CHAPTER XVIII
Meanwhile, very shortly after Orso's departure, Colomba's spies hadwarned her that the Barricini were out on the warpath, and from thatmoment she was racked by the most intense anxiety. She was to be seenmoving hither and thither all over the house, between the kitchen andthe rooms that were being made ready for her guests, doing nothing, yetalways busy, and constantly stopping to look out of a window for anyunusual stir in the village. Toward eleven o'clock, a somewhat numerouscavalcade rode into Pietranera. This was the colonel, with his daughter,their servants, and their guide. Colomba's first word, as she welcomedthem, was "Have you seen my brother?" Then she questioned the guide asto the road they had taken, and the hour of their departure, and havingheard his answers, she could not understand why they had not met him.
"Perhaps," said the guide, "your brother took the higher path; we cameby the lower one."
But Colomba only shook her head and asked more questions. In spite ofher natural firmness of character, increased as it was by her prouddesire to conceal any sign of weakness before strangers, she could nothide her anxiety, and as soon as she had informed them of the attemptedreconciliation, and of its unfortunate issue, this was shared by thecolonel and Miss Lydia. Miss Nevil became very uneasy, and wanted tohave messengers sent off in every direction, and her father offeredto remount at once and set out with the guide in search of Orso. Herguests' alarm recalled Colomba to a sense of her duties as a hostess.She strove to force a smile as she pressed the colonel to come to table,and suggested twenty plausible reasons, which she herself demolishedwithin an instant, to account for her brother's delay. The colonel,feeling it to be his duty, as a man, to reassure the ladies, put forwardhis own explanation.
"I'll wager," he said, "that della Rebbia has come across some game orother. He has not been able to stand out against that temptation, and weshall soon see him come in with a heavy bag. 'Pon my soul," he went on,"we did hear four shots fired on the road. Two of them were louderthan the others, and I said to my girl, 'I'll bet anything that's dellaRebbia out shooting! My gun is the only one that would make that noise.'"
Colomba turned pale, and Lydia, who was watching her closely, hadno difficulty in guessing the suspicions with which the colonel'sconjecture had inspired her. After a few minutes' silence, Colombaeagerly inquired whether the two louder reports had been heard before orafter the others. But neither the colonel, his daughter, nor the guidehad paid much attention to this all-important detail.
Toward one o'clock, as none of Colomba's messengers had yet returned,she gathered all her courage, and insisted that her guests should sitdown to table with her. But, except the colonel, none of them could eat.At the slightest sound in the square, Colomba ran to the window. Thendrearily she returned to her place, and struggled yet more drearilyto carry on a trivial conversation, to which nobody paid the slightestattention, and which was broken by long intervals of silence. All atonce they heard a horse's gallop.
"Ah! That must be my brother at last!" said Colomba, rising from herchair. But when she saw Chilina astride on Orso's horse--"My brother isdead!" she cried, in a heart-rending voice.
The colonel dropped his glass. Miss Lydia screamed. They all rushed tothe door of the house. Before Chilina could jump off her steed, she wassnatched up like a feather by Colomba, who held her so tight that shealmost choked her. The child understood her agonized look, and her firstwords were those of the chorus in Othello: "He lives!" Colomba's grasprelaxed, and nimbly as a kitten Chilina dropped upon the ground.
"The others?" queried Colomba hoarsely. Chilina crossed herself withher first and middle finger. A deep flush instantly replaced the deadlypallor of Colomba's face. She cast one fierce look at the Barricinidwelling, and then, with a smile, she turned to her guests.
"Let us go in and drink our coffee," she said.
The story the bandit's Iris had to tell was a long one. Her narrative,translated literally into Italian by Colomba, and then into English byMiss Nevil, wrung more than one oath from the colonel, more than onesigh from the fair Lydia. But Colomba heard it all unmoved. Only shetwisted her damask napkin till it seemed as if she must tear it inpieces. She interrupted the child, five or six times over, to make herrepeat again that Brandolaccio had said the wound was not dangerous,and that he had seen many worse. When she had finished her tale, Chilinaannounced that Orso earnestly begged he might be sent writing materials,and that he desired his sister would beseech a lady who might be stayingin his house not to depart from it, until she had received a letter fromhim.
"That is what was worrying him most," the child added; "and even after Ihad started he called me back, to bid me not forget the message. Itwas the third time he had given it to me." When Colomba heard ofher brother's injunction she smiled faintly, and squeezed the fairEnglishwoman's hand. That young lady burst into tears, and did not seemto think it advisable to translate that particular part of the story toher father.
