“Mercy!” he cried in a hoarse voice. “Mercy! Are you not content? The leaf I burned. How did you read it? But why did you take them both? Orlanduccio! You can’t have read anything against him! You should have left me one, only one! Orlanduccio—you didn’t read his name!”
“I had to have them both!” answered Colomba, speaking low and in the Corsican dialect. “The branches are topped off! If the stem had not been rotten, I would have torn it up! Come! make no moan. You will not suffer long! I suffered for two years!”
The old man cried out, and then his head dropped on his breast. Colomba turned her back on him, and went slowly into the house, humming some meaningless lines out of a ballata:
“I must have the hand
that fired, the eye that aimed, the heart
that planned.”
While the farmer’s wife ran to attend on the old man, Colomba, with blazing eyes and brilliant cheeks, sat down to luncheon opposite the colonel.
“What’s the matter with you?” he said. “You look just as you did that day at Pietranera, when they fired at us while we were at dinner.”
“Old Corsican memories had come back to me. But all that’s done with. I shall be godmother, sha’n’t I? Oh! what fine names I’ll give him! Ghilfuccio—Tomaso—Orso—Leone!”
The farmer’s wife came back into the room.
“Well?” inquired Colomba, with the most perfect composure. “Is he dead, or had he only fainted?”
“It was nothing, signorina. But it’s curious what an effect the sight of you had on him.”