nstantly responded. Miss Lydia screamed
and Brandolaccio swore an oath, but he doubled his pace, and Colomba,
imitating him, tore through the thicket without paying the slightest
heed to the branches that slashed her face and tore her dress.

"Bend down, bend down, dear!" she called out to her companion. "You may
be hit by some stray bullet!"

They had walked, or rather run, some five hundred paces in this fashion
when Brandolaccio vowed he could go no further, and dropped on the
ground, regardless of all Colomba's exhortations and reproaches.

"Where is Miss Nevil?" was Orso's one inquiry.

Terrified by the firing, checked at every step by the thick growth of
the _maquis_, Miss Nevil had soon lost sight of the fugitives, and been
left all alone in a state of the most cruel alarm.

"She has been left behind," said Brandolaccio, "but she'll not be
lost--women always turn up again. Do listen to the row the Padre is
making with your gun, Ors' Anton'! Unluckily, it's as black as pitch,
and nobody takes much harm from being shot at in the dark."

"Hush!" cried Colomba. "I hear a horse. We're saved!"

Startled by the firing, a horse which had been wandering through the
_maquis_, was really coming close up to them.

"Saved, indeed!" repeated Brandolaccio. It did not take the bandit more
than an instant to rush up to the creature, catch hold of his mane, and
with Colomba's assistance, bridle him with a bit of knotted rope.

"Now we must warn the Padre," he said. He whistled twice; another
distant whistle answered the signal, and the loud voice of the Manton
gun was hushed. Then Brandolaccio sprang on the horse's back. Colomba
lifted her brother up in front of the bandit, who held him close with
one hand and managed his bridle with the other.

In spite of the double load, the animal, urged by a brace of hearty
kicks, started off nimbly, and galloped headlong down a steep declivity
on which anything but a Corsican steed would have broken its neck a
dozen times.

Then Colomba retraced her steps, calling Miss Nevil at the top of her
voice; but no answering cry was heard.

After walking hither and thither for some time, trying to recover the
path, she stumbled on two riflemen, who shouted, "Who goes there?"

"Well, gentlemen," cried Colomba jeeringly, "here's a pretty racket! How
many of you are killed?"

"You were with the bandits!" said one of the soldiers. "You must come
with us."

"With pleasure!" she replied.