Saveria was a long time away, and when she at last reappeared, carrying a letter, and followed by little Chilina, rubbing her eyes, and evidently just waked out of her beauty sleep, Orso was wound up to the highest possible pitch of impatience.

“Chili,” said Orso, “what are you doing here at this hour?”

“The signorina sent for me,” replied Chilina.

“What the devil does she want with her?” thought Orso to himself. But he was in a hurry to open Miss Lydia’s letter, and while he was reading it Chilina went upstairs to his sister’s room.

“My father, dear sir, has not been well,” Miss Nevil wrote, “and he is so indolent, besides, that I am obliged to act as his secretary. You remember that, instead of admiring the landscape with you and me the other day, he got his feet wet on the sea-shore—and in your delightful island, that is quite enough to give one a fever! I can see the face you are making! No doubt you are feeling for your dagger. But I will hope you have none now. Well, my father had a little fever, and I had a great fright. The prefect, whom I persist in thinking very pleasant, sent us a doctor, also a very pleasant man, who got us over our trouble in two days. There has been no return of the attack, and my father would like to begin to shoot again. But I have forbidden that. How did you find matters in your mountain home? Is your North Tower still in its old place? Are there any ghosts about it? I ask all these questions because my father remembers you have promised him buck and boar and moufflon—is that the right name for those strange creatures? We intend to crave your hospitality on our way to Bastia, where we are to embark, and I trust the della Rebbia Castle, which you declare is so old and tumble-down, will not fall in upon our heads! Though the prefect is so pleasant that subjects of conversation are never lacking to us—I flatter myself, by the way, that I have turned his head—we have been talking about your worshipful self. The legal people at Bastia have sent him certain confessions, made by a rascal they have under lock and key, which are calculated to destroy your last remaining suspicions. The enmity which sometimes alarmed me for you must therefore end at once. You have no idea what a pleasure this has been to me! When you started hence with the fair voceratrice, with your gun in hand, and your brow lowering, you struck me as being more Corsican than ever—too Corsican indeed! Basta! I write you this long letter because I am dull. The prefect, alas! is going away. We will send you a message when we start for your mountains, and I shall take the liberty of writing to Signorina Colomba to ask her to give me a bruccio, ma solenne! Meanwhile, give her my love. I use her dagger a great deal to cut the leaves of a novel I brought with me. But the doughty steel revolts against such usage, and tears my book for me, after a most pitiful fashion. Farewell, sir! My father sends you ‘his best love.’ Listen to what the prefect says. He is a sensible man, and is turning out of his way, I believe, on your account. He is going to lay a foundation-stone at Corte. I should fancy the ceremony will be very imposing, and I am very sorry not to see it. A gentleman in an embroidered coat and silk stockings and a white scarf, wielding a trowel—and a speech! And at the end of the performance manifold and reiterated shouts of ‘God save the King.’ I say again, sir, it will make you very vain to think I have written you four whole pages, and on that account I give you leave to write me a very long letter. By the way, I think it very odd of you not to have let me hear of your safe arrival at the Castle of Pietranera!

“LYDIA.

“P.S.—I beg you will listen to the prefect, and do as he bids you. We have agreed that this is the course you should pursue, and I shall be very glad if you do it.”

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 assurance 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 bastards.”

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 nobody 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,” assented 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 documents, “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 assertion 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, “nobody 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 gratitude, 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!”

“Will you be good enough to allow me to leave this room, Signor della Rebbia,” said the prefect, and he stamped his foot in his impatience.

“Saveria! Saveria!” shouted Orso, “open the door, in the devil’s name!”

“One moment,” said Brandolaccio. “We have to slip away first, on our side. Signor Prefetto, the custom, when people meet in the house of a mutual friend, is to allow each other half an hour’s law, after departure.”

The prefect cast a scornful glance at him.

“Your servant, signorina, and gentlemen all!” said Brandolaccio. Then stretching out his arm, “Hi, Brusco,” he cried to his dog, “jump for the Signor Prefetto!”

The dog jumped; the bandits swiftly snatched up their arms in the kitchen, fled across the garden, and at a shrill whistle the door of the room flew open as though by magic.

“Signor Barricini,” said Orso, and suppressed fury vibrated in his voice, “I hold you to be a forger! This very day I shall charge you before the public prosecutor with forgery and complicity with Bianchi. I may perhaps have a still more terrible accusation to bring against you!”

“And I, Signor della Rebbia,” replied the mayor, “shall lay my charge against you for conspiracy and complicity with bandits. Meanwhile the prefect will desire the gendarmes to keep an eye upon you.”

“The prefect will do his duty,” said that gentleman sternly. “He will see the public order is not disturbed at Pietranera; he will take care justice is done. I say this to you all, gentlemen!”

The mayor and Vincentello were outside the room already, and Orlanduccio was following them, stepping backward, when Orso said to him in an undertone:

“Your father is an old man. One cuff from me would kill him. It is with you and with your brother that I intend to deal.”

Orlanduccio’s only response was to draw his dagger and fly like a madman at Orso. But before he could use his weapon Colomba caught hold of his arm and twisted it violently, while Orso gave him a blow in the face with his fist, which made him stagger several paces back, and come into violent collision with the door frame. Orlanduccio’s dagger dropped from his hand. But Vincentello had his ready, and was rushing back into the room, when Colomba, snatching up a gun convinced him that the struggle must be unequal. At the same time the prefect threw himself between the combatants.

“We shall soon meet, Ors’ Anton’!” shouted Orlanduccio, and slamming the door of the room violently, he turned the key in the lock, so as to insure himself time to retreat.

