it was long before orso fell asleep, and as a consequence he woke late—late for a corsican, at all events. when he left his bed, the first object that struck his gaze was the house of his enemies, and the archere with which they had furnished it. he went downstairs and asked for his sister.
“she is in the kitchen, melting bullets,” answered saveria, the woman-servant.
so he could not take a step without being pursued by the image of war.
he found colomba sitting on a stool, surrounded by freshly cast bullets, and cutting up strips of lead.
“what the devil are you doing?” inquired her brother.
“you had no bullets for the colonel’s gun,” she answered, in her soft voice. “i found i had a mould for that calibre, and you shall have four-and-twenty cartridges to-day, brother.”
“i don’t need them, thank god!”
“you mustn’t be taken at a disadvantage, ors’ anton’. you have forgotten your country, and the people who are about you.”
“if i had forgotten, you would soon have reminded me. tell me, did not a big trunk arrive here some days ago?”
“yes, brother. shall i take it up to your room?”
“you take it up! why, you’d never be strong enough even to lift it! . . . is there no man about who can do it?”
“i’m not so weak as you think!” said colomba, turning up her sleeves, and displaying a pair of round white arms, perfect in shape, but looking more than ordinarily strong. “here, saveria,” said she to the servant; “come and help me!”
she was already lifting the trunk alone, when orso came hastily to her assistance.
“there is something for you in this trunk, my dear colomba,” said he. “you must excuse the modesty of my gifts. a lieutenant on half-pay hasn’t a very well-lined purse!”
as he spoke, he opened the trunk, and took out of it a few gowns, a shawl, and some other things likely to be useful to a young girl.
“what beautiful things!” cried colomba. “i’ll put them away at once, for fear they should be spoiled. i’ll keep them for my wedding,” she added, with a sad smile, “for i am in mourning now!”
and she kissed her brother’s hand.
“it looks affected, my dear sister, to wear your mourning for so long.”
“i have sworn an oath,” said colomba resolutely, “i’ll not take off my mourning. . . .” and her eyes were riveted on the barricini mansion.
“until your wedding day?” said orso, trying to avoid the end of her sentence.
“i shall never marry any man,” said colomba, “unless he has done three things . . .” and her eyes still rested gloomily on the house of the enemy.
“you are so pretty, colomba, that i wonder you are not married already! come, you must tell me about your suitors. and besides, i’m sure to hear their serenades. they must be good ones to please a great voceratrice like you.”
“who would seek the hand of a poor orphan girl? . . . and then, the man for whom i would change my mourning-dress will have to make the women over there put on mourning!”
“this is becoming a perfect mania,” said orso to himself. but to avoid discussion he said nothing at all.
“brother,” said colomba caressingly, “i have something to give you, too. the clothes you are wearing are much too grand for this country. your fine cloth frock-coat would be in tatters in two days, if you wore it in the maquis. you must keep it for the time when miss nevil comes.”
then, opening a cupboard, she took out a complete hunting dress.
“i’ve made you a velvet jacket, and here’s a cap, such as our smart young men wear. i embroidered it for you, ever so long ago. will you try them on?” and she made him put on a loose green velvet jacket, with a huge pocket at the back. on his head she set a pointed black velvet cap, embroidered with jet and silk of the same colour, and finished with a sort of tassel.
“here is our father’s carchera”[*] she said. “his stiletto is in the pocket of the jacket. i’ll fetch you his pistol.”
[*] carchera, a belt for cartridges. a pistol is worn
fastened to the left side of it.
“i look like a brigand at the ambigu-comique,” said orso, as he looked at himself in the little glass saveria was holding up for him.
“indeed, you look first-rate, dressed like that, ors’ anton’,” said the old servant, “and the smartest pinsuto[*] in bocognano or bastelica is not braver.”
[*] pinsuto, the name given to men who wear the pointed cap,
barreta pinsuta.
orso wore his new clothes at breakfast, and during that meal he told his sister that his trunk contained a certain number of books, that he was going to send to france and italy for others, and intended she should study a great deal.
“for it really is disgraceful, colomba,” he added, “that a grown-up girl like you should still be ignorant of things that children on the mainland know as soon as they are weaned.”
“you are right, brother,” said colomba. “i know my own shortcomings quite well, and i shall be too glad to learn—especially if you are kind enough to teach me.”
some days went by, and colomba never mentioned the name of barricini. she lavished care and attention on her brother, and often talked to him about miss nevil. orso made her read french and italian books, and was constantly being surprised either by the correctness and good sense of her comments, or by her utter ignorance on the most ordinary subjects.
one morning, after breakfast, colomba left the room for a moment, and instead of returning as usual, with a book and some sheets of paper, reappeared with her mezzaro on her head. the expression of her countenance was even more serious than it generally was.
