CHAPTER XVI
The following day went by without any hostile demonstration. Both sideskept on the defensive. Orso did not leave his house, and the door ofthe Barricini dwelling remained closely shut. The five gendarmes whohad been left to garrison Pietranera were to be seen walking about thesquare and the outskirts of the village, in company with the villageconstable, the sole representative of the urban police force. Thedeputy-mayor never put off his sash. But there was no actual symptomof war, except the loopholes in the two opponents' houses. Nobody buta Corsican would have noticed that the group round the evergreen oak inthe middle of the square consisted solely of women.
At supper-time Colomba gleefully showed her brother a letter she hadjust received from Miss Nevil.
"My dear Signorina Colomba," it ran, "I learn with great pleasure,through a letter from your brother, that your enmities are all at anend. I congratulate you heartily. My father can not endure Ajaccio nowyour brother is not there to talk about war and go out shooting withhim. We are starting to-day, and shall sleep at the house of yourkinswoman, to whom we have a letter. The day after to-morrow, somewhereabout eleven o'clock, I shall come and ask you to let me taste thatmountain _bruccio_ of yours, which you say is so vastly superior to whatwe get in the town.
"Farewell, dear Signorina Colomba.
"Your affectionate
"LYDIA NEVIL."
"Then she hasn't received my second letter!" exclaimed Orso.
"You see by the date of this one that Miss Lydia must have alreadystarted when your letter reached Ajaccio. But did you tell her not tocome?"
"I told her we were in a state of siege. That does not seem to me acondition that permits of our receiving company."
"Bah! These English people are so odd. The very last night I slept inher room she told me she would be sorry to leave Corsica without havingseen a good _vendetta_. If you choose, Orso, you might let her see anassault on our enemies' house."
"Do you know, Colomba," said Orso, "Nature blundered when she made you awoman. You'd have made a first-rate soldier."
"Maybe. Anyhow, I'm going to make my _bruccio_."
"Don't waste your time. We must send somebody down to warn them and stopthem before they start."
"Do you mean to say you would send a messenger out in such weather, tohave him and your letter both swept away by a torrent? How I pity thosepoor bandits in this storm! Luckily they have good _piloni_ (thick clothcloaks with hoods). Do you know what you ought to do, Orso. If the stormclears you should start off very early to-morrow morning, and get to ourkinswoman's house before they leave it. That will be easy enough, forMiss Lydia always gets up so late. You can tell them everything thathas happened here, and if they still persist in coming, why! we shall bevery glad to welcome them."
Orso lost no time in assenting to this plan, and after a few moments'silence, Colomba continued:
"Perhaps, Orso, you think I was joking when I talked of an assault onthe Barricini's house. Do you know we are in force--two to one at thevery least? Now that the prefect has suspended the mayor, every man inthe place is on our side. We might cut them to pieces. It would be quiteeasy to bring it about. If you liked, I could go over to thefountain and begin to jeer at their women folk. They would come out.Perhaps--they are such cowards!--they would fire at me through theirloopholes. They wouldn't hit me. Then the thing would be done. Theywould have begun the attack, and the beaten party must take its chance.How is anybody to know which person's aim has been true, in a scuffle?Listen to your own sister, Orso! These lawyers who are coming willblacken lots of paper, and talk a great deal of useless stuff. Nothingwill come of it all. That old fox will contrive to make them think theysee stars in broad midday. Ah! if the prefect hadn't thrown himself infront of Vincentello, we should have had one less to deal with."
All this was said with the same calm air as that with which she hadspoken, an instant previously, of her preparations for making the_bruccio_.
Orso, quite dumfounded, gazed at his sister with an admiration notunmixed with alarm.
"My sweet Colomba," he said, as he rose from the table, "I really amafraid you are the very devil. But make your mind easy. If I don'tsucceed in getting the Barricini hanged, I'll contrive to get the betterof them in some other fashion. 'Hot bullet or cold steel'--you see Ihaven't forgotten my Corsican."
"The sooner the better," said Colomba, with a sigh. "What horse will youride to-morrow, Ors' Anton'?"
"The black. Why do you ask?"
"So as to make sure he has some barley."
When Orso went up to his room, Colomba sent Saveria and the herdsmento their beds, and sat on alone in the kitchen, where the _bruccio_ wassimmering. Now and then she seemed to listen, and was apparently waitingvery anxiously for her brother to go to bed. At last, when she thoughthe was asleep, she took a knife, made sure it was sharp, slipped herlittle feet into thick shoes, and passed noiselessly out into thegarden.
