Colomba Part 6

Thus the two characters, together, form this motto, which strikes me as a fine one, '_Life is a battle_.' Pray do not fancy I can translate hieroglyphics at sight! It was a man learned in such matters who explained these to me. Here, I will give you my scarabaeus. Whenever you feel some wicked Corsican thought stir in you, look at my talisman, and tell yourself you must win the battle our evil pa.s.sions wage against us.

Why, really, I don't preach at all badly!"

"I shall think of you, Miss Nevil, and I shall say to myself----"

"Say to yourself you have a friend who would be in despair at the idea of your being hanged--and besides it would be too distressing for your ancestors the corporals!"

With these words she dropped Orso's arm, laughing and running to her father.

"Papa," she said, "do leave those poor birds alone, and come and make up poetry with us, in Napoleon's grotto!"

CHAPTER VIII

There is always a certain solemnity about a departure, even when the separation is only to be a short one. Orso and his sister were to start very early in the morning, and he had taken his leave of Miss Lydia the night before--for he had no hope that she would disturb her indolent habits on his account. Their farewells had been cold and grave. Since that conversation on the sea-sh.o.r.e, Miss Lydia had been afraid she had perhaps shown too strong an interest in Orso, and on the other hand, her jests, and more especially her careless tone, lay heavy on Orso's heart.

At one moment he had thought the young Englishwoman's manner betrayed a budding feeling of affection, but now, put out of countenance by her jests, he told himself she only looked on him as a mere acquaintance, who would be soon forgotten. Great, therefore, was his surprise, next morning, when, as he sat at coffee with the colonel, he saw Miss Lydia come into the room, followed by his sister. She had risen at five o'clock, and for an Englishwoman, and especially for Miss Nevil, the effort was so great that it could not but give him some cause for vanity.

"I am so sorry you should have disturbed yourself so early," said Orso.

"No doubt my sister woke you up in spite of my injunctions, and you must hate us heartily! Perhaps you wish I was hanged already!"

"No," said Miss Lydia, very low and in Italian, evidently so that her father might not hear her, "but you were somewhat sulky with me yesterday, because of my innocent jokes, and I would not have you carry away an unpleasant recollection of your humble servant. What terrible people you are, you Corsicans! Well, good-bye! We shall meet soon, I hope."

And she held out her hand.

A sigh was the only answer Orso could find. Colomba came to his side, led him into a window, and spoke to him for a moment in an undertone, showing him something she held under her _mezzaro_.

"Mademoiselle," said Orso to Miss Nevil, "my sister is anxious to give you a very odd present, but we Corsicans have not much to offer--except our affection--which time never wipes out. My sister tells me you have looked with some curiosity at this dagger. It is an ancient possession in our family. It probably hung, once upon a time, at the belt of one of those corporals, to whom I owe the honour of your acquaintance. Colomba thinks it so precious that she has asked my leave to give it to you, and I hardly know if I ought to grant it, for I am afraid you'll laugh at us!"

"The dagger is beautiful," said Miss Lydia. "But it is a family weapon, I can not accept it!"

"It's not my father's dagger," exclaimed Colomba eagerly; "it was given to one of mother's ancestors by King Theodore. If the signorina will accept it, she will give us great pleasure."

"Come, Miss Lydia," said Orso, "don't scorn a king's dagger!"

To a collector, relics of King Theodore are infinitely more precious than those of the most powerful of monarchs. The temptation was a strong one, and already Miss Lydia could see the effect the weapon would produce laid out on a lacquered table in her room at St. James's Place.

"But," said she, taking the dagger with the hesitating air of one who longs to accept, and casting one of her most delightful smiles on Colomba, "dear Signorina Colomba . . . I can not . . . I should not dare to let you depart thus, unarmed."

"My brother is with me," said Colomba proudly, "and we have the good gun your father has given us. Orso, have you put a bullet in it?"

Miss Nevil kept the dagger, and to avert the danger consequent on _giving_ instruments that cut or pierce to a friend, Colomba insisted on receiving a soldo in payment.

A start had to be made at last. Yet once again Orso pressed Miss Nevil's hand, Colomba kissed her, and then held up her rosy lips to the colonel, who was enchanted with this Corsican politeness. From the window of the drawing-room Miss Lydia watched the brother and sister mount their horses. Colomba's eyes shone with a malignant joy which she had never remarked in them before. The sight of this tall strong creature, with her fanatical ideas of savage honour, pride written on her forehead, and curled in a sardonic smile upon her lips, carrying off the young man with his weapons, as though on some death-dealing errand, recalled Orso's fears to her, and she fancied she beheld his evil genius dragging him to his ruin. Orso, who was already in the saddle, raised his head and caught sight of her. Either because he had guessed her thought, or desired to send her a last farewell, he took the Egyptian ring, which he had hung upon a ribbon, and carried it to his lips. Blushing, Miss Lydia stepped back from the window, then returning to it almost at once, she saw the two Corsicans cantering their little ponies rapidly toward the mountains. Half an hour later the colonel showed them to her, through his gla.s.ses, riding along the end of the bay, and she noticed that Orso constantly turned his head toward the town. At last he disappeared behind the marshes, the site of which is now filled by a flourishing nursery garden.

