“Two such cunning men, such dangerous fellows!  And he alone, wounded, with only one arm!  He killed the two of them!  What courage, colonel!  Isn’t he a hero?  Ah, Miss Nevil!  How good it is to live in a peaceful country like yours!  I’m sure you did not really know my brother till now!  I said it—­’The falcon will spread his wings!’ You were deceived by his gentle look!  That’s because with you, Miss Nevil—­Ah! if he could see you working for him now!  My poor Orso!”

Miss Lydia was doing hardly any work, and could not find a single word to say.  Her father kept asking why nobody went to lay a complaint before a magistrate.  He talked about a coroner’s inquest, and all sorts of other proceedings quite unknown to Corsican economy.  And then he begged to be told whether the country house owned by that worthy Signor Brandolaccio, who had brought succour to the wounded man, was very far away from Pietranera, and whether he could not go there himself, to see his friend.

And Colomba replied, with her usual composure, that Orso was in the maquis; that he was being taken care of by a bandit; that it would be a great risk for him to show himself until he was sure of the line the prefect and the judges were likely to take; and, finally, that she would manage to have him secretly attended by a skilful surgeon.

“Above all things, colonel,” she added, “remember that you heard the four shots, and that you told me Orso fired last.”

The colonel could make neither head nor tail of the business, and his daughter did nothing but heave sighs and dry her eyes.

The day was far advanced, when a gloomy procession wended its way into the village.  The bodies of his two sons were brought home to Lawyer Barricini, each corpse thrown across a mule, which was led by a peasant.  A crowd of dependents and idlers followed the dreary cortege.  With it appeared the gendarmes, who always came in too late, and the deputy-mayor, throwing up his hands, and incessantly repeating, “What will Signor Prefetto say!” Some of the women, among them Orlanduccio’s foster-mother, were tearing their hair and shrieking wildly.  But their clamorous grief was less impressive than the dumb despair of one man, on whom all eyes were fixed.  This was the wretched father, who passed from one corpse to the other, lifting up the earth-soiled heads, kissing the blackened lips, supporting the limbs that were stiff already, as if he would save them from the jolting of the road.  Now and then he opened his mouth as though about to speak, but not a cry came, not a word.  His eyes never left the dead bodies, and as he walked, he knocked himself against the stones, against the trees, against every obstacle that chanced to lie in his path.