Orso read the letter three or four times over, making endless mental comments each time as he read. Then he wrote a long answer, which he sent by Saveria's hand to a man in the village, who was to go down to Ajaccio the very next day. Already he had almost dismissed the idea of discussing his grievance, true or false, against the Barricini, with his sister. Miss Lydia's letter had cast a rose-coloured tint over everything about him. He felt neither hatred nor suspicion now. He waited some time for his sister to come down, and finding she did not reappear, he went to bed, with a lighter heart than he had carried for many a day. Colomba, having dismissed Chilina with some secret instructions, spent the greater part of the night in reading old papers. A little before daybreak a few tiny pebbles rattled against the window-pane. At the signal, she went down to the garden, opened a back door, and conducted two very rough men into her house. Her first care was to bring them into the kitchen and give them food. My readers will shortly learn who these men were.

CHAPTER XV

Toward six o'clock next morning one of the prefect's servants came and knocked at the door of Orso's house. He was received by Colomba, and informed her the prefect was about to start, and was expecting her brother. Without a moment's hesitation Colomba replied that her brother had just had a fall on the stairs, and sprained his foot; and he was unable to walk a single step, that he begged the prefect to excuse him, and would be very grateful if he would condescend to take the trouble of coming over to him. A few minutes after this message had been despatched, Orso came downstairs, and asked his sister whether the prefect had not sent for him.

With the most perfect a.s.surance she rejoined:

"He begs you'll wait for him here."

Half an hour went by without the slightest perceptible stir in the Barricini dwelling. Meanwhile Orso asked Colomba whether she had discovered anything. She replied that she proposed to make her statement when the prefect came. She affected an extreme composure. But her colour and her eyes betrayed her state of feverish excitement.

At last the door of the Barricini mansion was seen to open. The prefect came out first, in travelling garb; he was followed by the mayor and his two sons. What was the stupefaction of the inhabitants of the village of Pietranera, who had been on the watch since sunrise for the departure of the chief magistrate of their department, when they saw him go straight across the square and enter the della Rebbia dwelling, accompanied by the three Barricini. "They are going to make peace!" exclaimed the village politicians.

"Just as I told you," one old man went on. "Ors' Anton' has lived too much on the mainland to carry things through like a man of mettle."

"Yet," responded a Rebbianite, "you may notice it is the Barricini who have gone across to him. They are suing for mercy."

"It's the prefect who had wheedled them all round," answered the old fellow. "There is no such thing as courage nowadays, and the young chaps make no more fuss about their father's blood than if they were all b.a.s.t.a.r.ds."

The prefect was not a little astounded to find Orso up and walking about with perfect ease. In the briefest fashion Colomba avowed her own lie, and begged him to forgive it.

"If you had been staying anywhere else, monsieur, my brother would have gone to pay his respects to you yesterday."

Orso made endless apologies, vowing he had nothing to do with his sister's absurd stratagem, by which he appeared deeply mortified. The prefect and the elder Barricini appeared to believe in the sincerity of his regret, and indeed this belief was justified by his evident confusion and the reproaches he addressed to his sister. But the mayor's two sons did not seem satisfied.

"We are being made to look like fools," said Orlanduccio audibly.

"If my sister were to play me such tricks," said Vincentello, "I'd soon cure her fancy for beginning them again."

The words, and the tone in which they were uttered, offended Orso, and diminished his good-will. Glances that were anything but friendly were exchanged between him and the two young men.

Meanwhile, everybody being seated save Colomba, who remained standing close to the kitchen door, the prefect took up his parable, and after a few common-places as to local prejudices, he recalled the fact that the most inveterate enmities generally have their root in some mere misunderstanding. Next, turning to the mayor, he told him that Signor della Rebbia had never believed the Barricini family had played any part, direct or indirect, in the deplorable event which had bereft him of his father; that he had, indeed, nursed some doubts as to one detail in the lawsuit between the two families; that Signor Orso's long absence, and the nature of the information sent him, excused the doubt in question; that in the light of recent revelations he felt completely satisfied, and desired to re-open friendly and neighbourly relations with Signor Barricini and his sons.

Orso bowed stiffly. Signor Barricini stammered a few words that n.o.body could hear, and his sons stared steadily at the ceiling rafters. The prefect was about to continue his speech, and address the counterpart of the remarks he had made to Signor Barricini, to Orso, when Colomba stepped gravely forward between the contracting parties, at the same time drawing some papers from beneath her neckerchief.

"I should be happy indeed," she said, "to see the quarrel between our two families brought to an end. But if the reconciliation is to be sincere, there must be a full explanation, and nothing must be left in doubt. Signor Prefetto, Tomaso Bianchi's declaration, coming from a man of such vile report, seemed to me justly open to doubt. I said your sons had possibly seen this man in the prison at Bastia."

"It's false!" interrupted Orlanduccio; "I didn't see him!"

Colomba cast a scornful glance at him, and proceeded with great apparent composure.

