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Another bandit, known by the name of Brandolaccio, sent Colomba a declaration in which he bore witness "on his honour" to his comrade's innocence but the only proof he put forward was that Agostini had never told him that he suspected the colonel.
"I should like to see you get out of this country," said Orso, "and lead a quieter life. For instance, why shouldn't you settle in Sardinia, as several of your comrades have done? I could make the matter easy for you." "In Sardinia!" cried Brandolaccio. "Istos Sardos! Devil take them and their lingo! We couldn't live in such bad company."
"In case of pressing need," said Orso, "a few gold coins are very useful. "No money between you and me, sir," said Brandolaccio resolutely. "In the world money is everything," remarked Castriconi, "but in the maquis, all a man need care for is a brave heart, and a gun that carries true." "I don't want to leave you without giving you something to remember me by," persisted Orso.
All this while the little girl was ravenously devouring a bit of bread, and carefully watching Colomba and her brother, turn about, trying to read the meaning of what they were saying in their eyes. "And what has this bandit of yours done? What crime has driven him into the maquis?" "Brandolaccio has not committed any crime," exclaimed Colomba.
Terrified by the firing, checked at every step by the thick growth of the maquis, Miss Nevil had soon lost sight of the fugitives, and been left all alone in a state of the most cruel alarm. "She has been left behind," said Brandolaccio, "but she'll not be lost women always turn up again.
Then again he broke off the dressing of the wound to exclaim: "A right and left! Both of them stone dead! How the Padre will laugh! A right and left! Oh, here's that little dawdle Chilina at last!" Orso made no reply he was as pale as death and shaking in every limb. "Chili!" shouted Brandolaccio, "go and look behind that wall!"
"A poor student of theology, monsieur," quoth the second bandit, "who has been prevented from following his vocation. Who knows, Brandolaccio, I might have been Pope!" "What was it that deprived the Church of your learning?" inquired Orso. "A mere nothing a bill that had to be settled, as my friend Brandolaccio puts it.
In spite of Orso's protests, archere were arranged in the windows looking onto the square, and all through the evening offers of service kept coming in from various persons belonging to the village. There was even a letter from the bandit-theologian, undertaking, for himself and Brandolaccio, that in the event of the mayor's calling on the gendarmes, they themselves would straightway intervene.
Here's another of them wiped out, and by a right and left too! It's striking." As he thus spoke his funeral oration over the Barricini, Brandolaccio hastily guided Orso, Chilina, and Brusco, the dog, toward the Stazzona maquis.
Do you suppose that any well-to-do man in this neighbourhood, to whom I said, 'I should be glad to see a marriage between your son and Michilina Savelli, would require any pressing?" "I wouldn't advise him to!" quoth the other bandit. "Friend Brandolaccio has rather a heavy hand!"
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