This garden, which was inclosed by walls, lay next to a good-sized pieceof hedged ground, into which the horses were turned--for Corsican horsesdo not know what a stable means. They are generally turned loose intoa field, and left to themselves, to find pasture and shelter from coldwinds, as best they may.
Colomba opened the garden gate with the same precaution, entered theinclosure, and whistling gently, soon attracted the horses, to whom shehad often brought bread and salt. As soon as the black horse came withinreach, she caught him firmly by the mane, and split his ear open withher knife. The horse gave a violent leap, and tore off with thatshrill cry which sharp pain occasionally extorts from his kind. Quitesatisfied, Colomba was making her way back into the garden, when Orsothrew open his window and shouted, "Who goes there?" At the same timeshe heard him cock his gun. Luckily for her the garden-door lay in theblackest shadow, and was partly screened by a large fig-tree. Shevery soon gathered, from the light she saw glancing up and down in herbrother's room, that he was trying to light his lamp. She lost no timeabout closing the garden-door, and slipping along the wall, so that theoutline of her black garments was lost against the dark foliage ofthe fruit-trees, and succeeded in getting back into the kitchen a fewmoments before Orso entered it.
"What's the matter?" she inquired.
"I fancied I heard somebody opening the garden-door," said Orso.
"Impossible! The dog would have barked. But let us go and see!"
Orso went round the garden, and having made sure that the outer doorwas safely secured, he was going back to his room, rather ashamed of hisfalse alarm.
"I am glad, brother," remarked Colomba, "that you are learning to beprudent, as a man in your position ought to be."
"You are training me well," said Orso. "Good-night!"
By dawn the next morning Orso was up and ready to start. His style ofdress betrayed the desire for smartness felt by every man bound for thepresence of the lady he would fain please, combined with the cautionof a Corsican _in vendetta_. Over a blue coat, that sat closely to hisfigure, he wore a small tin case full of cartridges, slung across hisshoulder by a green silk cord. His dagger lay in his side pocket, andin his hand he carried his handsome Manton, ready loaded. While he washastily swallowing the cup of coffee Colomba had poured out for him,one of the herdsmen went out to put the bridle and saddle on the blackhorse. Orso and his sister followed close on his heels and entered thefield. The man had caught the horse, but he had dropped both saddleand bridle, and seemed quite paralyzed with horror, while the horse,remembering the wound it had received during the night, and tremblingfor its other ear, was rearing, kicking, and neighing like twentyfiends.
"Now then! Make haste!" shouted Orso.
"Ho, Ors' Anton'! Ho, Ors' Anton'!" yelled the herdsman. "Holy Madonna!"and he poured out a string of imprecations, numberless, endless, andmost of them quite untranslatable.
"What can be the matter?" inquired Colomba. They all drew near to thehorse, and at the sight of the creature's bleeding head and split earthere was a general outcry of surprise and ind
ignation. My readers mustknow that among the Corsicans to mutilate an enemy's horse is at once avengeance, a challenge, and a mortal threat. "Nothing but a bullet-woundcan expiate such a crime."
Though Orso, having lived so long on the mainland, was not so sensitiveas other Corsicans to the enormity of the insult, still, if anysupporter of the Barricini had appeared in his sight at that moment, hewould probably have taken vengeance on him for the outrage he ascribedto his enemies.
"The cowardly wretches!" he cried. "To avenge themselves on a poorbrute, when they dare not meet me face to face!"
"What are we waiting for?" exclaimed Colomba vehemently. "They comehere and brave us! They mutilate our horses! and we are not to make anyresponse? Are you men?"
"Vengeance!" shouted the herdsmen. "Let us lead the horse through thevillage, and attack their house!"
"There's a thatched barn that touches their Tower," said old PoloGriffo; "I'd set fire to it in a trice."
Another man wanted to fetch the ladders out of the church steeple. Athird proposed they should break in the doors of the house with a heavybeam intended for some house in course of building, which had been leftlying in the square. Amid all the angry voices Colomba was heard tellingher satellites that before they went to work she would give each man ofthem a large glass of anisette.
