tween thumb and forefinger. The Corsicans broke into quick
guttural cries, as men hailing a miracle. As Nat's head fell back
limp against my shoulder I saw the Princess turn and walk away alone.
Her followers dispersed by degrees, but not, I should say, until
every man had explained to every other his own theory of the wound
and the operation, and how my father had come to find the bullet so
unerringly, each theorist tapping his own chest and back, or his
interlocutor's, sometimes a couple tapping each other with vigour,
neither listening, both jabbering at full pitch of the voice with
prodigious elisions of consonants and equally prodigious drawlings of
the vowels. For us, the dressing of the wound kept us busy, and we
paid little attention even when a fresh jabbering announced that the
litter-bearers had arrived with Giuseppe.

By-and-by, however, my father rose from his knees and, leaving me to
fasten the last bandages, strolled across the slope to see how his
other patient had borne the journey. Just at that moment I heard
again a voice calling to the Princess Camilla: "Ajo, ajo! O
principessa, veni qui!" and simultaneously the voice of Billy Priske
uplifted in an incongruous British oath.

My father halted with a gesture of annoyance, checked himself, and,
awaiting the Princess, pointed towards an object on the turf--an
object at which Billy Priske, too, was pointing.

It appeared that while his comrades had been attending on Giuseppe,
the third Corsican (whom they called Ste, or Stephanu) had filled up
his time by rifling our camp; and of all our possessions he had
chosen to select our half-dozen spare muskets and a burst coffer,
from which he now extracted and (for his comrade's admiration) held
aloft our chiefest treasure--the Iron Crown of Corsica.

"Princess," said my father, coldly, "your men have broken faith.
I came to you under no compulsion, obeying your flag of truce.
It was no part of the bargain that our camp should be pillaged."

For a while she did not seem to hear; but stood at gaze, her eyes
round with wonder.

"Stephanu, bring it here," she commanded.

The man brought it. "O principessa," said he, with a wondering grin,
"who are these that travel with royal crowns? If we were true folk
of the _macchia_, now, we could hold them at a fine ransom."

She took the crown, examined it for a moment, and turning to my
father, spoke to him swiftly in French.

"How came you by this, O Englis