[Illustration:  “HE HELD HIS PISTOL CLOSE TO THE HEAD, AND FIRED.”]

The loud report echoed through the house.  A shriek came from Minnie’s room, and a cry came from Mrs. Willoughby, who sprang toward the hall.  But Girasole came out and intercepted her.

“Eet ees notin,” said he, in a tremulous voice.  “Eet ees all ovair.  Eet ees only a false alarm.”

Mrs. Willoughby retreated to her room, and Minnie said nothing.  As for Ethel, the suspense with her had passed away as the report of the pistol came to her ears.

Meanwhile the coffin was carried out of the house, and the men, together with the priest, walked on toward a place further up the shore and on the outskirts of the woods.  They reached a place where a grave was dug.

At this moment a pistol-shot sounded.  The priest stopped, and the men stopped also.  They did not understand it.  The priest did not know the cause of the shot, but seeing the alarm of the men he endeavored to excite their fears.  One of the men went back, and was cursed by Girasole for his pains.  So he returned to the grave, cursing every body.

The coffin was now lowered into the grave, and the priest urged the men to go away and let him finish the work; but they refused.  The fellows seemed to have some affection for their dead comrade, and wished to show it by putting him underground, and doing the last honors.  So the efforts of the Irish priest, though very well meant, and very urgent, and very persevering, did not meet with that success which he anticipated.

Suddenly he stopped in the midst of the burial service, which he was prolonging to the utmost.

“Hark!” he cried, in Italian.

“What?” they asked.

“It’s a gun!  It’s an alarm!”

“There’s no gun, and no alarm,” said they.

All listened, but there was no repetition of the sound, and the priest went on.

He had to finish it.

He stood trembling and at his wit’s end.  Already the men began to throw in the earth.

But now there came a real alarm.

CHAPTER XXXI.

DISCOVERED.

The report of the pistol had startled Minnie, and for a moment had greatly agitated her.  The cry of Mrs. Willoughby elicited a response from her to the effect that all was right, and would, no doubt, have resulted in a conversation, had it not been prevented by Girasole.

Minnie then relapsed into silence for a time, and Ethel took a seat by her side on the floor, for Minnie would not go near the straw, and then the two interlocked their arms in an affectionate embrace.

“Ethel darling,” whispered Minnie, “do you know I’m beginning to get awfully tired of this?”

“I should think so, poor darling!”

“If I only had some place to sit on,” said Minnie, still reverting to her original grievance, “it wouldn’t be so very bad, you know.  I could put up with not having a bed, or a sofa, or that sort of thing, you know; but really I must say not to have any kind of a seat seems to me to be very, very inconsiderate, to say the least of it.”