The two girls moved forward cautiously, and beside a fire, the blaze of which was carefully concealed by a little wall of stones built round it, they beheld Orso, lying on a pile of heather, and covered with a /pilone/. He was very pale, and they could hear his laboured breathing. Colomba sat down near him, and gazed at him silently, with her hands clasped, as though she were praying in her heart. Miss Lydia hid her face in her handkerchief, and nestled close against her friend, but every now and then she lifted her head to take a look at the wounded man over Colomba's shoulder. Thus a quarter of an hour passed by without a word being said by anybody. At a sign from the theologian, Brandolaccio had plunged with him into the /maquis/, to the great relief of Miss Lydia, who for the first time fancied the local colour of the bandits' wild beards and warlike equipment was a trifle too strong.
At last Orso stirred. Instantly, Colomba bent over him, and kissed him again and again, pouring out questions anent his wound, his suffering, and his needs. After having answered that he was doing as well as possible, Orso inquired, in his turn, whether Miss Nevil was still at Pietranera, and whether she had written to him. Colomba, bending over her brother, completely hid her companion from his sight, and indeed the darkness would have made any recognition difficult. She was holding one of Miss Nevil's hands. With the other she slightly raised her wounded brother's head.
"No, brother," she replied. "She did not give me any letter for you.
But are you still thinking about Miss Nevil? You must love her very much!"
"Love her, Colomba!--But--but now she may despise me!"
At this point Miss Nevil made a struggle to withdraw her fingers. But it was no easy matter to get Colomba to slacken her grasp. Small and well-shaped though her hand was, it possessed a strength of which we have already noticed certain proofs.
"Despise you!" cried Colomba. "After what you've done? No, indeed! She praises you! Oh, Orso, I could tell you so many things about her!"
Lydia's hand was still struggling for its freedom, but Colomba kept drawing it closer to Orso.
"But after all," said the wounded man, "why didn't she answer me? If she had sent me a single line, I should have been happy."
By dint of pulling at Miss Nevil's hand, Colomba contrived at last to put it into her brother's. Then, moving suddenly aside, she burst out laughing.
"Orso," she cried, "mind you don't speak evil of Miss Lydia--she understands Corsican quite well."
Miss Lydia took back her hand at once and stammered some unintelligible words. Orso thought he must be dreaming.
"You here, Miss Nevil? Good heavens! how did you dare? Oh, how happy you have made me!"
And raising himself painfully, he strove to get closer to her.
"I came with your sister," said Miss Lydia, "so that nobody might suspect where she was going. And then I--I wanted to make sure for myself. Alas! how uncomfortable you are here!"
Colomba had seated herself behind Orso. She raised him carefully so that his head might rest on her lap. She put her arms round his neck and signed to Miss Lydia to come near him.
"Closer! closer!" she said. "A sick man mustn't talk too loud." And when Miss Lydia hesitated, she caught her hand and forced her to sit down so close to Orso that her dress touched him, and her hand, still in Colomba's grasp, lay on the wounded man's shoulder.
"Now he's very comfortable!" said Colomba cheerily. "Isn't it good to lie out in the /maquis/ on such a lovely night? Eh, Orso?"
"How you must be suffering!" exclaimed Miss Lydia.
"My suffering is all gone now," said Orso, "and I should like to die here!" And his right hand crept up toward Miss Lydia's, which Colomba still held captive.
"You really must be taken to some place where you can be properly cared for, Signor della Rebbia," said Miss Nevil. "I shall never be able to sleep in my bed, now that I have seen you lying here, so uncomfortable, in the open air."
"If I had not been afraid of meeting you, Miss Nevil, I should have tried to get back to Pietranera, and I should have given myself up to the authorities."
"And why were you afraid of meeting her, Orso?" inquired Colomba.
"I had disobeyed you, Miss Nevil, and I should not have dared to look at you just then."
"Do you know you make my brother do everything you choose, Miss Lydia?" said Colomba, laughing. "I won't let you see him any more."
"I hope this unlucky business will soon be cleared up, and that you will have nothing more to fear," said Miss Nevil. "I shall be so happy, when we go away, to know justice has been done you, and that both your loyalty and your bravery have been acknowledged."
"Going away, Miss Nevil! Don't say that word yet!"
"What are we to do? My father can not spend his whole life shooting.
He wants to go."
Orso's hand, which had been touching Miss Lydia's, dropped away, and there was silence for a moment.
"Nonsense!" said Colomba. "We won't let you go yet. We have plenty of things to show you still at Pietranera. Besides, you have promised to paint my picture, and you haven't even begun it so far. And then I've promised to compose you a /serenata/, with seventy-five verses. And then--but what can Brusco be growling about? And here's Brandolaccio running after him. I must go and see what's amiss."
She rose at once, and laying Orso's head, without further ceremony, on Miss Lydia's lap, she ran after the bandits.
Miss Nevil, somewhat startled at finding herself thus left in sole charge of a handsome young Corsican gentleman in the middle of a /maquis/, was rather puzzled what to do next.
For she was afraid that any sudden movement on her part might hurt the wounded man. But Orso himself resigned the exquisite pillow on which his sister had just laid his head, and raising himself on his right arm, he said:
