He could not speak Italian and he resorted to the sign language. Lucia nodded in understanding. She might have pretended blank stupidity, but she wanted some milk herself, and this was a good way to get it. Besides, she decided that she would do something to make it impossible for them to lock her up again on her return.
Garibaldi stood quite still as she milked her, and submitted meekly to her affectionate pats.
The messenger drank greedily from the pail, and when he had finished there seemed to be nothing else for Lucia to do but return to the shed. She walked back to the door as slowly as possible, and looked hard at the lock. It was just an ordinary padlock and it hung open on the rusty catch. She looked quickly at the men behind her. They were busy talking, and did not appear to be paying any attention to her.
Very quickly, without seeming to do it, she touched the padlock; it swung on the catch, and then fell into the mud. Lucia put her foot over it and ground it in with her heel.
When the soldier remembered her a few minutes later, and came over to shut the door, he grumbled at the loss of the lock, but he did not apparently connect her with its disappearance, nor did he bother much about looking for it. He shut the door and walked back to join the group that still surrounded the messenger.
Lucia sat down again and watched the door of the Captain's dugout. She had wondered all day what the smiling Italian soldier and Beppi had done after she left. She knew that Beppi could easily find his way back to the cottage, and in case Nana had already gone, and Lucia knew that in spite of her threats she would not go off alone, he would go into the town and some one would take care of him.
As for the soldier, he would hear the rat, tat, tat, and know what it meant, and return to his comrades for help. She listened, but there was no sound of guns near enough to mean a fight close at hand.
The thought puzzled her, but she dismissed it as the Captain and the two soldiers came out of the dugout. The men looked cross and sullen, but the Captain was still smiling. He walked over to the messenger, handed him a folded paper, and the man disappeared as mysteriously as he came.
Lucia did not pay any attention to him, however, for she was interested in the two soldiers. They were very busy buckling on their kit bags in preparation for a departure. When they were ready, they stood at attention before the Captain. After more orders from him, they started off down the hill just back of the shed.