Colomba Part 17

"Signor Orlanduccio, I salute you!" said he, then turning toward Orso, he bowed to him, also, gravely.

"That," he remarked, "is what I call a man who has been properly done for."

"Is he still alive?" asked Orso, who could hardly breathe.

"Oh! he wouldn't wish it! he'd be too much vexed about the bullet you put into his eye! Holy Madonna! What a hole! That's a good gun, upon my soul! what a weight! That spatters a man's brains for you! Hark ye, Ors'

Anton'! when I heard the first _piff, piff_, says I to myself: 'Dash it, they're murdering my lieutenant!' Then I heard _boum, boum_. 'Ha, ha!'

says I, 'that's the English gun beginning to talk--he's firing back.'

But what on earth do you want with me, Brusco?"

The dog guided him to the other field.

"Upon my word," cried Brandolaccio, utterly astonished, "a right and left, that's what it is! Deuce take it! Clear enough, powder must be dear, for you don't waste it!"

"What do you mean, for G.o.d's sake?" asked Orso.

"Come, sir, don't try to humbug me; you bring down the dame, and then you want somebody to pick it up for you. Well! there's one man who'll have a queer dessert to-day, and that's Lawyer Barricini!--you want butcher's meat, do you? Well, here you have it. Now, who the devil will be the heir?"

"What! is Vincentello dead too?"

"Dead as mutton. _Salute a noi!_ The good point about you is that you don't let them suffer. Just come over and look at Vincentello; he's kneeling here with his head against the wall, as if he were asleep. You may say he sleeps like lead, this time, poor devil."

Orso turned his head in horror.

"Are you certain he's dead?"

"You're like Sampiero Corso, who never had to fire more than once. Look at it there, in his chest, on the left--just where Vincileone was. .h.i.t at Waterloo. I'll wager that bullet isn't far from his heart--a right and left! Ah! I'll never talk about shooting again. Two with two shots, and bullets at that! The two brothers! If he'd had a third shot he'd have killed their papa. Better luck next time. What a shot! Ors' Anton'! And to think that an honest poor chap like me will never get the chance of a right and a left two gendarmes!"

As he talked the bandit was scanning Orso's arm, and splitting up his sleeve with his dagger.

"This is nothing," said he. "But this coat of yours will give Signorina Colomba work to do. Ha! what's this I see? this gash upon your chest?

Nothing went in there, surely? No! you wouldn't be so brisk as you are!

Come, try to move your finger. Do you feel my teeth when I bite your little finger? Not very well? Never mind! It won't be much. Let me take your handkerchief and your neckcloth. Well, your coat's spoilt, anyhow!

What the devil did you make yourself so smart for? Were you going to a wedding? There! drink a drop of wine. Why on earth don't you carry a flask? Does any Corsican ever go out without a flask?"

Then again he broke off the dressing of the wound to exclaim:

"A right and left! Both of them stone dead! How the Padre will laugh! A right and left! Oh, here's that little dawdle Chilina at last!"

Orso made no reply--he was as pale as death and shaking in every limb.

"Chili!" shouted Brandolaccio, "go and look behind that wall!"

The child, using both hands and feet, scrambled onto the wall, and the moment she caught sight of Orlanduccio's corpse she crossed herself.

"That's nothing," proceeded the bandit; "go and look farther on, over there!"

The child crossed herself again.

"Was it you, uncle?" she asked timidly.

"Me! Don't you know I've turned into a useless old fellow! This, Chili, is the signor's work; offer him your compliments."

"The signorina will be greatly rejoiced," said Chilina, "and she will be very much grieved to know you are wounded, Ors' Anton'."

"Now then, Ors' Anton'," said the bandit, when he had finished binding up the wound. "Chilina, here, has caught your horse. You must get on his back, and come with me to the Stazzona _maquis_. It would be a sly fellow who'd lay his hand on you there. When we get to the Cross of Santa Christina, you'll have to dismount. You'll give over your horse to Chilina, who'll go off and warn the signorina. You can say anything to the child, Ors' Anton'. She would let herself be cut in pieces rather than betray her friends," and then, fondly, he turned to the little girl, "That's it, you little hussy; a ban on you, a curse on you--you jade!" For Brandolaccio, who was superst.i.tious, like most bandits, feared he might cast a spell on a child if he blessed it or praised it, seeing it is a well-known fact that the mysterious powers that rule the _Annocchiatura_[*] have a vile habit of fulfilling our wishes in the very opposite sense to that we give them.

