Colonel Gilbert gave no thought to these matters, but sat with crossed legs and one spurred heel thrown out, contentedly waiting as if for that train which he must assuredly catch, or for that opportunity, perhaps, which was so long in coming that he no longer seemed to look for it. And while he sat there a man came clanking from the town—a tired man, with heavy feet and the iron heels of the labourer. He passed Colonel Gilbert, and then, seeming to have recognized him by the light of the moon, paused, and came back.
“Monsieur le colonel,” he said, without raising his hand to his hat, as a Frenchman would have done.
“Yes,” replied the colonel's pleasant voice, with no ring of recognition in it.
“It is Mattei—the driver of the St. Florent diligence,” explained the man, who, indeed, carried his badge of office, a long whip.
“Of course; but I recognized you almost at once,” said the colonel, with that friendliness which is so noticeable in the Republic to-day.
“You have seen me on the road often enough,” said the man, “and I have seen you, Monsieur le Colonel, riding over to the Casa Perucca.”
“Of course.”
“You know Perucca's agent, Pietro Andrei?”
“Yes.”
“He was shot in the back on the Olmeta road this afternoon.”