and they stopped at every house and enquired and searched for them; and
so, soon they came to the Madre Ilkana's. They charged her in the name
of the government to give up the banditti in her house. The Madre kept
on with her knitting, and told them there were only her two sons in the
house, and mothers never gave up their sons to any one.

"'Ha!' laughed one of the soldiers,' mothers must give up their children
to King Death, and it is He who wants your bad boys.' Upon which, the
Madre arose and cursed them. Curses are common with us, Signorina, but
not La Madre's curses. She talked of their mothers to them, and of their
sons, and of the Holy Virgin and child, and she cursed them in the name
of all these, if they dared steal her children from her. They should
take them over her old dead body, she swore, though her knitting-needles
and her eyes were her only weapons, and then she turned her eyes full
upon them, with the evil spirit leering and laughing out of them, and
the soldiers, one of whom was an officer, fell on their knees and shook
like leaves, and prayed her to forgive them; saying that they were sure
her boys were good sons, and no banditti. And while they knelt crouching
there, La Madre knocked on the floor and in rushed the banditti, armed
with great knives. They caught and bound the two soldiers, and took away
their weapons, and jumped on their horses, and fled.

"La Madre took her knitting again, and sat down quietly by the side
of the bound men, until a half hour later some twelve more soldiers
cantered up. As they rode by, all the people came to their doorways, and
the soldiers stopped and asked if they had seen two horsemen. Then La
Madre gathered up her knitting and went quietly out into the crowd. She
made a low bow to the man with the biggest feather in his cap, and she
told him her story. 'I have two sons,' she said, 'whom I love so well.'
Then she told how the soldiers mistook her sons for banditti, and tried