ce. They obeyed her, yet with reserve. When pressed to the
point between submission and mutiny, they yielded; but they yielded
with a consent which I could not reconcile with submission.
Even whilst answering deferentially they appeared to be looking at
one another and taking a cue.

For the time, however, she had prevailed with them. They stood aside
while Billy and I lifted the litter and bore it to the shade of an
overhanging rock. One even fetched me a panful of water which he had
collected from a trickling spring on the face of the cliffs hard by,
and brought me linen, too, when he saw me preparing to tear up my own
shirt to bind Nat's wound.

We could not trace the course of the bullet, and judged it best to
spare meddling with a hurt we could not help. So, having bathed away
the clotted blood and bandaged him, we strewed a fresh bed of fern,
and watched by him, moistening his lips from time to time with water,
for which he moaned. The sun began to sink on the far side of the
mountain, and the shadow of the summit, falling into the deep gulf at
our feet, to creep across the green tree-tops massed there. While it
crept, and I watched it, Billy related in whispers how he had been
sprung upon and gagged, so swiftly that he had no chance to cry alarm
or to feel for the trigger of his musket. He rubbed his hands
delightedly when in return I told the story of my lucky shot. In his
ignorance of Italian he had caught no inkling of the peril that lucky
shot had brought upon me, nor did I choose to enlighten him.

The shadow of the mountain was stretching more than halfway across
the valley, and in the slanting light the rosy tinge of the crags
appeared to be melting and suffusing the snow-peaks beyond, when my
father walked into the camp unannounced. He carried a gun and a
folding camp-stool, and was followed by Marc'antonio, who fluttered
my white handkerchief from the ramrod of his musket.

"Good afternoon, gentlemen!" said my father, lifting his hat and
looking about him.

I could see at a glance that his stature and bearing impressed the
Corsicans. They drew back for a moment, then pressed around him like
children.

"Mbe! E bellu, il Inglese," I heard one say to his fellow.

After quelling the brief tumult against me, and while I busied myself
with Nat, the girl had disappeared--I could not tell whither.
But now one of the band ran up the slope calling loudly to summon
her. "O principessa, ajo, aj