Unluckily, or rather luckily, the impression she had expected to produceby her own cruel treatment of the poor horse was largely lost on Orso.He felt no doubt that the savage mutilation was due to one of his foes,and he specially suspected Orlanduccio; but he did not believe that theyoung man, whom he himself had provoked and struck, had wiped outhis shame by slitting a horse's ear. On the contrary, this mean andridiculous piece of vengeance had increased Orso's scorn for hisopponents, and he now felt, with the prefect, that such people were notworthy to try conclusions with himself. As soon as he was able to makehimself heard, he informed his astonished partisans that they would haveto relinquish all their bellicose intentions, and that the power of thelaw, which would shortly be on the spot, would amply suffice to avengethe hurt done to a horse's ear.
"I'm master here!" he added sternly; "and I insist on being obeyed. Thefirst man who dares to say anything more about killing or burning, willquite possibly get a scorching at my hands! Be off! Saddle me the grayhorse!"
"What's this, Orso?" said Colomba, drawing him apart. "You allow thesepeople to insult us? No Barricini would have dared to mutilate any beastof ours in my father's time."
"I promise you they shall have reason to repent it. But it is gendarme'sand jailer's work to punish wretches who only venture to raise theirhands against brute beasts. I've told you already, the law will punishthem; and if not, you will not need to remind me whose son I am."
"Patience!" answered Colomba, with a sigh.
"Remember this, sister," continued Orso; "if I find, when I come back,that any demonstration whatever has been made against the BarriciniI shall never forgive you." Then, in a gentler tone, he added, "Verypossibly--very probably--I shall bring the colonel and his daughter backwith me. See that their rooms are well prepared, and that the breakfastis good. In fact, let us make our guests as comfortable as we can. It'sa very good thing to be brave, Colomba, but a woman must know how tomanage her household, as well. Come, kiss me, and be good! Here's thegray, ready saddled."
"Orso," said Colomba, "you mustn't go alone."
"I don't need anybody," replied Orso; "and I'll promise you nobody shallslit my ear."
"Oh, I'll never consent to your going alone, while there is a feud.Here! Polo Griffo! Gian' Franco! Memmo! Take your guns; you must go withmy brother."
After a somewhat lively argument, Orso had to give in, and accept anescort. From the most excited of the herdsmen he chose out those who hadbeen loudest in their desire to commence hostilities; then, after layingfresh injunctions on his sister and the men he was leaving behind, hestarted, making a detour, this time, so as to avoid the Barricinis'dwelling.
They were a long way from Pietranera, and were travelling along at agreat pace, when, as they crossed a streamlet that ran into a marsh,Polo Griffo noticed several porkers wallowing comfortably in the mud, infull enjoyment at once of the warmth of the sun and the coolness of thewater. Instantly he took aim at the biggest, fired at its head, and shotit dead. The dead creature's comrades rose and fled with astonishingswiftness, and though another herdsman fired at them they reached athicket and disappeared into it, safe and sound.
"Idiots!" cried Orso. "You've been taking pigs for wild boars!"
"Not a bit, Ors' Anton'," replied Polo Griffo. "But that herd belongs tothe lawyer, and I've taught him, now, to mutilate our horses."
"What! you rascal!" shouted Orso, in a perfect fury. "You ape the vilebehaviour of our enemies! Be off, villains! I don't want you! You'reonly fit to fight with pigs. I swear to God that if you dare follow meI'll blow your brains out!"
The herdsmen stared at each other, struck quite dumb. Orso spurred hishorse, galloped off, and was soon out of sight.
"Well, well!" said Polo Griffo. "Here's a pretty thing. You devoteyourself to people, and then this is how they treat you. His father, thecolonel, was angry with you long ago, because you levelled your gun atthe lawyer. Great idiot you were, not to shoot. And now here is his son.You saw what I did for him. And he talks about cracking my skull, justas he would crack a gourd that lets the wine leak out. That's whatpeople learn on the mainland, Memmo!"
"Yes, and if any one finds out it was you who killed that pig there'llbe a suit against you, and Ors' Anton' won't speak to the judges, norbuy off the lawyer for you. Luckily nobody saw, and you have Saint Negato help you out."
After a hasty conclave, the two herdsmen concluded their wisest planwas to throw the dead pig into a bog, and this project they carefullyexecuted, after each had duly carved himself several slices out of thebody of this innocent victim of the feud between the Barricini and thedella Rebbia.