I watched them at their preparations.  Their dark figures moved between me and the flames as they set up a tall tripod of pine poles and hung their cauldron from the centre of it, upon a brandice.  The princess had withdrawn to her cave and did not reappear until Stephanu, who seemed to be head-cook, announced that supper was ready, whereupon she came and took her seat with the rest in a ring around the fire.  Marc’antonio brought me my share of seethed kid’s flesh with a capful of chestnuts roasted in the embers; a flask of wine too, and a small pail of goat’s milk with a pannikin, for Nat.  The fare might not be palatable, but plainly they did not intend us to starve.

Marc’antonio made no answer when I thanked him, but returned to his seat in the ring, where from the beginning of the meal—­as at a signal—­his companions had engaged in a furious and general dispute.  So at least it sounded, and so shrill at times were their contending voices, and so fierce their gesticulations, that for some minutes I fully expected to see them turn to other business the knives with which they attacked their meal.

The Princess sat listening, speaking very seldom.  Once only in a general hush the firelight showed me that her lips were moving, and I caught the low tone of her voice, but not the words.  Not once did she look in my direction, and yet I guessed that she was speaking of me:  for the words “ostagiu,” “Inglese,” and the name “Giuseppe” or “Griuse”—­of the man I had shot—­had recurred over and over in their jabber, and recurred when she ceased and it broke forth again.

It had lasted maybe for half an hour when at a signal from Marc’antonio (whom I took to be the Princess’s lieutenant or spokesman in these matters, and to whom she turned oftener than to any of the others, except perhaps Stephanu) two or three picked up their muskets, looked to their priming, and walked off into the darkness.  By-and-by came in the sentinels they had relieved, and these in turn were helped by Stephanu to supper from the cauldron.  I watched, half-expecting the dispute to start afresh, but the others appeared to have taken their fill of it with their food; and soon, each man, drawing his blanket over his head, lay back and stretched themselves to sleep.  The newcomers, having satisfied their hunger, did likewise.  Stephanu gave the great pot a stir, unhitched it from the brandice, and bore it away, leaving the Princess and Marc’antonio the only two wakeful ones beside the fire.

They sat so long without speaking, the Princess with knees drawn up, hands clasping them, and eyes bent on the embers into which (for the Corsican nights are chilly) Marc’antonio now and again cast a fresh brand—­that in time my own eyes began to grow heavy.  They were smarting, too, from the smoke of the burnt wood.  Nat had fallen into a troubled sleep, in which now and again he moaned:  and always at the sound I roused myself to ease his posture or give him to drink from the pannikin; but, for the rest, I dozed, and must have dozed for hours.