“Oh, I won’t promise to make as good use of it as you.  But make your mind easy.  When any other man has it, you may be certain it’s all over with Brando Savelli.”

“And you, Castriconi—­what am I to give you?”

“Since you really insist on giving me some tangible keepsake, I’ll simply ask you to send me the smallest Horace you can get.  It will amuse me, and prevent me from forgetting all my Latin.  There’s a little woman who sells cigars on the jetty at Bastia.  If you give it to her, she’ll see I get it.”

“You shall have an Elzevir, my erudite friend.  There just happens to be one among some books I was going to take away with me.  Well, good friends, we must part!  Give me your hands.  If you should ever think of Sardinia write to me.  Signor N., the notary, will give you my address on the mainland.”

“To-morrow, lieutenant,” said Brando, “when you get out in the harbour, look up to this spot on the mountain-side.  We shall be here, and we’ll wave our handkerchiefs to you.”

And so they parted.  Orso and his sister took their way back to Cardo, and the bandits departed up the mountain.

CHAPTER XXI

One lovely April morning, Sir Thomas Nevil, his daughter, a newly made bride—­Orso, and Colomba, drove out of Pisa to see a lately discovered Etruscan vault to which all strangers who came to that part of the country paid a visit.

Orso and his wife went down into the ancient building, pulled out their pencils, and began to sketch the mural paintings.  But the colonel and Colomba, who neither of them cared much for archaeology, left them to themselves, and walked about in the neighbourhood.

“My dear Colomba,” said the colonel, “we shall never get back to Pisa in time for lunch.  Aren’t you hungry?  There are Orso and his wife buried in their antiquities; when once they begin sketching together, it lasts forever!”

“Yes,” remarked Colomba.  “And yet they never bring the smallest sketch home with them.”

“I think,” proceeded the colonel, “our best plan would be to make our way to that little farm-house yonder.  We should find bread there, and perhaps some aleatico.  Who knows, we might even find strawberries and cream!  And then we should be able to wait patiently for our artists.”

“You are quite right, colonel.  You and I are the reasonable members of this family.  We should be very foolish if we let ourselves by martyrized by that pair of lovers, who live on poetry!  Give me your arm!  Don’t you think I’m improving?  I lean on people’s arms, wear fashionable hats and gowns and trinkets—­I’m learning I don’t know how many fine things—­I’m not at all a young savage any more.  Just observe the grace with which I wear this shawl.  That fair-haired spark—­that officer belonging to your regiment who came to the wedding—­oh, dear!  I can’t recollect his name!—­a tall, curly-headed man, whom I could knock over with one hand——­”