Colomba

“We’ll protect ourselves,” said Colomba.

“Orlanduccio,” said Orso, “strikes me as being a plucky fellow, and I think better of him than that, monsieur. He was very quick about drawing his dagger. But perhaps I should have done the same thing in his place, and I’m glad my sister has not an ordinary fine lady’s wrist.”

“You are not to fight,” exclaimed the prefect. “I forbid it!”

“Allow me to say, monsieur, that in matters that affect my honour the only authority I acknowledge is that of my own conscience.”

“You sha’n’t fight, I tell you!”

“You can put me under arrest, monsieur—that is, if I let you catch me. But if you were to do that, you would only delay a thing that has now become inevitable. You are a man of honour yourself, monsieur; you know there can be no other course.”

“If you were to have my brother arrested,” added Colomba, “half the village would take his part, and we should have a fine fusillade.”

“I give you fair notice, monsieur, and I entreat you not to think I am talking mere bravado. I warn you that if Signor Barricini abuses his authority as mayor, to have me arrested, I shall defend myself.”

“From this very day,” said the prefect, “Signor Barricini is suspended. I trust he will exculpate himself. Listen to me, my young gentleman, I have a liking for you. What I ask of you is nothing to speak of. Just to stay quietly at home till I get back from Corte. I shall only be three days away. I’ll bring back the public prosecutor with me, and then we’ll sift this wretched business to the bottom. Will you promise me you will abstain from all hostilities till then?”

“I can not promise that, monsieur, if, as I expect, Orlanduccio asks me to meet him.”

“What, Signor della Rebbia! Would you—a French officer—think of going out with a man you suspect of being a forger?”

“I struck him, monsieur!”

“But supposing you struck a convict, and he demanded satisfaction of you, would you fight him? Come, come, Signor Orso! But I’ll ask you to do even less, do nothing to seek out Orlanduccio. I’ll consent to your fighting him if he asks you for a meeting.”

“He will ask for it, I haven’t a doubt of that. But I’ll promise I won’t give him fresh cuffs to induce him to do it.”

“What a country!” cried the prefect once more, as he strode to and fro. “Shall I never get back to France?”

“Signor Prefetto,” said Colomba in her most dulcet tones, “it is growing very late. Would you do us the honour of breakfasting here?”

The prefect could not help laughing.

“I’ve been here too long already—it may look like partiality. And there is that cursed foundation-stone. I must be off. Signorina della Rebbia! what calamities you may have prepared this day!”

“At all events, Signor Prefetto, you will do my sister the justice of believing her convictions are deeply rooted—and I am sure, now, that you yourself believe them to be well-founded.”

“Farewell, sir!” said the prefect, waving his hand. “I warn you that the sergeant of gendarmes will have orders to watch everything you do.”

When the prefect had departed—

“Orso,” said Colomba, “this isn’t the Continent. Orlanduccio knows nothing about your duels, and besides, that wretch must not die the death of a brave man.”

“Colomba, my dear, you are a clever woman. I owe you a great deal from having saved me from a hearty knife-thrust. Give me your little hand to kiss! But, hark ye, let me have my way. There are certain matters that you don’t understand. Give me my breakfast. And as soon as the prefect had started off send for little Chilina, who seems to perform all the commissions she is given in the most wonderful fashion. I shall want her to take a letter for me.”

While Colomba was superintending the preparation of his breakfast, Orso went up to his own room and wrote the following note:

“You must be in a hurry to meet me, and I am no less eager. We can meet at six o’clock to-morrow morning in the valley of Acquaviva. I am a skilful pistol-shot, so I do not suggest that weapon to you. I hear you are a good shot with a gun. Let us each take a double-barrelled gun. I shall be accompanied by a man from this village. If your brother wishes to go with you, take a second witness, and let me know. In that case only, I should bring two with me.

“ORSO ANTONIO DELLA REBBIA.”

After spending an hour with the deputy-mayor, and going into the Barricini house for a few minutes, the prefect, attended by a single gendarme, started for Corte. A quarter of an hour later, Chilina carried over the letter my readers have just perused, and delivered it into Orlanduccio’s own hands.

The answer was not prompt, and did not arrive till evening. It bore the signature of the elder Barricini, and informed Orso that he was laying the threatening letter sent to his son before the public prosecutor. His missive concluded thus: “Strong in the sense of a clear conscience, I patiently wait till the law has pronounced on your calumnies.”

