Colomba

Orso wore his new clothes at breakfast, and during that meal he told his sister that his trunk contained a certain number of books, that he was going to send to France and Italy for others, and intended she should study a great deal.

“For it really is disgraceful, Colomba,” he added, “that a grown-up girl like you should still be ignorant of things that children on the mainland know as soon as they are weaned.”

“You are right, brother,” said Colomba. “I know my own shortcomings quite well, and I shall be too glad to learn—especially if you are kind enough to teach me.”

Some days went by, and Colomba never mentioned the name of Barricini. She lavished care and attention on her brother, and often talked to him about Miss Nevil. Orso made her read French and Italian books, and was constantly being surprised either by the correctness and good sense of her comments, or by her utter ignorance on the most ordinary subjects.

One morning, after breakfast, Colomba left the room for a moment, and instead of returning as usual, with a book and some sheets of paper, reappeared with her mezzaro on her head. The expression of her countenance was even more serious than it generally was.

“Brother,” she said, “I want you to come out with me.”

“Where do you want me to go with you?” said Orso, holding out his arm.

“I don’t want your arm, brother, but take your gun and your cartridge-pouch. A man should never go abroad without his arms.”

“So be it. I must follow the fashion. Where are we going?”

Colomba, without answering, drew her mezzaro closer about her head, called the watch-dog, and went out followed by her brother. Striding swiftly out of the village, she turned into a sunken road that wound among the vineyards, sending on the dog, to whom she made some gesture, which he seemed to understand, in front of her. He instantly began to run zigzag fashion, through the vines, first on one side and then on the other, always keeping within about fifty paces of his mistress, and occasionally stopping in the middle of the road and wagging his tail. He seemed to perform his duties as a scout in the most perfect fashion imaginable.

“If Muschetto begins to bark, brother,” said Colomba, “cock your gun, and stand still.”

Half a mile beyond the village, after making many detours, Colomba stopped short, just where there was a bend in the road. On that spot there rose a little pyramid of branches, some of them green, some withered, heaped about three feet high. Above them rose the top of a wooden cross, painted black. In several of the Corsican cantons, especially those among the mountains, a very ancient custom, connected, it may be with some pagan superstition, constrains every passer-by to cast either a stone or a branch on the spot whereon a man has died a violent death. For years and years—as long as the memory of his tragic fate endures—this strange offering goes on accumulating from day to day.

This is called the dead man’s pile—his “mucchio.”

Colomba stopped before the heap of foliage, broke off an arbutus branch, and cast it on the pile.

“Orso,” she said, “this is where your father died. Let us pray for his soul!”

And she knelt down. Orso instantly followed her example. At that moment the village church-bell tolled slowly for a man who had died during the preceding night. Orso burst into tears.

After a few minutes Colomba rose. Her eyes were dry, but her face was eager. She hastily crossed herself with her thumb, after the fashion generally adopted by her companions, to seal any solemn oath, then, hurrying her brother with her, she took her way back to the village. They re-entered their house in silence. Orso went up to his room. A moment afterward Colomba followed him, carrying a small casket which she set upon the table. Opening it, she drew out a shirt, covered with great stains of blood.

“Here is your father’s shirt, Orso!”

And she threw it across his knees. “Here is the lead that killed him!” And she laid two blackened bullets on the shirt.

“Orso! Brother!” she cried, throwing herself into his arms and clasping him desperately to her. “Orso, you will avenge him!”

In a sort of frenzy she kissed him, then kissed the shirt and the bullets, and went out of the room, leaving her brother sitting on his chair, as if he had been turned to stone. For some time Orso sat motionless, not daring to put the terrible relics away. At last, with an effort, he laid them back in their box, rushed to the opposite end of his room, and threw himself on his bed, with his face turned to the wall, and his head buried in his pillow, as though he were trying to shut out the sight of some ghost. His sister’s last words rang unceasingly in his ears, like the words of an oracle, fatal, inevitable, calling out to him for blood, and for innocent blood! I shall not attempt to depict the unhappy young man’s sensations, which were as confused as those that overwhelm a madman’s brain. For a long time he lay in the same position, without daring to turn his head. At last he got up, closed the lid of the casket, and rushed headlong out of the house, into the open country, moving aimlessly forward, whither he knew not.