"Yes, my dear," cried Colomba, kissing Miss Nevil. "You shall stay withme, and you shall help us."
Then, taking a pile of old linen out of a cupboard, she began to cut itup, to make lint and bandages. Any one who saw her flashing eyes, herheightened colour, her alternate fits of anxiety and composure, wouldhave found it hard to say whether distress at her brother's wound, ordelight at the extinction of her foes, were most affecting her. Onemoment she was pouring out the colonel's coffee, and telling him howwell she made it, the next she was setting Miss Lydia and Chilina towork, exhorting them to sew bandages, and roll them up. Then, for thetwentieth time, she would ask whether Orso's wound was very painful. Sheconstantly broke off her own work to exclaim to the colonel:
"Two such cunning men, such dangerous fellows! And he alone, wounded,with only one arm! He killed the two of them! What courage, colonel!Isn't he a hero? Ah, Miss Nevil! How good it is to live in a peacefulcountry like yours! I'm sure you did not really know my brother tillnow! I said it--'The falcon will spread his wings!' You were deceivedby his gentle look! That's because with you, Miss Nevil--Ah! if he couldsee you working for him now! My poor Orso!"
Miss Lydia was doing hardly any work, and could not find a single wordto say. Her father kept asking why nobody went to lay a complaint beforea magistrate. He talked about a coroner's inquest, and all sorts ofother proceedings quite unknown to Corsican economy. And then hebegged to be told whether the country house owned by that worthy SignorBrandolaccio, who had brought succour to the wounded man, was very faraway from Pietranera, and whether he could not go there himself, to seehis friend.
And Colomba replied, with her usual composure, that Orso was in the_maquis_; that he was being taken care of by a bandit; that it would bea great risk for him to show himself until he was sure of the line theprefect and the judges were likely to take; and, finally, that she wouldmanage to have him secretly attended by a skilful surgeon.
"Above all things, colonel," she added, "remember that you heard thefour shots, and that you told me Orso fired last."
The colonel could make neither head nor tail of the business, and hisdaughter did nothing but heave sighs and dry her eyes.
The day was far advanced, when a gloomy procession wended its way intothe village. The bodies of his two sons were brought home to LawyerBarricini, each corpse thrown across a mule, which was led by a peasant.A crowd of dependents and idlers followed the dreary _cortege_. Withit appeared the gendarmes, who always came in too late, and thedeputy-mayor, throwing up his hands, and incessantly repeating, "Whatwill Signor Prefetto say!" Some of the women, among them Orlanduccio'sfoster-mother, were tearing their hair and shrieking wildly. But theirclamorous grief was less impressive than the dumb despair of one man, onwhom all eyes were fixed. This was the wretched father, who passed fromone corpse to the other, lifting up the earth-soiled heads, kissing theblackened lips, supporting the limbs that were stiff already, as if hewould save them from the jolting of the road. Now and then he opened hismouth as though about to speak, but not a cry came, not a word. His eyesneve
r left the dead bodies, and as he walked, he knocked himself againstthe stones, against the trees, against every obstacle that chanced tolie in his path.
The women's lamentations grew louder, and the men's curses deeper, whenOrso's house appeared in sight. When some shepherds of the della Rebbiaparty ventured on a triumphant shout, their enemy's indignation becameungovernable. "Vengeance! Vengeance!" exclaimed several voices. Stoneswere thrown, and two shots, fired at the windows of the room in whichColomba and her guests were sitting, pierced the outside shutters, andcarried splinters of wood on to the table at which the two ladies wereworking. Miss Lydia screamed violently, the colonel snatched up a gun,and Colomba, before he could stop her, rushed to the door of the houseand threw it violently open. There, standing high on the threshold, withher two hands outstretched to curse her enemies:
"Cowards!" she cried. "You fire on women and on foreigners! Are youCorsicans? Are you men? Wretches, who can only murder a man from behind.Come on! I defy you! I am alone! My brother is far away! Come! killme, kill my guests! It would be worthy of you! . . . But you dare not,cowards that you are! You know we avenge our wrongs! Away with you! Go,weep like women, and be thankful we do not ask you for more blood!"
There was something terrible and imposing in Colomba's voice and mien.At the sight of her the crowd recoiled as though it beheld one of thoseevil fairies of which so many tales are told on long winter evenings,in Corsica. The deputy-mayor, the gendarmes, and a few women seizedthe opportunity, and threw themselves between the two factions; for thedella Rebbia herdsmen were already loading their guns, and for a momenta general fight in the middle of the square had appeared imminent.But the two parties were both leaderless, and Corsicans, whose rageis always subject to discipline, seldom come to blows unless the chiefauthors of their internecine quarrels are present. Besides, Colomba, whohad learned prudence from victory, restrained her little garrison.
