"Come, sir, don't try to humbug me; you bring down the dame, and then you want somebody to pick it up for you. Well! there's one man who'll have a queer dessert to-day, and that's Lawyer Barricini!--you want butcher's meat, do you? Well, here you have it. Now, who the devil will be the heir?"
"What! is Vincentello dead too?"
"Dead as mutton. /Salute a noi!/ The good point about you is that you don't let them suffer. Just come over and look at Vincentello; he's kneeling here with his head against the wall, as if he were asleep.
You may say he sleeps like lead, this time, poor devil."
Orso turned his head in horror.
"Are you certain he's dead?"
"You're like Sampiero Corso, who never had to fire more than once.
Look at it there, in his chest, on the left--just where Vincileone was hit at Waterloo. I'll wager that bullet isn't far from his heart--a right and left! Ah! I'll never talk about shooting again. Two with two shots, and bullets at that! The two brothers! If he'd had a third shot he'd have killed their papa. Better luck next time. What a shot! Ors' Anton'! And to think that an honest poor chap like me will never get the chance of a right and a left two gendarmes!"
As he talked the bandit was scanning Orso's arm, and splitting up his sleeve with his dagger.
"This is nothing," said he. "But this coat of yours will give Signorina Colomba work to do. Ha! what's this I see? this gash upon your chest? Nothing went in there, surely? No! you wouldn't be so brisk as you are! Come, try to move your finger. Do you feel my teeth when I bite your little finger? Not very well? Never mind! It won't be much. Let me take your handkerchief and your neckcloth. Well, your coat's spoilt, anyhow! What the devil did you make yourself so smart for? Were you going to a wedding? There! drink a drop of wine. Why on earth don't you carry a flask? Does any Corsican ever go out without a flask?"
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!"
The child, using both hands and feet, scrambled onto the wall, and the moment she caught sight of Orlanduccio's corpse she crossed herself.
"That's nothing," proceeded the bandit; "go and look farther on, over there!"
The child crossed herself again.
"Was it you, uncle?" she asked timidly.
"Me! Don't you know I've turned into a useless old fellow! This, Chili, is the signor's work; offer him your compliments."
"The signorina will be greatly rejoiced," said Chilina, "and she will be very much grieved to know you are wounded, Ors' Anton'."
"Now then, Ors' Anton'," said the bandit, when he had finished binding up the wound. "Chilina, here, has caught your horse. You must get on his back, and come with me to the Stazzona /maquis/. It would be a sly fellow who'd lay his hand on you there. When we get to the Cross of Santa Christina, you'll have to dismount. You'll give over your horse to Chilina, who'll go off and warn the signorina. You can say anything to the child, Ors' Anton'. She would let herself be cut in pieces rather than betray her friends," and then, fondly, he turned to the little girl, "That's it, you little hussy; a ban on you, a curse on you--you jade!" For Brandolaccio, who was superstitious, like most bandits, feared he might cast a spell on a child if he blessed it or praised it, seeing it is a well-known fact that the mysterious powers that rule the /Annocchiatura/[*] have a vile habit of fulfilling our wishes in the very opposite sense to that we give them.
[*] /Annocchiatura/, an involuntary spell cast either by the eye or by spoken words.
"Where am I to go, Brando?" queried Orso in a faint voice.
"Faith! you must choose; either to jail or to the /maquis/. But no della Rebbia knows the path that leads him to the jail. To the /maquis/, Ors' Anton'."
"Farewell, then, to all my hopes!" exclaimed the wounded man, sadly.
"Your hopes? Deuce take it! Did you hope to do any better with a double-barrelled gun? How on earth did the fellows contrive to hit you? The rascals must have been as hard to kill as cats."
"They fired first," said Orso.
"True, true; I'd forgotten that!--/piff, piff--boum, boum/! A right and left, and only one hand! If any man can do better, I'll go hang myself. Come! now you're safely mounted! Before we start, just give a glance at your work. It isn't civil to leave one's company without saying good-bye."
Orso spurred his horse. He would not have looked at the two poor wretches he had just destroyed, for anything on earth.
"Hark ye, Ors' Anton'," quoth the bandit, as he caught hold of the horse's bridle, "shall I tell you the truth? Well, no offence to you!
I'm sorry for those poor young fellows! You'll pardon me, I hope; so good-looking, so strong, so young. Orlanduccio, I've shot with him so often! Only four days ago he gave me a bundle of cigars, and Vincentello--he was always so cheery. Of course you've only done what you had to do, and indeed the shot was such a splendid one, nobody could regret it. But I, you see, had nothing to do with your vengeance. I know you're perfectly in the right. When one has an enemy one must get rid of him. But the Barricini were an old family. 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/.
