"Oh yes, Tomasso is one very good old womans," said Van Heidsteyn, the next afternoon, as we sat sipping our coffee in the quaint old garden attached to his father's house. "His people have been with us for so long times I cannot count. He has asked for a holiday to-day, and borrowed my gun. Perhaps he is going to make you a present of one wild-boar. He calls you the 'Little Yellow One,' because of your hair."
As we sat, sheltered from the heat of the sun by the branches of a big plane-tree, the pure air put new life into my veins. At the back of the house was a long range of hills, the haunt of the wild-boar.
"Isn't that range rather handy for sheltering brigands?" I asked Van Heidsteyn.
He laughed. "Oh yes, but it is all the betters. Now, Little Yellow One, before you go to sleep I will tell you about Stefanos. I expect to hear from his brother soons, very soons."
"My father told me you had been captured by brigands and behaved very pluckily," I said, leaning drowsily back and gazing up through the spreading branches of the plane, the gorgeously hued anemones in the garden beds dancing joyously as my glance returned to earth.
Oscar lit another cigarette and stretched his sinewy arms. "Oh, it was nothings," he said, modestly. "I am fat now, nice and ploomps, but when I have come back from the brigands, ah! I was of shadows, so thin—like grey-hounds or Greek pigs."
He leisurely produced a photograph from his breast pocket. On a deal table were piled the heads of several men in a ghastly heap.
"But I shall better begin at the begins," he said, quietly.
"Put that thing out of my sight immediately. Do you want to give me a fit?" I shouted. "You are ruining the remains of my nervous system."
"Ah, but then I cannot explains," said Oscar. "You see, I was in the entrails of the steam-ploughs, and somethings tickles me. When I come out of the bowels of the ploughs there was Stefanos the brigand, and his brother, and his uncles, and three nephews, and some friends. (Stefanos always went about en famille.) 'Ohé, my little mans,' said Stefanos, 'you must come with me for some ransoms.' I did not want to go for some ransoms. I have the steam-ploughs to put rights. I said to Stefanos, 'Go away, you and your ransoms—pezziwinkbashi (it is a very strong Turkish words)! but he would not go away. He puts a pistol to my ear, and so did the rest. 'Oh yes, you will comes, my little mans.' And so," ingenuously added Oscar, "I comes."