"It really was puzzling! What did you do?"

"It was one of those cases in which one has to resort to the gunflint."

"In other words?"

"I put a bullet in his head," said the bandit coolly.

Orso made a horrified gesture. Nevertheless, curiosity, and, it may be, his desire to put off the moment when he must return home, induced him to remain where he was, and continue his conversation with the two men, each of whom had at least one murder on his conscience.

While his comrade was talking, Brandolaccio was laying bread and meat in front of him. He helped himself--then he gave some food to this dog, whom he introduced to Orso under the name of Brusco, as an animal possessing a wonderful instinct for recognising a soldier, whatever might be the disguise he had a.s.sumed. Lastly, he cut off a hunch of bread and a slice of raw ham, and gave them to his niece. "Oh, the merry life a bandit lives!" cried the student of theology, after he had swallowed a few mouthfuls. "You'll try it some day, perhaps, Signor della Rebbia, and you'll find out how delightful it is to acknowledge no master save one's own fancy!"

Hitherto the bandit had talked Italian. He now proceeded in French.

"Corsica is not a very amusing country for a young man to live in--but for a bandit, there's the difference! The women are all wild about us.

I, as you see me now, have three mistresses in three different villages.

I am at home in every one of them, and one of the ladies is married to a gendarme!"

"You know many languages, monsieur!" said Orso gravely.

"If I talk French, 'tis because, look you, _maxima debetur pueris reverentia_! We have made up our minds, Brandolaccio and I, that the little girl shall turn out well, and go straight."

"When she is turned fifteen," remarked Chilina's uncle, "I'll find a good husband for her. I have one in my eye already."

"Shall you make the proposal yourself?" said Orso.

"Of course! Do you suppose that any well-to-do man in this neighbourhood, to whom I said, 'I should be glad to see a marriage between your son and Michilina Savelli,' would require any pressing?"

"I wouldn't advise him to!" quoth the other bandit. "Friend Brandolaccio has rather a heavy hand!"

"If I were a rogue," continued Brandolaccio, "a blackguard, a forger, I should only have to hold my wallet open, and the five-franc pieces would rain into it."

"Then is there something inside your wallet that attracts them?" said Orso.

"Nothing. But if I were to write to a rich man, as some people have written, 'I want a hundred francs,' he would lose no time about sending them to me. But I'm a man of honour, monsieur."

"Do you know, Signor della Rebbia," said the bandit whom his comrade called the cure, "do you know that in this country, with all its simple habits, there are some wretches who make use of the esteem our pa.s.sports" (and he touched his gun) "insure us, to draw forged bills in our handwriting?"

"I know it," said Orso, in a gruff tone; "but what bills?"

"Six months ago," said the bandit, "I was taking my walks abroad near Orezza, when a sort of lunatic came up to me, pulling off his cap to me even in the distance, and said: 'Oh, M. le Cure' (they always call me that), 'please excuse me--give me time. I have only been able to get fifty-five francs together! Honour bright, that's all I've been able to sc.r.a.pe up.' I, in my astonishment, said, 'Fifty-five francs! What do you mean, you rascal!' 'I mean sixty-five,' he replied; 'but as for the hundred francs you asked me to give you, it's not possible.' 'What! you villain! I ask you for a hundred francs? I don't know who you are.' Then he showed me a letter, or rather a dirty rag of paper, whereby he was summoned to deposit a hundred francs on a certain spot, on pain of having his house burned and his cows killed by Giocanto Castriconi--that's my name. And they had been vile enough to forge my signature! What annoyed me most was that the letter was written in _patois_, and was full of mistakes in spelling--I who won every prize at the university! I began by giving my rascal a cuff that made him twist round and round. 'Aha! You take me for a thief, blackguard that you are!' I said, and I gave him a hearty kick, you know where. Then feeling rather better, I went on, 'When are you to take the money to the spot mentioned in the letter?' 'This very day.' 'Very good, then take it there!' It was at the foot of a pine-tree, and the place had been exactly described. He brought the money, buried it at the foot of the tree, and came and joined me. I had hidden myself close by. There I stayed, with my man, for six mortal hours, M. della Rebbia. I'd have staid three days, if it had been necessary. At the end of six hours a _Bastiaccio_, a vile money-lender, made his appearance. As he bent down to take up the money, I fired, and I had aimed so well that, as he fell, his head dropped upon the coins he was unearthing. 'Now, rascal,' said I to the peasant, 'take your money, and never dare to suspect Giocanto Castriconi of a mean trick again!'