“brother,” she said, “i want you to come out with me.”
“where do you want me to go with you?” said orso, holding out his arm.
“i don’t want your arm, brother, but take your gun and your cartridge-pouch. a man should never go abroad without his arms.”
“so be it. i must follow the fashion. where are we going?”
colomba, without answering, drew her mezzaro closer about her head, called the watch-dog, and went out followed by her brother. striding swiftly out of the village, she turned into a sunken road that wound among the vineyards, sending on the dog, to whom she made some gesture, which he seemed to understand, in front of her. he instantly began to run zigzag fashion, through the vines, first on one side and then on the other, always keeping within about fifty paces of his mistress, and occasionally stopping in the middle of the road and wagging his tail. he seemed to perform his duties as a scout in the most perfect fashion imaginable.
“if muschetto begins to bark, brother,” said colomba, “cock your gun, and stand still.”
half a mile beyond the village, after making many detours, colomba stopped short, just where there was a bend in the road. on that spot there rose a little pyramid of branches, some of them green, some withered, heaped about three feet high. above them rose the top of a wooden cross, painted black. in several of the corsican cantons, especially those among the mountains, a very ancient custom, connected, it may be with some pagan superstition, constrains every passer-by to cast either a stone or a branch on the spot whereon a man has died a violent death. for years and years—as long as the memory of his tragic fate endures—this strange offering goes on accumulating from day to day.
this is called the dead man’s pile—his “mucchio.”
colomba stopped before the heap of foliage, broke off an arbutus branch, and cast it on the pile.
“orso,” she said, “this is where your father died. let us pray for his soul!”
and she knelt down. orso instantly followed her example. at that moment the village church-bell tolled slowly for a man who had died during the preceding night. orso burst into tears.
after a few minutes colomba rose. her eyes were dry, but her face was eager. she hastily crossed herself with her thumb, after the fashion generally adopted by her companions, to seal any solemn oath, then, hurrying her brother with her, she took her way back to the village. they re-entered their house in silence. orso went up to his room. a moment afterward colomba followed him, carrying a small casket which she set upon the table. opening it, she drew out a shirt, covered with great stains of blood.
“here is your father’s shirt, orso!”
and she threw it across his knees. “here is the lead that killed him!” and she laid two blackened bullets on the shirt.
“orso! brother!” she cried, throwing herself into his arms and clasping him desperately to her. “orso, you will avenge him!”
in a sort of frenzy she kissed him, then kissed the shirt and the bullets, and went out of the room, leaving her brother sitting on his chair, as if he had been turned to stone. for some time orso sat motionless, not daring to put the terrible relics away. at last, with an effort, he laid them back in their box, rushed to the opposite end of his room, and threw himself on his bed, with his face turned to the wall, and his head buried in his pillow, as though he were trying to shut out the sight of some ghost. his sister’s last words rang unceasingly in his ears, like the words of an oracle, fatal, inevitable, calling out to him for blood, and for innocent blood! i shall not attempt to depict the unhappy young man’s sensations, which were as confused as those that overwhelm a madman’s brain. for a long time he lay in the same position, without daring to turn his head. at last he got up, closed the lid of the casket, and rushed headlong out of the house, into the open country, moving aimlessly forward, whither he knew not.
by degrees, the fresh air did him good. he grew calmer, and began to consider his position, and his means of escape from it, with some composure. he did not, as my readers already know, suspect the barricini of the murder, but he did accuse them of having forged agostini’s letter, and this letter, he believed, at any rate, had brought about his father’s death. he felt it was impossible to prosecute them for the forgery. now and then, when the prejudices or the instincts of his race assailed him, and suggested an easy vengeance—a shot fired at the corner of some path—the thought of his brother-officers, of parisian drawing-rooms, and above all, of miss nevil, made him shrink from them in horror. then his mind dwelt on his sister’s reproaches, and all the corsican within him justified her appeal, and even intensified its bitterness. one hope alone remained to him, in this battle between his conscience and his prejudices—the hope that, on some pretext or other, he might pick a quarrel with one of the lawyer’s sons, and fight a duel with him. the idea of killing the young man, either by a bullet or a sword-thrust reconciled his french and corsican ideas. this expedient adopted, he began to meditate means for its execution, and was feeling relieved already of a heavy burden, when other and gentler thoughts contributed still further to calm his feverish agitation. cicero, in his despair at the death of his daughter tullia, forgot his sorrow when he mused over all the fine things he might say about it. mr. shandy consoled himself by discourses of the same nature for the loss of his son. orso cooled his blood by thinking that he would depict his state of mind to miss nevil, and that such a picture could not fail to interest that fair lady deeply.
he was drawing near the village, from which he had unconsciously travelled a considerable distance, when he heard the voice of a little girl, who probably believed herself to be quite alone, singing in a path that ran along the edge of the maquis. it was one of those slow, monotonous airs consecrated to funeral dirges, and the child was singing the words:
“and when my son shall see again the dwelling of his father,
give him that murdered father’s cross; show him my shirt blood-
spattered.”
