es, her
heightened colour, her alternate fits of anxiety and composure, would
have found it hard to say whether distress at her brother's wound, or
delight at the extinction of her foes, were most affecting her. One
moment she was pouring out the colonel's coffee, and telling him how
well she made it, the next she was setting Miss Lydia and Chilina to
work, exhorting them to sew bandages, and roll them up. Then, for the
twentieth time, she would ask whether Orso's wound was very painful. She
constantly broke off her own work to exclaim to the colonel:

"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,