[*] _Annocchiatura_, an involuntary spell cast either by the eye or by spoken words.

"Where am I to go, Brando?" queried Orso in a faint voice.

"Faith! you must choose; either to jail or to the _maquis_. But no della Rebbia knows the path that leads him to the jail. To the _maquis_, Ors'

Anton'."

"Farewell, then, to all my hopes!" exclaimed the wounded man, sadly.

"Your hopes? Deuce take it! Did you hope to do any better with a double-barrelled gun? How on earth did the fellows contrive to hit you?

The rascals must have been as hard to kill as cats."

"They fired first," said Orso.

"True, true; I'd forgotten that!--_piff, piff--boum, boum_! A right and left, and only one hand! If any man can do better, I'll go hang myself.

Come! now you're safely mounted! Before we start, just give a glance at your work. It isn't civil to leave one's company without saying good-bye."

Orso spurred his horse. He would not have looked at the two poor wretches he had just destroyed, for anything on earth.

"Hark ye, Ors' Anton'," quoth the bandit, as he caught hold of the horse's bridle, "shall I tell you the truth? Well, no offence to you!

I'm sorry for those poor young fellows! You'll pardon me, I hope; so good-looking, so strong, so young. Orlanduccio, I've shot with him so often! Only four days ago he gave me a bundle of cigars, and Vincentello--he was always so cheery. Of course you've only done what you had to do, and indeed the shot was such a splendid one, n.o.body could regret it. But I, you see, had nothing to do with your vengeance. I know you're perfectly in the right. When one has an enemy one must get rid of him. But the Barricini were an old family. Here's another of them wiped out, and by a right and left too! It's striking."

As he thus spoke his funeral oration over the Barricini, Brandolaccio hastily guided Orso, Chilina, and Brusco, the dog, toward the Stazzona _maquis_.

CHAPTER XVIII

Meanwhile, very shortly after Orso's departure, Colomba's spies had warned her that the Barricini were out on the warpath, and from that moment she was racked by the most intense anxiety. She was to be seen moving hither and thither all over the house, between the kitchen and the rooms that were being made ready for her guests, doing nothing, yet always busy, and constantly stopping to look out of a window for any unusual stir in the village. Toward eleven o'clock, a somewhat numerous cavalcade rode into Pietranera. This was the colonel, with his daughter, their servants, and their guide. Colomba's first word, as she welcomed them, was "Have you seen my brother?" Then she questioned the guide as to the road they had taken, and the hour of their departure, and having heard his answers, she could not understand why they had not met him.

"Perhaps," said the guide, "your brother took the higher path; we came by the lower one."

But Colomba only shook her head and asked more questions. In spite of her natural firmness of character, increased as it was by her proud desire to conceal any sign of weakness before strangers, she could not hide her anxiety, and as soon as she had informed them of the attempted reconciliation, and of its unfortunate issue, this was shared by the colonel and Miss Lydia. Miss Nevil became very uneasy, and wanted to have messengers sent off in every direction, and her father offered to remount at once and set out with the guide in search of Orso. Her guests' alarm recalled Colomba to a sense of her duties as a hostess.

She strove to force a smile as she pressed the colonel to come to table, and suggested twenty plausible reasons, which she herself demolished within an instant, to account for her brother's delay. The colonel, feeling it to be his duty, as a man, to rea.s.sure the ladies, put forward his own explanation.

"I'll wager," he said, "that della Rebbia has come across some game or other. He has not been able to stand out against that temptation, and we shall soon see him come in with a heavy bag. 'Pon my soul," he went on, "we did hear four shots fired on the road. Two of them were louder than the others, and I said to my girl, 'I'll bet anything that's della Rebbia out shooting! My gun is the only one that would make that noise.'"

Colomba turned pale, and Lydia, who was watching her closely, had no difficulty in guessing the suspicions with which the colonel's conjecture had inspired her. After a few minutes' silence, Colomba eagerly inquired whether the two louder reports had been heard before or after the others. But neither the colonel, his daughter, nor the guide had paid much attention to this all-important detail.

Toward one o'clock, as none of Colomba's messengers had yet returned, she gathered all her courage, and insisted that her guests should sit down to table with her. But, except the colonel, none of them could eat.

At the slightest sound in the square, Colomba ran to the window. Then drearily she returned to her place, and struggled yet more drearily to carry on a trivial conversation, to which n.o.body paid the slightest attention, and which was broken by long intervals of silence. All at once they heard a horse's gallop.