"Let the poor folks weep in peace," she said. "Let the old man carry hisown flesh home. What is the good of killing an old fox who has no teethleft to bite with, . . . Giudice Barricini! Remember the 2d of August!Remember the blood-stained pocket-book in which you wrote with yourforger's hand! My father had written down your debt! Your sons have paidit. You may go free, old Barricini!"
With folded arms and a scornful smile upon her lips, Colomba watched thebearers carry the corpses of her enemies into their home, and the crowdwithout it melt gradually away. Then she closed her own door, and, goingback into the dining-room, she said to the colonel:
"I beg, sir, you will forgive my fellow-countrymen! I never could havebelieved that any Corsican would have fired on a house that shelteredstrangers, and I am ashamed of my country."
That night, when Miss Lydia had gone up to her room, the colonelfollowed her, and inquired whether they had not better get out of avillage where they ran incessant risk of having a bullet through theirheads, the very next morning, and leave this country, seething withtreachery and murder, as soon as possible.
Miss Nevil did not answer for some time, and her father's suggestionevidently caused her considerable perplexity. At last she said:
"How can we leave this poor young creature, just when she is so much inneed of consolation? Don't you think that would be cruel, father?"
"I only spoke on your account, child," said the colonel. "And I assureyou that if I once felt you were safe in the hotel at Ajaccio, I shouldbe very sorry to leave this cursed island myself, without shaking thatplucky fellow della Rebbia's hand again."
"Well then, father, let us wait a while, and before we start let us makequite sure we can not be of any use to them."
"Kind soul!" said the colonel, as he kissed his daughter's forehead. "Itis a pleasure to see you sacrifice yourself for the sake of softeningother people's suffering. Let us stay on. We shall never have to repenthaving done right."
Miss Lydia tossed sleeplessly to and fro in her bed. Sometimes she tookthe vague night sounds for preparations for an attack on the house.Sometimes, less alarmed on her own account, she thought of poor woundedOrso, who was probably lying on the cold earth, with no help beyond whatshe might expect from a bandit's charity. She fancied him covered withblood, and writhing in hideous suffering; and the extraordinary thingwas that whenever Orso's image rose up before her mind's eye, she alwaysbeheld him as she had seen him when he rode away, pressing the talismanshe had bestowed upon him to his lips. Then she mused over his courage.She told herself he had exposed himself to the frightful danger he hadjust escaped on her account, just for the sake of seeing her a littlesooner. A very little more, and she would have persuaded herself thatOrso had earned his broken arm in her defence! She reproached herselfwith being the cause of his wound. But she admired him for it all themore, and if that celebrated right and left was not so splendid a featin her sight as in Brandolaccio's or Colomba's, still she was convincedfew heroes of romance could ever had behaved with such intrepidity andcoolness, in so dangerous a pinch.
Her room was that usually occupied by Colomba. Above a kind of oaken_prie-dieu_, and beside a sprig of blessed palm, a little miniature ofOrso, in his sub-lieutenant's uniform, hung on the wall. Miss Nevil tookthe portrait down, looked at it for a long time, and laid it at last onthe table by her bed, instead of hanging it up again in its place.She did not fall asleep till daybreak, and when she woke the sunhad travelled high above the horizon. In front of her bed she beheldColomba, waiting, motionless, till she should open her eyes.
"Well, dear lady, are you not very uncomfortable in this poor house ofours?" said Colomba to her. "I fear you have hardly slept at all."
"Have you any news, dear friend?" cried Miss Nevil, sitting up in bed.
Her eye fell on Orso's picture, and she hastily tossed her handkerchiefupon it.
"Yes, I have news," said Colomba, with a smile.
Then she took up the picture.
"Do you think it like him? He is better looking than that!"
"Really," stammered Miss Nevil, quite confused, "I took down thatpicture in a fit of absence! I have a horrid habit of touchingeverything and never putting anything back! How is your brother?"
"Fairly well. Giocanto came here before four o'clock this morning. Hebrought me a letter for you, Miss Lydia. Orso hasn't written anythingto me! It is addressed to Colomba, indeed, but underneath that he haswritten 'For Miss N.' But sisters are never jealous! Giocanto says ithurt him dreadfully to write. Giocanto, who writes a splendid hand,offered to do it at his dictation. But he would not let him. He wrote itwith a pencil, lying on his back. Brandolaccio held the paper for him.My brother kept trying to raise himself, and then the very slightestmovement gave him the most dreadful agony in his arm. Giocanto says itwas pitiful. Here is his letter."
