ts.)

Adamo, a stout, big-limbed man, bull-necked--with large lazy eyes and
a black beard as thick as horse-hair, a rifle slung by a leather strap
across his chest, answered out of the shrubs--now blackening in the
twilight: "I am here, padrona, command me."

"Adamo, who is shooting on my land?"

"Padrona, I do not know."

"Where is Angelo?"

"Here am I," answered a childish voice, and a ragged, loose-limbed
lad--a shock of chestnut hair, out of which the sun had taken all
the color, hanging over his face, from which his merry eyes
twinkle--leaped out on the gravel.

"You do not know, Adamo? What does this mean? You ought to know. I am
but just come back, and there are strangers about already with guns.
Is this the way you serve me, Adamo?--and I pay you a crown a month.
You idle vagabond!"

"Padrona," spoke Adamo in a deep voice--"I am here alone--this boy
helps me but little."

"Alone, Adamo! you dare to say alone, and you have the dogs? Hear how
they bark--they have heard the shot too--good dogs, good dogs, they
are left me--alone.--Argo is stronger than three men; Argo knocks over
any one, and he is trained to follow on the scent like a bloodhound.
Adamo, you are an idiot!" Adamo hung his head, either in shame or
rage, but he dared not reply.

"Now take the dogs out with you instantly--you hear, Adamo? Argo, and
Ponto the bull-dog, and Tuzzi and the others. Take them and go down at
once to the bottom of the cliffs. Search among the rocks everywhere.
Creep along the vines-terraces, and through the olive-grounds. Be sure
when you go down below the cliffs to search the mouth of the chasm.
Go at once. Set the dogs on all you find. Argo will pin them. He is a
brave dog. With Argo you are stronger than any one you will meet. If
you catch any men, take them at once to the municipality. Wretches,
they deserve it!--poaching in my woods! Listen--before you go, tell
Pipa to come to me soon."

Pipa's footsteps came clattering up the stairs to the marchesa's room.
The light of the lamp she carried--for it was already dark within
the tower--caught the spray of the fountain outside as she passed the
narrow slits that served for windows.

"Pipa," said the marchesa, as she stood before her in the doorway, a
broad smile on her merry brown face, "set that lamp on the desk here
before me. So--that will do. Now go up-stairs and tell the Signorina
Enrica that I bid her 'Good-night,' and that I will see her to-morrow
morni