Whatever is the meaning of this odd
little nook of grass and flowers, it is not an entrenched position. It
is something else; it has some other strange sort of importance; some
value that I do not understand. It is more like an accidental theatre or
a natural green-room; it is like the scene for some romantic comedy; it
is like...."

As the little priest's words lengthened and lost themselves in a dull
and dreamy sincerity, Muscari, whose animal senses were alert and
impatient, heard a new noise in the mountains. Even for him the sound
was as yet very small and faint; but he could have sworn the evening
breeze bore with it something like the pulsation of horses' hoofs and a
distant hallooing.

At the same moment, and long before the vibration had touched the
less-experienced English ears, Montano the brigand ran up the bank above
them and stood in the broken hedge, steadying himself against a tree and
peering down the road. He was a strange figure as he stood there, for he
had assumed a flapped fantastic hat and swinging baldric and cutlass in
his capacity of bandit king, but the bright prosaic tweed of the courier
showed through in patches all over him.

The next moment he turned his olive, sneering face and made a movement
with his hand. The brigands scattered at the signal, not in confusion,
but in what was evidently a kind of guerrilla discipline. Instead of
occupying the road along the ridge, they sprinkled themselves along the
side of it behind the trees and the hedge, as if watching unseen for an
enemy. The noise beyond grew stronger, beginning to shake the mountain
road, and a voice could be clearly heard calling out orders. The
brigands swayed and huddled, cursing and whispering, and the evening
air was full of little metallic noises as they cocked their pistols, or
loosened their knives, or trailed their scabbards over the stones. Then
the noises from both quarters seemed to meet on the road above; branches
broke, horses neighed, men cried out.

"A rescue!" cried Muscari, springing to his feet and waving his hat;
"the gendarmes are on them! Now for freedom and a blow for it! Now to
be rebels against robbers! Come, don't let us leave everything to
the police; that is so dreadfully modern. Fall on the rear of these
ruffians. The gendarmes are rescuing us; come, friends, let us rescue
the gendarmes!"

And throwing his hat over the trees, he drew his cutlass once more and
began to escalade the slope up to th