tint over everything about him.  He felt neither hatred nor suspicion now.  He waited some time for his sister to come down, and finding she did not reappear, he went to bed, with a lighter heart than he had carried for many a day.  Colomba, having dismissed Chilina with some secret instructions, spent the greater part of the night in reading old papers.  A little before daybreak a few tiny pebbles rattled against the window-pane.  At the signal, she went down to the garden, opened a back door, and conducted two very rough men into her house.  Her first care was to bring them into the kitchen and give them food.  My readers will shortly learn who these men were.

CHAPTER XV

Toward six o’clock next morning one of the prefect’s servants came and knocked at the door of Orso’s house.  He was received by Colomba, and informed her the prefect was about to start, and was expecting her brother.  Without a moment’s hesitation Colomba replied that her brother had just had a fall on the stairs, and sprained his foot; and he was unable to walk a single step, that he begged the prefect to excuse him, and would be very grateful if he would condescend to take the trouble of coming over to him.  A few minutes after this message had been despatched, Orso came downstairs, and asked his sister whether the prefect had not sent for him.

With the most perfect assurance she rejoined: 

“He begs you’ll wait for him here.”

Half an hour went by without the slightest perceptible stir in the Barricini dwelling.  Meanwhile Orso asked Colomba whether she had discovered anything.  She replied that she proposed to make her statement when the prefect came.  She affected an extreme composure.  But her colour and her eyes betrayed her state of feverish excitement.

At last the door of the Barricini mansion was seen to open.  The prefect came out first, in travelling garb; he was followed by the mayor and his two sons.  What was the stupefaction of the inhabitants of the village of Pietranera, who had been on the watch since sunrise for the departure of the chief magistrate of their department, when they saw him go straight across the square and enter the della Rebbia dwelling, accompanied by the three Barricini.  “They are going to make peace!” exclaimed the village politicians.

“Just as I told you,” one old man went on.  “Ors’ Anton’ has lived too much on the mainland to carry things through like a man of mettle.”

“Yet,” responded a Rebbianite, “you may notice it is the Barricini who have gone across to him.  They are suing for mercy.”

“It’s the prefect who had wheedled them all round,” answered the old fellow.  “There is no such thing as courage nowadays, and the young chaps make no more fuss about their father’s blood than if they were all bastards.”

The prefect was not a little astounded to find Orso up and walking about with perfect ease.  In the briefest fashion Colomba avowed her own lie, and begged him to forgive it.