“Bend down, bend down, dear!” she called out to her companion.  “You may be hit by some stray bullet!”

They had walked, or rather run, some five hundred paces in this fashion when Brandolaccio vowed he could go no further, and dropped on the ground, regardless of all Colomba’s exhortations and reproaches.

“Where is Miss Nevil?” was Orso’s one inquiry.

Terrified by the firing, checked at every step by the thick growth of the maquis, Miss Nevil had soon lost sight of the fugitives, and been left all alone in a state of the most cruel alarm.

“She has been left behind,” said Brandolaccio, “but she’ll not be lost—­women always turn up again.  Do listen to the row the Padre is making with your gun, Ors’ Anton’!  Unluckily, it’s as black as pitch, and nobody takes much harm from being shot at in the dark.”

“Hush!” cried Colomba.  “I hear a horse.  We’re saved!”

Startled by the firing, a horse which had been wandering through the maquis, was really coming close up to them.

“Saved, indeed!” repeated Brandolaccio.  It did not take the bandit more than an instant to rush up to the creature, catch hold of his mane, and with Colomba’s assistance, bridle him with a bit of knotted rope.

“Now we must warn the Padre,” he said.  He whistled twice; another distant whistle answered the signal, and the loud voice of the Manton gun was hushed.  Then Brandolaccio sprang on the horse’s back.  Colomba lifted her brother up in front of the bandit, who held him close with one hand and managed his bridle with the other.

In spite of the double load, the animal, urged by a brace of hearty kicks, started off nimbly, and galloped headlong down a steep declivity on which anything but a Corsican steed would have broken its neck a dozen times.

Then Colomba retraced her steps, calling Miss Nevil at the top of her voice; but no answering cry was heard.

After walking hither and thither for some time, trying to recover the path, she stumbled on two riflemen, who shouted, “Who goes there?”

“Well, gentlemen,” cried Colomba jeeringly, “here’s a pretty racket!  How many of you are killed?”

“You were with the bandits!” said one of the soldiers.  “You must come with us.”

“With pleasure!” she replied.  “But there’s a friend of mine somewhere close by, and we must find her first.”

“You friend is caught already, and both of you will sleep in jail to-night!”

“In jail, you say?  Well, that remains to be seen.  But take me to her, meanwhile.”

The soldiers led her to the bandits’ camp, where they had collected the trophies of their raid—­to wit, the cloak which had covered Orso, an old cooking-pot, and a pitcher of cold water.  On the same spot she found Miss Nevil, who had fallen among the soldiers, and, being half dead with terror, did nothing but sob in answer to their questions as to the number of the bandits, and the direction in which they had gone.