“This is too bad, lieutenant!” he shouted breathlessly, “really it is too bad!  I wouldn’t overlook the trick, if any other man had played it on me.  Here are your ten francs.  All my respects to Mademoiselle Colomba.  You have made me run myself quite out of breath.  Good-night!”

CHAPTER XII

Orso found Colomba in a state of considerable anxiety because of his prolonged absence.  But as soon as she saw him she recovered her usual serene, though sad, expression.  During the evening meal the conversation turned on trivial subjects, and Orso, emboldened by his sister’s apparent calm, related his encounter with the bandits, and even ventured on a joke or two concerning the moral and religious education that was being imparted to little Chilina, thanks to the care of her uncle and of his worthy colleague Signor Castriconi.

“Brandolaccio is an upright man,” said Colomba; “but as to Castriconi, I have heard he is quite unprincipled.”

“I think,” said Orso, “that he is as good as Brandolaccio, and Brandolaccio is as good as he.  Both of them are at open war with society.  Their first crime leads them on to fresh ones, every day, and yet they are very likely not half so guilty as many people who don’t live in the maquis.”

A flash of joy shone in his sister’s eyes.  “Yes,” he continued, “these wretches have a code of honour of their own.  It is a cruel prejudice, not a mean instinct of greed, that has forced them into the life they are leading.”

There was a silence.

“Brother,” said Colomba, as she poured out his coffee, “perhaps you have heard that Carlo-Battista Pietri died last night.  Yes, he died of the marsh-fever.”

“Who is Pietri?”

“A man belonging to this village, the husband of Maddalena, who took the pocket-book out of our father’s hand as he was dying.  His widow has been here to ask me to join the watchers, and sing something.  You ought to come, too.  They are our neighbours, and in a small place like this we can not do otherwise than pay them this civility.”

“Confound these wakes, Colomba!  I don’t at all like my sister to perform in public in this way.”

“Orso,” replied Colomba, “every country pays honour to its dead after its own fashion.  The ballata has come down to us from our forefathers, and we must respect it as an ancient custom.  Maddalena does not possess the ‘gift,’ and old Fiordispina, the best voceratrice in the country, is ill.  They must have somebody for the ballata.”

“Do you believe Carlo-Battista won’t find his way safely into the next world unless somebody sings bad poetry over his bier?  Go if you choose, Colomba—­I’ll go with you, if you think I ought.  But don’t improvise!  It really is not fitting at your age, and—­sister, I beg you not to do it!”

“Brother, I have promised.  It is the custom here, as you know, and, I tell you again, there is nobody but me to improvise.”