“I wish Ajaccio were in sight already, for I am sick of this ship.”  She rose, took her maid’s arm, and walked a few paces on the deck.  Orso stood motionless beside the helm, not knowing whether he had better walk beside her, or end a conversation which seemed displeasing to her.

“Blood of the Madonna, what a handsome girl!” said the sailor.  “If every flea in my bed were like her, I shouldn’t complain of their biting me!”

Miss Lydia may possibly have overheard this artless praise of her beauty and been startled by it; for she went below almost immediately.  Shortly after Orso also retired.  As soon as he had left the deck the maid reappeared, and, having cross-questioned the sailor, carried back the following information to her mistress.  The ballata which had been broken off on Orso’s appearance had been composed on the occasion of the death of his father, Colonel della Rebbia, who had been murdered two years previously.  The sailor had no doubt at all that Orso was coming back to Corsica per fare la vendetta, such was his expression, and he affirmed that before long there would be fresh meat to be seen in the village of Pietranera.  This national expression, being interpreted, meant that Signor Orso proposed to murder two or three individuals suspected of having assassinated his father—­individuals who had, indeed, been prosecuted on that account, but had come out of the trial as white as snow, for they were hand and glove with the judges, lawyers, prefect, and gendarmes.

“There is no justice in Corsica,” added the sailor, “and I put much more faith in a good gun than in a judge of the Royal Court.  If a man has an enemy he must choose one of the three S’s.” (A national expression meaning schioppetto, stiletto, strada—­that is, gun, dagger, or flight.)

These interesting pieces of information wrought a notable change in Miss Lydia’s manner and feeling with regard to Lieutenant della Rebbia.  From that moment he became a person of importance in the romantic Englishwoman’s eyes.

His careless air, his frank and good humour, which had at first impressed her so unfavourably, now seemed to her an additional merit, as being proofs of the deep dissimulation of a strong nature, which will not allow any inner feeling to appear upon the surface.  Orso seemed to her a sort of Fieschi, who hid mighty designs under an appearance of frivolity, and, though it is less noble to kill a few rascals than to free one’s country, still a fine deed of vengeance is a fine thing, and besides, women are rather glad to find their hero is not a politician.  Then Miss Nevil remarked for the first time that the young lieutenant had large eyes, white teeth, an elegant figure, that he was well-educated, and possessed the habits of good society.  During the following day she talked to him frequently, and found his conversation interesting.  He was asked many questions about