or
Miss Lydia always gets up so late. You can tell them everything that
has happened here, and if they still persist in coming, why! we shall be
very glad to welcome them."

Orso lost no time in assenting to this plan, and after a few moments'
silence, Colomba continued:

"Perhaps, Orso, you think I was joking when I talked of an assault on
the Barricini's house. Do you know we are in force--two to one at the
very least? Now that the prefect has suspended the mayor, every man in
the place is on our side. We might cut them to pieces. It would be quite
easy to bring it about. If you liked, I could go over to the
fountain and begin to jeer at their women folk. They would come out.
Perhaps--they are such cowards!--they would fire at me through their
loopholes. They wouldn't hit me. Then the thing would be done. They
would have begun the attack, and the beaten party must take its chance.
How is anybody to know which person's aim has been true, in a scuffle?
Listen to your own sister, Orso! These lawyers who are coming will
blacken lots of paper, and talk a great deal of useless stuff. Nothing
will come of it all. That old fox will contrive to make them think they
see stars in broad midday. Ah! if the prefect hadn't thrown himself in
front of Vincentello, we should have had one less to deal with."

All this was said with the same calm air as that with which she had
spoken, an instant previously, of her preparations for making the
_bruccio_.

Orso, quite dumfounded, gazed at his sister with an admiration not
unmixed with alarm.

"My sweet Colomba," he said, as he rose from the table, "I really am
afraid you are the very devil. But make your mind easy. If I don't
succeed in getting the Barricini hanged, I'll contrive to get the better
of them in some other fashion. 'Hot bullet or cold steel'--you see I
haven't forgotten my Corsican."

"The sooner the better," said Colomba, with a sigh. "What horse will you
ride to-morrow, Ors' Anton'?"

"The black. Why do you ask?"

"So as to make sure he has some barley."

When Orso went up to his room, Colomba sent Saveria and the herdsmen
to their beds, and sat on alone in the kitchen, where the _bruccio_ was
simmering. Now and then she seemed to listen, and was apparently waiting
very anxiously for her brother to go to bed. At last, when she thought
he was asleep, she took a knife, made sure it was sharp, slipped her
little feet into thick shoes, and passed noiselessly out into