he let the kettle drop on his toe and immediately began dancing around in anguish, while he muttered queer words in the Italian language. "We have much wealth," continued Victor, holding the mince pie while Lugui added his spoils to the heap; "and all from one house! This America must be a rich place."
"We adore you!" cried Beni. "We would die for you!" added Lugui, thinking he was about to die anyway. "Then I will save you," said the girl. "How?" asked the three, with one voice. "Get back into the chest," she said. "I will then close the lid, so they will be unable to find you." They looked around the room in a dazed and irresolute way, but she exclaimed: "You must be quick!
Martha ran to the window and saw it was only the postman, who had dropped a letter in the box and gone away again. But the incident gave her an idea of how to get rid of her troublesome bandits, so she began wringing her hands as if in great distress and cried out: "It's the police!" The robbers looked at one another with genuine alarm, and Lugui asked, tremblingly: "Are there many of them?"
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