Miss Lydia glanced at herself in the gla.s.s, and thought she looked pale.

"What must that young man think of me," said she, "and what did I think of him? And why did I think about him? . . . A travelling acquaintance!

. . . What have I come to Corsica for? . . . Oh! I don't care for him!

. . . No! no! and besides the thing is impossible . . . And Colomba . . .

Fancy me sister-in-law to a _voceratrice_, who wears a big dagger!"

And she noticed she was still holding King Theodore's dagger in her hand. She tossed it on to her toilette table. "Colomba, in London, dancing at Almacks! . . . Good heavens! what a lion[*] that would be, to show off! . . . Perhaps she'd make a great sensation! . . . He loves me, I'm certain of it! He is the hero of a novel, and I have interrupted his adventurous career. . . . But did he really long to avenge his father in true Corsican fashion? . . . He was something between a Conrad and a dandy . . . I've turned him into nothing but a dandy! . . . And a dandy with a Corsican tailor! . . ."

[*] At this period this name was used in England for people who were the fashion because they had something extraordinary about them.

She threw herself on her bed, and tried to sleep--but that proved an impossibility, and I will not undertake to continue her soliloquy, during which she declared, more than a hundred times over, that Signor della Rebbia had not been, was not, and never should be, anything to her.

CHAPTER IX

Meanwhile Orso was riding along beside his sister. At first the speed at which their horses moved prevented all conversation, but when the hills grew so steep that they were obliged to go at a foot's pace, they began to exchange a few words about the friends from whom they had just parted. Colomba spoke with admiration of Miss Nevil's beauty, of her golden hair, and charming ways. Then she asked whether the colonel was really as rich as he appeared, and whether Miss Lydia was his only child.

"She would be a good match," said she. "Her father seems to have a great liking for you----"

And as Orso made no response, she added: "Our family was rich, in days gone by. It is still one of the most respected in the island. All these _signori_ about us are b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. The only n.o.ble blood left is in the families of the corporals, and as you know, Orso, your ancestors were the chief corporals in the island. You know our family came from beyond the hills, and it was the civil wars that forced us over to this side.

If I were you, Orso, I shouldn't hesitate--I should ask Colonel Nevil for his daughter's hand." Orso shrugged his shoulders. "With her fortune, you might buy the Falsetta woods, and the vineyards below ours.

I would build a fine stone house, and add a story to the old tower in which Sambucuccio killed so many Moors in the days of Count Henry, _il bel Missere_."

"Colomba, you're talking nonsense," said Orso, cantering forward.

"You are a man, Ors' Anton', and of course you know what you ought to do better than any woman. But I should very much like to know what objection that Englishman could have to the marriage. Are there any corporals in England?"

After a somewhat lengthy ride, spent in talking in this fashion, the brother and sister reached a little village, not far from Bocognano, where they halted to dine and sleep at a friend's house. They were welcomed with a hospitality which must be experienced before it can be appreciated. The next morning, their host, who had stood G.o.dfather to a child to whom Madame della Rebbia had been G.o.dmother, accompanied them a league beyond his house.

"Do you see those woods and thickets?" said he to Orso, just as they were parting. "A man who had met with a misfortune might live there peacefully for ten years, and no gendarme or soldier would ever come to look for him. The woods run into the Vizzavona forest, and anybody who had friends at Bocognano or in the neighbourhood would want for nothing.

That's a good gun you have there. It must carry a long way. Blood of the Madonna! What calibre! You might kill better game than boars with it!"

Orso answered, coldly, that his gun was of English make, and carried "the lead" a long distance. The friends embraced, and took their different ways.

Our travellers were drawing quite close to Pietranera, when, at the entrance of a little gorge, through which they had to pa.s.s, they beheld seven or eight men, armed with guns, some sitting on stones, others lying on the gra.s.s, others standing up, and seemingly on the lookout.

Their horses were grazing a little way off. Colomba looked at them for a moment, through a spy-gla.s.s which she took out of one of the large leathern pockets all Corsicans wear when on a journey.

"Those are our men!" she cried, with a well-pleased air. "Pieruccio had done his errand well!"

"What men?" inquired Orso.

"Our herdsmen," she replied. "I sent Pieruccio off yesterday evening to call the good fellows together, so that they may attend you home. It would not do for you to enter Pietranera without an escort, and besides, you must know the Barricini are capable of anything!"

"Colomba," said Orso, and his tone was severe, "I have asked you, over and over again, not to mention the Barricini and your groundless suspicions to me. I shall certainly not make myself ridiculous by riding home with all these loafers behind me, and I am very angry with you for having sent for them without telling me."

"Brother, you have forgotten the ways of your own country. It is my business to protect you, when your own imprudence exposes you to danger.

It was my duty to do what I have done."

Just at that moment the herdsmen, who had caught sight of them, hastened to their horses, and galloped down the hill to meet them.

"Evvviva Ors' Anton'!" shouted a brawny, white-bearded old fellow, wrapped, despite the heat, in a hooded cloak of Corsican cloth, thicker than the skins of his own goats. "The image of his father, only taller and stronger! What a splendid gun! There'll be talk about that gun, Ors'

Anton'!"