He was dressed in the same costume as he had appeared in the previous evening in the ruins of Vicentello.
When I was about twenty paces distant from him he took off his hat; while I spurred my horse so as not to keep Orlandi waiting.
"Monsieur," he said, "I did not wish you to quit Sullacaro without accepting my thanks for the kindness you have shown to a poor peasant like myself, and as in the village I had not the heart, and could not command the language, to thank you, I waited for you here."
"I am obliged to you," I said; "but it was not necessary to take any trouble about it, and all the honour has been mine."
"And after all, monsieur," continued the bandit, "the habit of four years is not easily overcome. The mountain air is strong at first, almost suffocating--but now when I go to sleep in a house I should be afraid the roof would fall upon me."
"But surely," I said, "you will now resume your former habits. I understand you have a house, a field, and a vineyard."
"Yes, but my sister looks after the house; but the Lucquois are there to work in the field, and to raise the grapes. We Corsicans do not work."
"We overlook the labourers. We walk about with a gun upon our shoulders."
"Well, my dear Monsieur Orlandi," I said, extending my hand, "I wish you good luck; but recollect that my honour as well as your own will be compromised if you fire at anything but game or wild animals. You must never on any account draw a trigger on the Colona family."
"Ah! your Excellency," he replied, with an expression of countenance which I never remarked except amongst the natives of Normandy, "that hen they gave us was a very thin one."
And without another word he disappeared in the brushwood.
I continued my journey thinking that it was very likely that the meagre fowl would be the cause of another rupture between the Orlandi and the Colona.
That evening I slept at Albitucia, next day I reached Ajaccio.
THE day I arrived in Paris I called upon M. Louis de Franchi. He was not at home.
I left my card, with an intimation that I had just returned from Sullacaro, and that I was the bearer of a letter from M. Lucien, his brother. I inquired when he would be at home, as I had undertaken to deliver the letter with my own hand.