g
to Orso, before the English lady could warn her by a nudge, she said:
"Captain what does _giving the rimbecco_ mean?"

"The rimbecco!" said Orso. "Why, it's the most deadly insult that can be
offered to a Corsican. It means reproaching him with not having avenged
his wrong. Who mentioned the rimbecco to you?"

"Yesterday, at Marseilles," replied Miss Lydia hurriedly, "the captain
of the schooner used the word."

"And whom was he talking about?" inquired Orso eagerly.

"Oh, he was telling us some odd story about the time--yes, I think it
was about Vannina d'Ornano."

"I suppose, mademoiselle, that Vannina's death has not inspired you with
any great love for our national hero, the brave Sampiero?"

"But do you think his conduct was so very heroic?"

"The excuse for his crime lies in the savage customs of the period. And
then Sampiero was waging deadly war against the Genoese. What confidence
could his fellow-countrymen have felt in him if he had not punished his
wife, who tried to treat with Genoa?"

"Vannina," said the sailor, "had started off without her husband's
leave. Sampiero did quite right to wring her neck!"

"But," said Miss Lydia, "it was to save her husband, it was out of love
for him, that she was going to ask his pardon from the Genoese."

"To ask his pardon was to degrade him!" exclaimed Orso.

"And then to kill her himself!" said Miss Lydia. "What a monster he must
have been!"

"You know she begged as a favour that she might die by his hand. What
about Othello, mademoiselle, do you look on him, too, as a monster?"

"There is a difference; he was jealous. Sampiero was only vain!"

"And after all is not jealousy a kind of vanity? It is the vanity of
love; will you not excuse it on account of its motive?"

Miss Lydia looked at him with an air of great dignity, and turning to
the sailor, inquired when the schooner would reach port.

"The day after to-morrow," said he, "if the wind holds."

"I wish Ajaccio were in sight already, for I am sick of this ship."
She rose, took her maid's arm, and walked a few paces on the deck. Orso
stood motionless beside the helm, not knowing whether he had better walk
beside her, or end a conversation which seemed displeasing to her.

"Blood of the Madonna, what a handsome girl!" said the sailor. "If every
flea in my bed were like her, I shouldn't complain of their biting me!"

Miss Lydia may possibly have overheard this artless praise of her beauty
and be