“Stop!” roared Fra Diavolo. “No, go ahead. Wait at the mesón, though, until I come. Wait until I give you your passports.”
Then he turned again to stare at the girl who all unconsciously had wrought the poor little crow’s release.
18CHAPTER III
The Violent End of a Terrible Bandit
“Come listen to me, you gallants so free,
All you that love mirth for to hear,
And I will tell you of a bold outlaw.”
–Robin Hood.
“Oh, oh, now he’s coming to eat us!” Jacqueline gasped.
The fierce stranger, however, seemed undecided. His brow furrowed, and for the moment he only stared. Jacqueline peeped through the lashes curtaining her eyes. She wanted to see his face, and she saw one of bold lines. The chin was a hard right angle. The mouth was a cruel line between heavily sensuous lips. The nose was a splendid line, and a very assertive and insolent nose altogether. The forehead was rugged, with a free curving sweep. Here there would have been a certain nobility, only its slope was just a hint too low. The skin was tawny. The moustache was black and bristling, as was also the thick hair, which lay back like grass before a breeze. The shaggy eyebrows were parted by deep clefts, the dark corrugations of frowning. One wondered if the man did not turn the foreboding scowl on and off by design. But all these were matters that fitted in with the other striking “properties,” and Jacqueline was fairly well satisfied with her Fra Diavolo. As she declared to herself, here was the very dramatic presence to mount upon a war charger!