Meanwhile five or six herdsmen, summoned by Colomba, arrived to garrison the della Rebbia Tower. In spite of Orso’s protests, archere were arranged in the windows looking onto the square, and all through the evening offers of service kept coming in from various persons belonging to the village. There was even a letter from the bandit-theologian, undertaking, for himself and Brandolaccio, that in the event of the mayor’s calling on the gendarmes, they themselves would straightway intervene. The following postscript closed the letter:

“Dare I ask you what the Signor Prefetto thinks of the excellent education bestowed by my friend on Brusco, the dog? Next to Chilina, he is the most docile and promising pupil I have ever come across.”

CHAPTER XVI

The following day went by without any hostile demonstration. Both sides kept on the defensive. Orso did not leave his house, and the door of the Barricini dwelling remained closely shut. The five gendarmes who had been left to garrison Pietranera were to be seen walking about the square and the outskirts of the village, in company with the village constable, the sole representative of the urban police force. The deputy-mayor never put off his sash. But there was no actual symptom of war, except the loopholes in the two opponents’ houses. Nobody but a Corsican would have noticed that the group round the evergreen oak in the middle of the square consisted solely of women.

At supper-time Colomba gleefully showed her brother a letter she had just received from Miss Nevil.

“My dear Signorina Colomba,” it ran, “I learn with great pleasure, through a letter from your brother, that your enmities are all at an end. I congratulate you heartily. My father can not endure Ajaccio now your brother is not there to talk about war and go out shooting with him. We are starting to-day, and shall sleep at the house of your kinswoman, to whom we have a letter. The day after to-morrow, somewhere about eleven o’clock, I shall come and ask you to let me taste that mountain bruccio of yours, which you say is so vastly superior to what we get in the town.

“Farewell, dear Signorina Colomba.

“Your affectionate

“LYDIA NEVIL.”

“Then she hasn’t received my second letter!” exclaimed Orso.

“You see by the date of this one that Miss Lydia must have already started when your letter reached Ajaccio. But did you tell her not to come?”

“I told her we were in a state of siege. That does not seem to me a condition that permits of our receiving company.”

“Bah! These English people are so odd. The very last night I slept in her room she told me she would be sorry to leave Corsica without having seen a good vendetta. If you choose, Orso, you might let her see an assault on our enemies’ house.”

“Do you know, Colomba,” said Orso, “Nature blundered when she made you a woman. You’d have made a first-rate soldier.”

“Maybe. Anyhow, I’m going to make my bruccio.”

“Don’t waste your time. We must send somebody down to warn them and stop them before they start.”

“Do you mean to say you would send a messenger out in such weather, to have him and your letter both swept away by a torrent? How I pity those poor bandits in this storm! Luckily they have good piloni (thick cloth cloaks with hoods). Do you know what you ought to do, Orso. If the storm clears you should start off very early to-morrow morning, and get to our kinswoman’s house before they leave it. That will be easy enough, for Miss Lydia always gets up so late. You can tell them everything that has happened here, and if they still persist in coming, why! we shall be very glad to welcome them.”

Orso lost no time in assenting to this plan, and after a few moments’ silence, Colomba continued:

“Perhaps, Orso, you think I was joking when I talked of an assault on the Barricini’s house. Do you know we are in force—two to one at the very least? Now that the prefect has suspended the mayor, every man in the place is on our side. We might cut them to pieces. It would be quite easy to bring it about. If you liked, I could go over to the fountain and begin to jeer at their women folk. They would come out. Perhaps—they are such cowards!—they would fire at me through their loopholes. They wouldn’t hit me. Then the thing would be done. They would have begun the attack, and the beaten party must take its chance. How is anybody to know which person’s aim has been true, in a scuffle? Listen to your own sister, Orso! These lawyers who are coming will blacken lots of paper, and talk a great deal of useless stuff. Nothing will come of it all. That old fox will contrive to make them think they see stars in broad midday. Ah! if the prefect hadn’t thrown himself in front of Vincentello, we should have had one less to deal with.”

All this was said with the same calm air as that with which she had spoken, an instant previously, of her preparations for making the bruccio.

Orso, quite dumfounded, gazed at his sister with an admiration not unmixed with alarm.

“My sweet Colomba,” he said, as he rose from the table, “I really am afraid you are the very devil. But make your mind easy. If I don’t succeed in getting the Barricini hanged, I’ll contrive to get the better of them in some other fashion. ‘Hot bullet or cold steel’—you see I haven’t forgotten my Corsican.”