“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!”