“I love you, Lucetta Torreani,” he continued after a time. “I love you with a passion that does not deserve such cold repulse. You may not like the idea of becoming a bandit’s wife; but remember, you become also a bandit’s queen. There is not a plume in all the mountain land that won’t bend to you—nor a hat that shall not be taken off in your presence. Throw aside your shyness, then, my pretty damsel! Don’t have any fear of losing caste by becoming wife to the chieftain Corvino!”
“Your wife! Never!”
“Call it by another name, then—if you prefer stickling about terms. We don’t have much formality in our mountain marriages, though we can get a priest when we want one. If you prefer the ceremony in a simpler way, I, for my part, shall have no objections to doing without the intervention of the curato. About that you shall have your choice.”
“Death, then, shall it be! I shall choose that.”
“Eh giusta! I like your spirit, signorina. It pleases me, almost as much as your personal appearance. Still it wants taming—just a little. Twenty-four hours in my company will accomplish that; perhaps less. But I give you the full allowance of twenty-four. If at the end of that time you do not consent to have our nuptials celebrated by the curato—there is one convenient—why, then we must get married without him. You understand that?”
“Madonna mia!”
“No use calling upon her. She cannot save you, immaculate as she is said to have been; nor any one else. No rescuing hand can reach you here—not even the hand of his Holiness. Among these mountains, the chieftain Corvino is master, as Lucetta Torreani shall be mistress.”
Before the boast had fairly parted from his lips, a sound from without caused the brigand to start—changing, as if by electricity, his air of triumph to one of alarm.
“Chi senti?” he muttered, gliding towards the door, and placing himself in an attitude to listen.
The howling of the Apennine wolf—“wah, wah, oouah!”—responded to by some one coming along the scorza. Almost at the same time, it was uttered on the other side—by the sentinel set towards the south, and soon after answered in that direction.