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
to take them from her in her own house. 'Though I am old, I have a good
life among my friends and neighbors here, and I fought a while in my
own mind before I said to my sons: Go, my boys, your mother will die for
you.
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