United States or Mongolia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


I was becoming very uneasy, conceiving that I might have passed the Gypsy amongst the thickets, when I suddenly heard his well known Ola! and his black savage head and staring eyes suddenly appeared from amidst a clump of broom. "You have tarried long, brother," said he; "I almost thought you had played me false."

"Ola, Monna Trecca," Bratti proceeded, turning towards an old woman on the outside of the nearest group, who for the moment had suspended her wail to listen, and shouting close in her ear: "Here are the mules upsetting all your bunches of parsley: is the world coming to an end, then?"

It would hardly have been possible for any one to be as fond of the little girl as her father was; but it may be truly said that she had a very good friend in old seine-maker Ola. This is the way they came to be friends: Glory Goldie had taken to setting out fishing-poles in the brook for the small salmon-trout that abounded there.

That doctor would worm it all out of him as if he were a child. On the threshold he called out "Giorgio!" in an undertone. Nobody answered. He stepped in. "Ola! viejo! Are you there? . . ." In the impenetrable darkness his head swam with the illusion that the obscurity of the kitchen was as vast as the Placid Gulf, and that the floor dipped forward like a sinking lighter.

Cousin Ola took himself sternly to task, and while he kept to the other side of the way, so as not to make a dust, he tried with all his might to think of the most indifferent things. But however far away his thoughts might start, they always returned by the strangest short-cuts to the forbidden point, and began once more to flutter around it, like moths around a candle.

This appeared such innocent sport, according to his notion, that no rational creature could take offence at it. But Grim, whose sense of humor was probably defective, failed to see it in that light. "Let the boy alone," he thundered. "Well, don't bite my head off, old man," replied Ola. "I haven't hurt your fool of a boy. I have only been joking with him."

Ola had held higher military rank than had any of his outlaw associates, and he became their dominating spirit. He had no grievance against the Americans, but took every opportunity to avenge himself on the caciques of Guinobatan, his native town. Three assistant chiefs of constabulary, Garwood, Baker and Bandholtz, were successively sent to Albay to deal with this situation.

So, when he saw his brother seated at the piano, letting his fingers run lightly and carelessly over the key-board, and then looking up to the ceiling and muttering, "What key is it in again?" as if he were searching for the right one, a shiver always ran through Cousin Ola. For he knew that Hans had mastered three accompaniments, and no more one minor and two major.

"Ola there!" he cried, and kicked the sentry's outstretched legs, the more speedily to wake him. "Is this the watch you keep?" Garnache opened his eyes and stared a second dully at the disturber of his feigned slumbers. Then, as if being more fully awakened he recognized his master, he heaved himself suddenly to his feet and bowed.

"And a polka?" "No, no! no more," cried the fair one, looking at Ola with alarm. At the same moment, Hans came rushing along at full speed. "Oh, how lucky I am to find you! but in what company!" Thereupon he took possession of the fair one in his amiable fashion, and drew her away with him to find her wraps and join the others.