By degrees, the fresh air did him good. He grew calmer, and began to consider his position, and his means of escape from it, with some composure. He did not, as my readers already know, suspect the Barricini of the murder, but he did accuse them of having forged Agostini’s letter, and this letter, he believed, at any rate, had brought about his father’s death. He felt it was impossible to prosecute them for the forgery. Now and then, when the prejudices or the instincts of his race assailed him, and suggested an easy vengeance—a shot fired at the corner of some path—the thought of his brother-officers, of Parisian drawing-rooms, and above all, of Miss Nevil, made him shrink from them in horror. Then his mind dwelt on his sister’s reproaches, and all the Corsican within him justified her appeal, and even intensified its bitterness. One hope alone remained to him, in this battle between his conscience and his prejudices—the hope that, on some pretext or other, he might pick a quarrel with one of the lawyer’s sons, and fight a duel with him. The idea of killing the young man, either by a bullet or a sword-thrust reconciled his French and Corsican ideas. This expedient adopted, he began to meditate means for its execution, and was feeling relieved already of a heavy burden, when other and gentler thoughts contributed still further to calm his feverish agitation. Cicero, in his despair at the death of his daughter Tullia, forgot his sorrow when he mused over all the fine things he might say about it. Mr. Shandy consoled himself by discourses of the same nature for the loss of his son. Orso cooled his blood by thinking that he would depict his state of mind to Miss Nevil, and that such a picture could not fail to interest that fair lady deeply.

He was drawing near the village, from which he had unconsciously travelled a considerable distance, when he heard the voice of a little girl, who probably believed herself to be quite alone, singing in a path that ran along the edge of the maquis. It was one of those slow, monotonous airs consecrated to funeral dirges, and the child was singing the words:

“And when my son shall see again the dwelling of his father, Give him that murdered father’s cross; show him my shirt bloodspattered.”

“What’s that you’re singing, child?” said Orso, in an angry voice, as he suddenly appeared before her.

“Is that you, Ors’ Anton’?” exclaimed the child, rather startled. “It is Signorina Colomba’s song.”

“I forbid you to sing it!” said Orso, in a threatening voice.

The child kept turning her head this way and that, as though looking about for a way of escape, and she would certainly have run off had she not been held back by the necessity of taking care of a large bundle which lay on the grass, at her feet.

Orso felt ashamed of his own vehemence. “What are you carrying there, little one?” said he, with all the gentleness he could muster. And as Chilina hesitated, he lifted up the linen that was wrapped round the bundle, and saw it contained a loaf of bread and other food.

“To whom are you bringing the loaf, my dear?” he asked again.

“You know quite well, Ors’ Anton’: to my uncle.”

“And isn’t your uncle a bandit?”

“At your service, Ors’ Anton’.”

“If you met the gendarmes, they would ask you where you were going. . . .”

“I should tell them,” the child replied, at once, “that I was taking food to the men from Lucca who were cutting down the maquis.”

“And if you came across some hungry hunter who insisted on dining at your expense, and took your provisions away from you?”

“Nobody would dare! I would say they are for my uncle!”

“Well! he’s not the sort of man to let himself be cheated of his dinner! . . . Is your uncle very fond of you?”

“Oh, yes, Ors’ Anton’. Ever since my father died, he has taken care of my whole family—my mother and my little sister, and me. Before mother was ill, he used to recommend her to rich people, who gave her employment. The mayor gives me a frock every year, and the priest has taught me my catechism, and how to read, ever since my uncle spoke to them about us. But your sister is kindest of all to us!”

Just at this moment a dog ran out on the pathway. The little girl put two of her fingers into her mouth and gave a shrill whistle, the dog came to her at once, fawned upon her, and then plunged swiftly into the thicket. Soon two men, ill-dressed, but very well armed, rose up out of a clump of young wood a few paces from where Orso stood. It was as though they had crawled up like snakes through the tangle of cytisus and myrtle that covered the ground.

“Oh, Ors’ Anton’, you’re welcome!” said the elder of the two men. “Why, don’t you remember me?”

“No!” said Orso, looking hard at him.

“Queer how a beard and a peaked cap alter a man! Come, monsieur, look at me well! Have you forgotten your old Waterloo men? Don’t you remember Brando Savelli, who bit open more than one cartridge alongside of you on that unlucky day?”

“What! Is it you?” said Orso. “And you deserted in 1816!”

“Even so, sir. Faith! soldiering grows tiresome, and besides, I had a job to settle over in this country. Aha, Chili! You’re a good girl! Give us our dinner at once, we’re hungry. You’ve no notion what an appetite one gets in the maquis. Who sent us this—was it Signorina Colomba or the mayor?”

“No, uncle, it was the miller’s wife. She gave me this for you, and a blanket for my mother.”

“What does she want of me?”

“She says the Lucchesi she hired to clear the maquis are asking her five-and-thirty sous, and chestnuts as well—because of the fever in the lower parts of Pietranera.”

“The lazy scamps! . . . I’ll see to them! . . . Will you share our dinner, monsieur, without any ceremony? We’ve eaten worse meals together, in the days of that poor compatriot of ours, whom they have discharged from the army.”

“No, I thank you heartily. They have discharged me, too!”