Miss Nevil read the letter, which, as an extra precaution, no doubt, waswritten in English. Its contents were as follows:
"MADEMOISELLE: An unhappy fate has driven me on. I know not what myenemies will say, what slanders they will invent. I care little, so longas you, mademoiselle, give them no credence! Ever since I first saw youI have been nursing wild dreams. I needed this catastrophe to show me myown folly.
"I have come back to my senses now. I know the future that lies beforeme, and I shall face it with resignation. I dare not keep this ringyou gave me, and which I believed to be a lucky talisman. I fear, MissNevil, you may regret your gift has been so ill-bestowed. Or rather, Ifear it may remind me of the days of my own madness. Colomba will giveit to you. Farewell, mademoiselle! You are about to leave Corsica, andI shall never see you again. But tell my sister, at least, that I stillpossess your esteem--and I tell you, confidently, that I am still worthyof it.
"O.D.R."
Miss Lydia had turned away while she read the letter, and Colomba, whowas watching her closely, gave her the Egyptian ring, with an inquiringglance as to what it all meant. But Miss Lydia dared not raise her head,and looked dejectedly at the ring, alternately putting it on her fingerand pulling it off again.
"Dear Miss Nevil," s
aid Colomba, "may I not know what my brother says toyou? Does he say anything about his health?"
"Indeed," said Miss Lydia, colouring, "he doesn't mention it. His letteris in English. He desires me to tell my father--He hopes the prefectwill be able to arrange----"
With a mischievous smile, Colomba sat down on the bed, took hold of bothMiss Nevil's hands, and, looking at her with her piercing eyes--
"Will you be kind?" she said. "Won't you answer my brother's letter? Youwould do him so much good! For a moment I thought of waking you when hisletter came, and then I didn't dare!"
"You did very wrong," replied Miss Nevil. "If a word from me could--"
"I can't send him any letter now. The prefect has arrived, andPietranera is full of his policemen. Later on, we'll see what we cando. Oh, Miss Nevil, if you only knew my brother, you would love him asdearly as I do. He's so good! He's so brave! Just think of what he hasdone! One man against two, and wounded as well!"
The prefect had returned. Warned by an express messenger sent by thedeputy-mayor, he had brought over the public prosecutor, the registrar,and all their myrmidons, to investigate the fresh and terriblecatastrophe which had just complicated, or it may be ended, the warfarebetween the chief families of Pietranera. Shortly after his arrival, hesaw the colonel and his daughter, and did not conceal his fear that thebusiness might take on an ugly aspect.
"You know," he said, "that the fight took place without witnesses, andthe reputation of these two unhappy men stood so high, both for braveryand cunning, that nobody will believe Signor della Rebbia can havekilled them without the help of the bandits with whom he is now supposedto have taken refuge."
"It's not possible," said the colonel. "Orso della Rebbia is a mosthonourable fellow. I'll stake my life on that."
"I believe you," said the prefect. "But the public prosecutor (thosegentry always are suspicious) does not strike me as being particularlywell disposed toward him. He holds one bit of evidence which goes ratheragainst our friend--a threatening letter to Orlanduccio, in which hesuggests a meeting, and is inclined to think that meeting was a trap."
"That fellow Orlanduccio refused to fight it out like a gentleman."
"That is not the custom here. In this country, people lie in ambush, andkill each other from behind. There is one deposition in his favour--thatof a child, who declares she heard four reports, two of which werelouder than the others, and produced by a heavy weapon, such as Signordella Rebbia's gun. Unluckily, the child is the niece of one of thebandits suspected of being his accomplices, and has probably been taughther lesson."
"Sir," broke in Miss Lydia, reddening to the roots of her hair, "we wereon the road when those shots were fired, and we heard the same thing."
"Really? That's most important! And you, colonel, no doubt you remarkedthe very same thing?"
"Yes," responded Miss Lydia quickly. "It was my father, who is soaccustomed to firearms, who said to me, 'There's Signor della Rebbiashooting with my gun!'"
"And you are sure those shots you recognised were the last?"
"The two last, weren't they, papa?"
Memory was not the colonel's strong point, but as a standing rule, heknew better than to contradict his daughter.
"I must mention this to the public prosecutor at once, colonel. Andbesides, we expect a surgeon this evening, who will make an examinationof the two bodies, and find out whether the wounds were caused by thatparticular weapon."
"I gave it to Orso," said the colonel, "and I wish I knew it was at thebottom of the sea. At least----Plucky boy! I'm heartily glad he had itwith him, for I don't quite know how he would have got off if it hadn'tbeen for my Manton."