“Then we had better take this foot-path where there are no precipices, but merely rough walking.”
“I am quite equal to that.”
“Very well, then, we have three-quarters of an hour’s walk before us.”
“Let us take the path.”
Lucien then went first, and crossed through a little oak wood, into which I followed him.
Diamond trotted fifty or sixty paces away, beating right and left, and occasionally coming back to us, wagging his tail as much as to inform us that we might trust to him and continue our route in safety.
I saw that as some people like to possess a horse, equally for riding or driving, so Diamond had apparently been trained to hunt the biped or the quadruped, the bandit or the boar. I did not wish to appear altogether strange to Corsican manners, so I said as much to Lucien.
“You are mistaken,” he replied; “Diamond is very useful in hunting men or animals, but he never chases bandits. It is the triple red of the gendarmes, the voltigeur, and the volunteer that he hunts.”
“Then I suppose Diamond is a bandit’s dog?”
“He is. He belongs to an Orlandi, to whom I sometimes used to send him into the country with bread, powder, bullets, or whatever he required. He was shot by a Colona, and the next day the dog came to me, for being accustomed to come to the house, he looked upon me as a friend.”