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[Illustration: Decoration]


THE CONQUEST OF ROME

_By_
MATILDE SERAO

AUTHOR OF
"THE LAND OF COCKAYNE"
"THE BALLET DANCER" ETC.

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HARPER & BROTHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
PUBLISHERS.. 1902


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Published October, 1902




PART I




CHAPTER I


The train stopped.

'Capua! Capua!' three or four voices cried monotonously into the night.

A clanking of swords dragged on the ground was heard, and some lively
muttering that passed between a Lombard and a Piedmontese. It came from
a group of subaltern officers, who were ending their evening's amusement
in coming to see the night train from Naples to Rome pass through. While
the conductor chatted respectfully with the station-master, who gave him
a commission for Caianello, and while the postman handed up a mail-sack
full of letters to the clerk in the postal van, the officers, talking to
each other and making their spurs ring (from habit), looked to see if
anyone got in or out of the train, peeping through the doors which were
open for the sight of a fair feminine face or that of a friend. But many
of the doors were closed. Blue blinds were stretched over the panes,
through which glimmered a faint lamplight, as if coming from a place
where lay travellers overpowered by sleep. Bodies curled up in a dark
tangle of coats, shawls,