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Updated: June 21, 2025
Signor della Rebbia, I am willing to believe you have had nothing to do with this detestable plot. But are you master in your own house? Will you have the door opened? Your sister may have to give an account of the strange relations in which she lives with a set of bandits." "Signor Prefetto!" cried Colomba, "I beseech you to listen to what this man has to say!
His dagger lay in his side pocket, and in his hand he carried his handsome Manton, ready loaded. While he was hastily 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 black horse. Orso and his sister followed close on his heels and entered the field.
This was our old acquaintance Brusco, who recognised Colomba at once and undertook to be her guide. After many windings through the narrow paths in the maquis they were met by two men, armed to the teeth. "Is that you, Brandolaccio?" inquired Colomba. "Where is my brother?" "Just over there," replied the bandit. "But go quietly. He's asleep, and for the first time since his accident.
"Where was Tomaso Bianchi's interest?" exclaimed Colomba triumphantly. "His brother's lease had run out. My father had given him notice on the 1st of July. Here is my father's account-book; here is his note of warning given to Teodoro, and the letter from a business man at Ajaccio suggesting a new tenant." As she spoke she gave the prefect the papers she had been holding in her hand.
Miss Lydia was delighted to notice that Colomba, who had shown considerable reluctance to sit down with them, and had yielded only at a glance from her brother, crossed herself, like a good Catholic, before she began to eat. "Good!" said she to herself, "that is primitive!" and she anticipated acquiring many interesting facts by observing this youthful representative of ancient Corsican manners.
A gentle voice answered, "It is I." Instantly the wooden bar across the door was withdrawn, and Colomba reappeared in the dining-room, followed by a little ragged, bare-footed girl of about ten years old, her head bound with a shabby kerchief, from which escaped long locks of hair, as black as the raven's wing.
"Have you any news, dear friend?" cried Miss Nevil, sitting up in bed. Her eye fell on Orso's picture, and she hastily tossed her handkerchief upon it. "Yes, I have news," said Colomba, with a smile. Then she took up the picture. "Do you think it like him? He is better looking than that!" "Really," stammered Miss Nevil, quite confused, "I took down that picture in a fit of absence!
Carefully, almost stealthily, Colomba slipped this object under her mezzaro, which she laid on the table. Then she knelt down, and said her prayers devoutly. Two minutes afterward she was in her bed.
And Colomba replied, with her usual composure, that Orso was in the maquis; that he was being taken care of by a bandit; that it would be a great risk for him to show himself until he was sure of the line the prefect and the judges were likely to take; and, finally, that she would manage to have him secretly attended by a skilful surgeon.
Colomba heaved a sigh, looked fixedly for a moment, first at the table-cloth, and then at the rafters of the ceiling; at last, covering her eyes with her hand like those birds that gather courage, and fancy they are not seen when they no longer see themselves, she sang, or rather declaimed, in an unsteady voice, the following serenata:
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