"The poor devil, all of a tremble, picked up his sixty-five francs without taking the trouble to wipe them. He thanked me, I gave him a good parting kick, and he may be running away still, for all I know."

"Ah, cure!" said Brandolaccio, "I envy you that shot! How you must have laughed!"

"I had hit the money-lender in the temple," the bandit went on, "and that reminded me of Virgil's lines:

. . . "'Liquefacto tempora plumbo Diffidit, ac multa porr.e.c.t.u.m, extendit arena.'

"_Liquefacto!_ Do you think, Signor Orso, that the rapidity with which a bullet flies through the air will melt it? You who have studied projectiles, tell me whether you think that idea is truth or fiction?"

Orso infinitely preferred discussing this question of physics to arguing with the licentiate as to the morality of his action. Brandolaccio, who did not find their scientific disquisition entertaining, interrupted it with the remark that the sun was just going to set.

"As you would not dine with us, Ors' Anton'," he said, "I advise you not to keep Mademoiselle Colomba waiting any longer. And then it is not always wise to be out on the roads after sunset. Why do you come out without a gun? There are bad folk about here--beware of them! You have nothing to fear to-day. The Barricini are bringing the prefect home with them. They have gone to meet him on the road, and he is to stop a day at Pietranera, before he goes on to Corte, to lay what they call a corner-stone--such stupid nonsense! He will sleep to-night with the Barricini; but to-morrow they'll be disengaged. There is Vincentello, who is a good-for-nothing fellow, and Orlanduccio, who is not much better. . . . Try to come on them separately, one to-day, the other to-morrow. . . . But be on the lookout, that's all I have to say to you!"

"Thanks for the warning," said Orso. "But there is no quarrel between us. Until they come to look for me, I shall have nothing to say to them."

The bandit stuck his tongue in his cheek, and smacked it ironically, but he made no reply. Orso got up to go away.

"By the way," said Brandolaccio, "I haven't thanked you for your powder.

It came just when I needed it. Now I have everything I want . . . at least I do still want shoes . . . but I'll make myself a pair out of the skin of a moufflon one of these days."

Orso slipped two five-franc pieces into the bandit's hand.

"It was Colomba who sent you the powder. This is to buy the shoes."

"Nonsense, Lieutenant!" cried Brandolaccio, handing him back the two coins. "D'ye take me for a beggar? I accept bread and powder, but I won't have anything else!"

"We are both old soldiers, so I thought we might have given each other a lift. Well, good-bye to you!"

But before he moved away he had slipped the money into he bandit's wallet, unperceived by him.

"Good-bye, Ors' Anton'," quoth the theologian. "We shall meet again in the _maquis_, some day, perhaps, and then we'll continue our study of Virgil."

Quite a quarter of an hour after Orso had parted company with these worthies, he heard a man running after him, as fast as he could go. It was Brandolaccio.

"This is too bad, lieutenant!" he shouted breathlessly, "really it is too bad! I wouldn't overlook the trick, if any other man had played it on me. Here are your ten francs. All my respects to Mademoiselle Colomba. You have made me run myself quite out of breath. Good-night!"

CHAPTER XII

Orso found Colomba in a state of considerable anxiety because of his prolonged absence. But as soon as she saw him she recovered her usual serene, though sad, expression. During the evening meal the conversation turned on trivial subjects, and Orso, emboldened by his sister's apparent calm, related his encounter with the bandits, and even ventured on a joke or two concerning the moral and religious education that was being imparted to little Chilina, thanks to the care of her uncle and of his worthy colleague Signor Castriconi.

"Brandolaccio is an upright man," said Colomba; "but as to Castriconi, I have heard he is quite unprincipled."

"I think," said Orso, "that he is as good as Brandolaccio, and Brandolaccio is as good as he. Both of them are at open war with society. Their first crime leads them on to fresh ones, every day, and yet they are very likely not half so guilty as many people who don't live in the _maquis_."

A flash of joy shone in his sister's eyes. "Yes," he continued, "these wretches have a code of honour of their own. It is a cruel prejudice, not a mean instinct of greed, that has forced them into the life they are leading."

There was a silence.

"Brother," said Colomba, as she poured out his coffee, "perhaps you have heard that Carlo-Battista Pietri died last night. Yes, he died of the marsh-fever."

"Who is Pietri?"

"A man belonging to this village, the husband of Maddalena, who took the pocket-book out of our father's hand as he was dying. His widow has been here to ask me to join the watchers, and sing something. You ought to come, too. They are our neighbours, and in a small place like this we can not do otherwise than pay them this civility."