and the
deputy-mayor, throwing up his hands, and incessantly repeating, "What
will Signor Prefetto say!" Some of the women, among them Orlanduccio's
foster-mother, were tearing their hair and shrieking wildly. But their
clamorous grief was less impressive than the dumb despair of one man, on
whom all eyes were fixed. This was the wretched father, who passed from
one corpse to the other, lifting up the earth-soiled heads, kissing the
blackened lips, supporting the limbs that were stiff already, as if he
would save them from the jolting of the road. Now and then he opened his
mouth as though about to speak, but not a cry came, not a word. His eyes
never left the dead bodies, and as he walked, he knocked himself against
the stones, against the trees, against every obstacle that chanced to
lie in his path.

The women's lamentations grew louder, and the men's curses deeper, when
Orso's house appeared in sight. When some shepherds of the della Rebbia
party ventured on a triumphant shout, their enemy's indignation became
ungovernable. "Vengeance! Vengeance!" exclaimed several voices. Stones
were thrown, and two shots, fired at the windows of the room in which
Colomba and her guests were sitting, pierced the outside shutters, and
carried splinters of wood on to the table at which the two ladies were
working. Miss Lydia screamed violently, the colonel snatched up a gun,
and Colomba, before he could stop her, rushed to the door of the house
and threw it violently open. There, standing high on the threshold, with
her two hands outstretched to curse her enemies:

"Cowards!" she cried. "You fire on women and on foreigners! Are you
Corsicans? Are you men? Wretches, who can only murder a man from behind.
Come on! I defy you! I am alone! My brother is far away! Come! kill
me, kill my guests! It would be worthy of you! . . . But you dare not,
cowards that you are! You know we avenge our wrongs! Away with you! Go,
weep like women, and be thankful we do not ask you for more blood!"

There was something terrible and imposing in Colomba's voice and mien.
At the sight of her the crowd recoiled as though it beheld one of those
evil fairies of which so many tales are told on long winter evenings,
in Corsica. The deputy-mayor, the gendarmes, and a few women seized
the opportunity, and threw themselves between the two factions; for the
della Rebbia herdsmen were already loading their guns, and for a moment
a general fight in the middle of the