"Bend down, bend down, dear!" she called out to her companion. "You may be hit by some stray bullet!"
They had walked, or rather run, some five hundred paces in this fashion when Brandolaccio vowed he could go no further, and dropped on the ground, regardless of all Colomba"s exhortations and reproaches.
"Where is Miss Nevil?" was Orso"s one inquiry.
Terrified by the firing, checked at every step by the thick growth of the _maquis_, Miss Nevil had soon lost sight of the fugitives, and been left all alone in a state of the most cruel alarm.
"She has been left behind," said Brandolaccio, "but she"ll not be lost--women always turn up again. Do listen to the row the Padre is making with your gun, Ors" Anton"! Unluckily, it"s as black as pitch, and n.o.body takes much harm from being shot at in the dark."
"Hush!" cried Colomba. "I hear a horse. We"re saved!"
Startled by the firing, a horse which had been wandering through the _maquis_, was really coming close up to them.
"Saved, indeed!" repeated Brandolaccio. It did not take the bandit more than an instant to rush up to the creature, catch hold of his mane, and with Colomba"s a.s.sistance, bridle him with a bit of knotted rope.
"Now we must warn the Padre," he said. He whistled twice; another distant whistle answered the signal, and the loud voice of the Manton gun was hushed. Then Brandolaccio sprang on the horse"s back. Colomba lifted her brother up in front of the bandit, who held him close with one hand and managed his bridle with the other.
In spite of the double load, the animal, urged by a brace of hearty kicks, started off nimbly, and galloped headlong down a steep declivity on which anything but a Corsican steed would have broken its neck a dozen times.
Then Colomba retraced her steps, calling Miss Nevil at the top of her voice; but no answering cry was heard.
After walking hither and thither for some time, trying to recover the path, she stumbled on two riflemen, who shouted, "Who goes there?"
"Well, gentlemen," cried Colomba jeeringly, "here"s a pretty racket! How many of you are killed?"
"You were with the bandits!" said one of the soldiers. "You must come with us."
"With pleasure!" she replied. "But there"s a friend of mine somewhere close by, and we must find her first."
"You friend is caught already, and both of you will sleep in jail to-night!"
"In jail, you say? Well, that remains to be seen. But take me to her, meanwhile."
The soldiers led her to the bandits" camp, where they had collected the trophies of their raid--to wit, the cloak which had covered Orso, an old cooking-pot, and a pitcher of cold water. On the same spot she found Miss Nevil, who had fallen among the soldiers, and, being half dead with terror, did nothing but sob in answer to their questions as to the number of the bandits, and the direction in which they had gone.
Colomba threw herself into her arms and whispered in her ear, "They are safe!" Then, turning to the sergeant, she said: "Sir, you can see this young lady knows none of the things you are trying to find out from her. Give us leave to go back to the village, where we are anxiously expected."
"You"ll be taken there, and faster than you like, my beauty," rejoined the sergeant. "And you"ll have to explain what you were after at this time of night with the ruffians who have just got away. I don"t know what witchcraft those villains practise, but they certainly do bewitch the women--for wherever there are bandits about, you are dead certain to find pretty girls."
"You"re very flattering, sergeant!" said Colomba, "but you"ll do well to be careful what you say. This young lady is related to the prefect, and you"d better be careful of your language before her."
"A relation of the prefect"s," whispered one of the soldiers to his chief. "Why, she does wear a hat!"
"Hats have nothing to do with it," said the sergeant. "They were both of them with the Padre--the greatest woman-wheedler in the whole country, so it"s my business to march them off. And, indeed, there"s nothing more for us to do here. But for that d----d Corporal Taupin--the drunken Frenchman showed himself before I"d surrounded the _maquis_--we should have had them all like fish in a net."
"Are there only seven of you here?" inquired Colomba. "It strikes me, gentlemen, that if the three Poli brothers--Gambini, Sarocchi, and Teodoro--should happen to be at the Cross of Santa Christina, with Brandolaccio and the Padre, they might give you a good deal of corn to grind. If you mean to have a talk with the Commandante della Campagna, I"d just as soon not be there. In the dark, bullets don"t show any respect for persons."
