The bandit stuck his tongue in his cheek, and smacked it ironically, but he made no reply. Orso got up to go away.
“By the way,” said Brandolaccio, “I haven’t thanked you for your powder. It came just when I needed it. Now I have everything I want . . . at least I do still want shoes . . . but I’ll make myself a pair out of the skin of a moufflon one of these days.”
Orso slipped two five-franc pieces into the bandit’s hand.
“It was Colomba who sent you the powder. This is to buy the shoes.”
“Nonsense, Lieutenant!” cried Brandolaccio, handing him back the two coins. “D’ye take me for a beggar? I accept bread and powder, but I won’t have anything else!”
“We are both old soldiers, so I thought we might have given each other a lift. Well, good-bye to you!”
But before he moved away he had slipped the money into he bandit’s wallet, unperceived by him.
“Good-bye, Ors’ Anton’,” quoth the theologian. “We shall meet again in the maquis, some day, perhaps, and then we’ll continue our study of Virgil.”
Quite a quarter of an hour after Orso had parted company with these worthies, he heard a man running after him, as fast as he could go. It was Brandolaccio.
“This is too bad, lieutenant!” he shouted breathlessly, “really it is too bad! I wouldn’t overlook the trick, if any other man had played it on me. Here are your ten francs. All my respects to Mademoiselle Colomba. You have made me run myself quite out of breath. Good-night!”