“what’s that you’re singing, child?” said orso, in an angry voice, as he suddenly appeared before her.
“is that you, ors’ anton’?” exclaimed the child, rather startled. “it is signorina colomba’s song.”
“i forbid you to sing it!” said orso, in a threatening voice.
the child kept turning her head this way and that, as though looking about for a way of escape, and she would certainly have run off had she not been held back by the necessity of taking care of a large bundle which lay on the grass, at her feet.
orso felt ashamed of his own vehemence. “what are you carrying there, little one?” said he, with all the gentleness he could muster. and as chilina hesitated, he lifted up the linen that was wrapped round the bundle, and saw it contained a loaf of bread and other food.
“to whom are you bringing the loaf, my dear?” he asked again.
“you know quite well, ors’ anton’: to my uncle.”
“and isn’t your uncle a bandit?”
“at your service, ors’ anton’.”
“if you met the gendarmes, they would ask you where you were going. . . .”
“i should tell them,” the child replied, at once, “that i was taking food to the men from lucca who were cutting down the maquis.”
“and if you came across some hungry hunter who insisted on dining at your expense, and took your provisions away from you?”
“nobody would dare! i would say they are for my uncle!”
“well! he’s not the sort of man to let himself be cheated of his dinner! . . . is your uncle very fond of you?”
“oh, yes, ors’ anton’. ever since my father died, he has taken care of my whole family—my mother and my little sister, and me. before mother was ill, he used to recommend her to rich people, who gave her employment. the mayor gives me a frock every year, and the priest has taught me my catechism, and how to read, ever since my uncle spoke to them about us. but your sister is kindest of all to us!”
just at this moment a dog ran out on the pathway. the little girl put two of her fingers into her mouth and gave a shrill whistle, the dog came to her at once, fawned upon her, and then plunged swiftly into the thicket. soon two men, ill-dressed, but very well armed, rose up out of a clump of young wood a few paces from where orso stood. it was as though they had crawled up like snakes through the tangle of cytisus and myrtle that covered the ground.
“oh, ors’ anton’, you’re welcome!” said the elder of the two men. “why, don’t you remember me?”
“no!” said orso, looking hard at him.
“queer how a beard and a peaked cap alter a man! come, monsieur, look at me well! have you forgotten your old waterloo men? don’t you remember brando savelli, who bit open more than one cartridge alongside of you on that unlucky day?”
“what! is it you?” said orso. “and you deserted in 1816!”
“even so, sir. faith! soldiering grows tiresome, and besides, i had a job to settle over in this country. aha, chili! you’re a good girl! give us our dinner at once, we’re hungry. you’ve no notion what an appetite one gets in the maquis. who sent us this—was it signorina colomba or the mayor?”
“no, uncle, it was the miller’s wife. she gave me this for you, and a blanket for my mother.”
“what does she want of me?”
“she says the lucchesi she hired to clear the maquis are asking her five-and-thirty sous, and chestnuts as well—because of the fever in the lower parts of pietranera.”
“the lazy scamps! . . . i’ll see to them! . . . will you share our dinner, monsieur, without any ceremony? we’ve eaten worse meals together, in the days of that poor compatriot of ours, whom they have discharged from the army.”
“no, i thank you heartily. they have discharged me, too!”
“yes, so i heard. but i’ll wager you weren’t sorry for it. you have your own account to settle too. . . . come along, cure,” said the bandit to his comrade. “let’s dine! signor orso, let me introduce the cure. i’m not quite sure he is a cure. but he knows as much as any priest, at all events!”
“a poor student of theology, monsieur,” quoth the second bandit, “who has been prevented from following his vocation. who knows, brandolaccio, i might have been pope!”
“what was it that deprived the church of your learning?” inquired orso.
“a mere nothing—a bill that had to be settled, as my friend brandolaccio puts it. one of my sisters had been making a fool of herself, while i was devouring book-lore at pisa university. i had to come home, to get her married. but her future husband was in too great a hurry; he died of fever three days before i arrived. then i called, as you would have done in my place, on the dead man’s brother. i was told he was married. what was i to do?”
“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 assumed. 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 passports” (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 scrape 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 porrectum, 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!”