The idea of coming face to face with the dreaded bandits mentioned by Colomba made an evident impression on the soldiers. The sergeant, still cursing Corporal Taupin--"that dog of a Frenchman"--gave the order to retire, and his little party moved toward Pietranera, carrying the _pilone_ and the cooking-pot; as for the pitcher, its fate was settled with a kick.
One of the men would have laid hold of Miss Lydia"s arm, but Colomba instantly pushed him away.
"Let none of you dare to lay a finger on her!" she said. "Do you fancy we want to run away? Come, Lydia, my dear, lean on me, and don"t cry like a baby. We"ve had an adventure, but it will end all right. In half an hour we shall be at our supper, and for my part I"m dying to get to it."
"What will they think of me!" Miss Nevil whispered.
"They"ll think you lost your way in the _maquis_, that"s all."
"What will the prefect say? Above all, what will my father say?"
"The prefect? You can tell him to mind his own business! Your father?
I should have thought, from the way you and Orso were talking, that you had something to say to your father."
Miss Nevil squeezed her arm, and answered nothing.
"Doesn"t my brother deserve to be loved?" whispered Colomba in her ear.
"Don"t you love him a little?"
"Oh, Colomba!" answered Miss Nevil, smiling in spite of her blushes, "you"ve betrayed me! And I trusted you so!"
Colomba slipped her arm round her, and kissed her forehead.
"Little sister," she whispered very low, "will you forgive me?"
"Why, I suppose I must, my masterful sister," answered Lydia, as she kissed her back.
The prefect and the public prosecutor were staying with the deputy-mayor, and the colonel, who was very uneasy about his daughter, was paying them his twentieth call, to ask if they had heard of her, when a rifleman, whom the sergeant had sent on in advance, arrived with the full story of the great fight with the brigands--a fight in which n.o.body had been either killed or wounded, but which had resulted in the capture of a cooking-pot, a _pilone_, and two girls, whom the man described as the mistresses, or the spies, of the two bandits.
Thus heralded, the two prisoners appeared, surrounded by their armed escort.
My readers will imagine Colomba"s radiant face, her companion"s confusion, the prefect"s surprise, the colonel"s astonishment and joy.
The public prosecutor permitted himself the mischievous entertainment of obliging poor Lydia to undergo a kind of cross-examination, which did not conclude until he had quite put her out of countenance.
"It seems to me," said the prefect, "that we may release everybody.
These young ladies went out for a walk--nothing is more natural in fine weather. They happened to meet a charming young man, who has been lately wounded--nothing could be more natural, again." Then, taking Colomba aside--
"Signorina," he said, "you can send word to your brother that this business promises to turn out better than I had expected. The post-mortem examination and the colonel"s deposition both prove that he only defended himself, and that he was alone when the fight took place.
Everything will be settled--only he must leave the _maquis_ and give himself up to the authorities."
It was almost eleven o"clock when the colonel, his daughter, and Colomba sat down at last to their supper, which had grown cold. Colomba ate heartily, and made great fun of the prefect, the public prosecutor, and the soldiers. The colonel ate too, but never said a word, and gazed steadily at his daughter, who would not lift her eyes from her plate. At last, gently but seriously, he said in English:
"Lydia, I suppose you are engaged to della Rebbia?"
"Yes, father, to-day," she answered, steadily, though she blushed. Then she raised her eyes, and reading no sign of anger in her father"s face, she threw herself into his arms and kissed him, as all well-brought-up young ladies do on such occasions.
"With all my heart!" said the colonel. "He"s a fine fellow. But, by G--d, we won"t live in this d---d country of his, or I"ll refuse my consent."
"I don"t know English," said Colomba, who was watching them with an air of the greatest curiosity, "but I"ll wager I"ve guessed what you are saying!"