o! Veni qui, ajo!" and, gazing after
him, I saw her at the entrance of a cave some fifty feet above us,
erect, with either hand parting and holding back the creepers that
curtained her bower.

She let the curtains fall-to behind her, and, stepping down the
hillside, welcomed my father with the gravest of curtsies.

"Salutation, O stranger!"

"And to you, O lady, salutation!" my father made answer, with a bow.
"Though English," he went on, slipping easily into the dialect she
used with her followers, "I am Corsican enough to forbear from asking
their names of gentlefolk in the _macchia_; but mine is John
Constantine, and I am very much at your service."

"My men call me the Princess Camilla."

"A good name," said my father, and seemed to muse upon it for a
moment while he eyed her paternally. "A very good name, O Princess,
and beloved of old by Diana--

"'Aeternum telorum et virginitatis amorem
Intemerata--'

"But I come at your bidding and must first of all apologize for some
little delay; the cause being that your messenger found me busy
patching up a bullet-hole in one of your men."

"Giuseppe is not dead?"

"He is not dead, and on the whole I incline to think he is not going
to die, though you will allow me to say that the rogue deserved it.
The other three gentlemen-at-arms despatched by you are at this
moment bringing him up the hill, very carefully, following my
instructions. He will need care. In fact, it will be touch-and-go
with him for many days to come."

While he talked, my father, catching sight of me, had stepped to
Nat's couch. Nodding to me without more ado to lift the patient and
cut away his shirt, he knelt, unrolled his case of instruments, and
with a "Courage, lad!" bent an ear to the faint breathing. In less
than a minute, as it seemed, his hand feeling around the naked back
came to a pause a little behind and under the right arm-pit.

"Courage, lad!" he repeated. "A little pain, and we'll have it, safe
as a wasp in an apple."

The Corsicans under his orders had withdrawn to a little distance and
stood about us in a ring. While he probed and Nat's poor body
writhed feebly in my arms, I lifted my eyes once with a shudder, and
met the Princess Camilla's. She was watching, and without a tremor,
her face grave as a child's.

With a short grunt of triumph, my father caught away his hand, dipped
it swiftly into the pan of water beside him, and held the bullet
aloft be