For a full quarter of an hour Orso and the prefect kept their places in dead silence, at opposite ends of the room. Colomba, the pride of triumph shining on her brow, gazed first at one and then at the other, as she leaned on the gun that had turned the scale of victory.

“What a country! Oh, what a country!” cried the prefect at last, rising hastily from his chair. “Signor della Rebbia, you did wrong! You must give me your word of honour to abstain from all violence, and to wait till the law settles this cursed business.”

“Yes, Signor Prefetto, I was wrong to strike that villain. But I did strike him, after all, and I can’t refuse him the satisfaction he has demanded of me.”

“Pooh! no! He doesn’t want to fight you! But supposing he murders you? You’ve done everything you could to insure it.”

“We’ll protect ourselves,” said Colomba.

“Orlanduccio,” said Orso, “strikes me as being a plucky fellow, and I think better of him than that, monsieur. He was very quick about drawing his dagger. But perhaps I should have done the same thing in his place, and I’m glad my sister has not an ordinary fine lady’s wrist.”

“You are not to fight,” exclaimed the prefect. “I forbid it!”

“Allow me to say, monsieur, that in matters that affect my honour the only authority I acknowledge is that of my own conscience.”

“You sha’n’t fight, I tell you!”

“You can put me under arrest, monsieur—that is, if I let you catch me. But if you were to do that, you would only delay a thing that has now become inevitable. You are a man of honour yourself, monsieur; you know there can be no other course.”

“If you were to have my brother arrested,” added Colomba, “half the village would take his part, and we should have a fine fusillade.”

“I give you fair notice, monsieur, and I entreat you not to think I am talking mere bravado. I warn you that if Signor Barricini abuses his authority as mayor, to have me arrested, I shall defend myself.”

“From this very day,” said the prefect, “Signor Barricini is suspended. I trust he will exculpate himself. Listen to me, my young gentleman, I have a liking for you. What I ask of you is nothing to speak of. Just to stay quietly at home till I get back from Corte. I shall only be three days away. I’ll bring back the public prosecutor with me, and then we’ll sift this wretched business to the bottom. Will you promise me you will abstain from all hostilities till then?”

“I can not promise that, monsieur, if, as I expect, Orlanduccio asks me to meet him.”

“What, Signor della Rebbia! Would you—a French officer—think of going out with a man you suspect of being a forger?”

“I struck him, monsieur!”

“But supposing you struck a convict, and he demanded satisfaction of you, would you fight him? Come, come, Signor Orso! But I’ll ask you to do even less, do nothing to seek out Orlanduccio. I’ll consent to your fighting him if he asks you for a meeting.”

“He will ask for it, I haven’t a doubt of that. But I’ll promise I won’t give him fresh cuffs to induce him to do it.”

“What a country!” cried the prefect once more, as he strode to and fro. “Shall I never get back to France?”

“Signor Prefetto,” said Colomba in her most dulcet tones, “it is growing very late. Would you do us the honour of breakfasting here?”

The prefect could not help laughing.

“I’ve been here too long already—it may look like partiality. And there is that cursed foundation-stone. I must be off. Signorina della Rebbia! what calamities you may have prepared this day!”

“At all events, Signor Prefetto, you will do my sister the justice of believing her convictions are deeply rooted—and I am sure, now, that you yourself believe them to be well-founded.”

“Farewell, sir!” said the prefect, waving his hand. “I warn you that the sergeant of gendarmes will have orders to watch everything you do.”

When the prefect had departed—

“Orso,” said Colomba, “this isn’t the Continent. Orlanduccio knows nothing about your duels, and besides, that wretch must not die the death of a brave man.”

“Colomba, my dear, you are a clever woman. I owe you a great deal from having saved me from a hearty knife-thrust. Give me your little hand to kiss! But, hark ye, let me have my way. There are certain matters that you don’t understand. Give me my breakfast. And as soon as the prefect had started off send for little Chilina, who seems to perform all the commissions she is given in the most wonderful fashion. I shall want her to take a letter for me.”

While Colomba was superintending the preparation of his breakfast, Orso went up to his own room and wrote the following note:

“You must be in a hurry to meet me, and I am no less eager. We can meet at six o’clock to-morrow morning in the valley of Acquaviva. I am a skilful pistol-shot, so I do not suggest that weapon to you. I hear you are a good shot with a gun. Let us each take a double-barrelled gun. I shall be accompanied by a man from this village. If your brother wishes to go with you, take a second witness, and let me know. In that case only, I should bring two with me.

“ORSO ANTONIO DELLA REBBIA.”

After spending an hour with the deputy-mayor, and going into the Barricini house for a few minutes, the prefect, attended by a single gendarme, started for Corte. A quarter of an hour later, Chilina carried over the letter my readers have just perused, and delivered it into Orlanduccio’s own hands.

The answer was not prompt, and did not arrive till evening. It bore the signature of the elder Barricini, and informed Orso that he was laying the threatening letter sent to his son before the public prosecutor. His missive concluded thus: “Strong in the sense of a clear conscience, I patiently wait till the law has pronounced on your calumnies.”

Meanwhile five or six herdsmen, summoned by Colomba, arrived to garrison the della Rebbia Tower. In spite of Orso’s protests, archere were arranged in the windows looking onto the square, and all through the evening offers of service kept coming in from various persons belonging to the village. There was even a letter from the bandit-theologian, undertaking, for himself and Brandolaccio, that in the event of the mayor’s calling on the gendarmes, they themselves would straightway intervene. The following postscript closed the letter:

“Dare I ask you what the Signor Prefetto thinks of the excellent education bestowed by my friend on Brusco, the dog? Next to Chilina, he is the most docile and promising pupil I have ever come across.”