airly well defined, crossing the _macchia_ and
leading back to the wood.

I was conning this when a shout in my rear fetched me right-about
face. Towards me, down and across the farther ridge I saw a man
running--Nat Fiennes!

He had caught sight of me on my rock against the skyline, and as he
ran he waved his arms frantically, motioning to me to run also for
the woods. I could see no pursuer; but still, as he came on, his
arms waved, and were waving yet when a bush on the chine above him
threw out a little puff of grey smoke. Toppling headlong into the
bushes he was lost to me even before the report rang on my ears
across the hollow.

I dropped on my knees for a grip on the creepers, swung myself down
the face of the crag, and within ten seconds was lost in the
_macchia_ again, fighting my way through it to the spot where Nat
lay. Wherever the scrub parted and allowed me a glimpse I kept my
eye on the bush above the chine; and so, with torn clothes and face
and hands bleeding, crossed the dip, mounted the slope and emerged
upon a ferny hollow ringed about on three sides with the _macchia_.
There face-downward in the fern lay Nat, shot through the lungs.

I lifted him against one knee. His eyelids flickered and his lips
moved to speak, but a rush of blood choked him. Still resting him
against my knee, I felt behind me for my musket. The flint was gone
from the lock, dislodged no doubt by a blow against the crags.
With one hand I groped on the ground for a stone to replace it.
My fingers found only a tangle of dry fern, and glancing up at the
ridge, I stared straight along the barrel of a musket. At the same
moment a second barrel glimmered out between the bushes on my left.
"_Signore, favorisca di rendersi_," said a voice, very quiet and
polite. I stared around me, hopeless, at bay: and while I stared and
clutched my useless gun, from behind a rock some twenty paces up the
slope a girl stepped forward, halted, rested the butt of her musket
on the stone, and, crossing her hands above the nozzle of it, calmly
regarded us.

Even in my rage her extraordinary wild beauty held me at gaze for a
moment. She wore over a loose white shirt a short waist-tunic of
faded green velvet, with a petticoat or kilt of the same reaching a
little below her knees, from which to the ankles her legs were cased
in tight-fitting leathern gaiters. Her stout boots shone with
toe-plates of silver or polished steel. A sad-coloured