"You explained Tomaso's probable interest in threatening Signor Barricini, in the name of a dreaded bandit, by his desire to keep his brother Teodoro in possession of the mill which my father allowed him to hire at a very low rent."

"That's quite clear," a.s.sented the prefect.

"Where was Tomaso Bianchi's interest?" exclaimed Colomba triumphantly.

"His brother's lease had run out. My father had given him notice on the 1st of July. Here is my father's account-book; here is his note of warning given to Teodoro, and the letter from a business man at Ajaccio suggesting a new tenant."

As she spoke she gave the prefect the papers she had been holding in her hand.

There was an astonished pause. The mayor turned visibly pale. Orso, knitting his brows, leaned forward to look at the papers, which the prefect was perusing most attentively.

"We are being made to look like fools!" cried Orlanduccio again, springing angrily to his feet. "Let us be off, father! We ought never to have come here!"

One instant's delay gave Signor Barricini time to recover his composure.

He asked leave to see the papers. Without a word the prefect handed them over to him. Pushing his green spectacles up to his forehead, he looked through them with a somewhat indifferent air, while Colomba watched him with the eyes of a tigress who sees a buck drawing near to the lair where she had hidden her cubs.

"Well," said Signor Barricini, as he pulled down his spectacles and returned the doc.u.ments, "knowing the late colonel's kind heart, Tomaso thought--most likely he thought--that the colonel would change his mind about the notice. As a matter of fact, Bianchi is still at the mill, so--"

"It was I," said Colomba, and there was scorn in her voice, "who left him there. My father was dead, and situated as I was, I was obliged to treat my brother's dependents with consideration."

"Yet," quoth the prefect, "this man Tomaso acknowledges that he wrote the letter. That much is clear."

"The thing that is clear to me," broke in Orso, "is that there is some vile infamy underneath this whole business."

"I have to contradict another a.s.sertion made by these gentlemen," said Colomba.

She threw open the door into the kitchen and instantly Brandolaccio, the licentiate in theology, and Brusco, the dog, marched into the room. The two bandits were unarmed--apparently, at all events; they wore their cartridge belts, but the pistols, which are their necessary complement, were absent. As they entered the room they doffed their caps respectfully.

The effect produced by their sudden appearance may be conceived. The mayor almost fell backward. His sons threw themselves boldly in front of him, each one feeling for his dagger in his coat pocket. The prefect made a step toward the door, and Orso, seizing Brandolaccio by the collar, shouted:

"What have you come here for, you villain?"

"This is a trap!" cried the mayor, trying to get the door open. But, by the bandits' orders, as was afterward discovered, Saveria had locked it on the outside.

"Good people," said Brandolaccio, "don't be afraid of me. I'm not such a devil as I look. We mean no harm at all. Signor Prefetto, I'm your very humble servant. Gently, lieutenant! You're strangling me! We're here as witnesses! Now then, Padre, speak up! Your tongue's glib enough!"

"Signor Prefetto," quoth the licentiate, "I have not the honour of being known to you. My name is Giocanto Castriconi, better known as the Padre.

Aha, it's coming back to you! The signorina here, whom I have not the pleasure of knowing either, has sent to ask me to supply some information about a fellow of the name of Tomaso Bianchi, with whom I chanced to be shut up, about three weeks ago, in the prison at Bastia.

This is what I have to tell you."

"Spare yourself the trouble," said the prefect. "I can not listen to anything from such a man as you. Signor della Rebbia, I am willing to believe you have had nothing to do with this detestable plot. But are you master in your own house? Will you have the door opened? Your sister may have to give an account of the strange relations in which she lives with a set of bandits."

"Signor Prefetto!" cried Colomba, "I beseech you to listen to what this man has to say! You are here to do justice to everybody, and it is your duty to search out the truth. Speak, Giocanto Castriconi!"

"Don't listen to him," chorused the three Barricini.

"If everybody talks at once," remarked the bandit, with a smile, "n.o.body can contrive to hear what anybody says. Well, in the prison at Bastia I had as my companion--not as my friend--this very man, Tomaso. He received frequent visits from Signor Orlanduccio."

"You lie!" shouted the two brothers together.

"Two negatives make an affirmative," pursued Castriconi coolly. "Tomaso had money, he ate and drank of the best. I have always been fond of good cheer (that's the least of my failings), and in spite of my repugnance to rubbing shoulders with such a wretch, I let myself be tempted, several times over, into dining with him. Out of grat.i.tude, I proposed he should escape with me. A young person--to whom I had shown some kindness--had provided me with the necessary means. I don't intend to compromise anybody. Tomaso refused my offer, telling me he was certain to be all right, as lawyer Barricini had spoken to all the judges for him, and he was sure to get out of prison with a character as white as snow, and with money in his pocket, too. As for me, I thought it better to get into the fresh air. _Dixi_."

"Everything that fellow has said is a heap of lies," reiterated Orlanduccio stoutly. "If we were in the open country, and each of us had his gun, he wouldn't talk in that way."

"Here's a pretty folly!" cried Brandolaccio. "Don't you quarrel with the Padre, Orlanduccio!"