of the original offence.), even more strange than his first story, and he thoroughly stirred her enthusiasm by his descriptions of the strange wild beauty of the country, the peculiarities of its inhabitants, and their primitive hospitality and customs. Finally, he offered her a pretty little stiletto, less remarkable for its shape and copper mounting than for its origin. A famous bandit had given it to Captain Ellis, and had assured him it had been buried in four human bodies. Miss Lydia thrust it through her girdle, laid it on the table beside her bed, and unsheathed it twice over before she fell asleep. Her father meanwhile was dreaming he had slain a mouflon, and that its owner insisted on his paying for it, a demand to which he gladly acceded, seeing it was a most curious creature, like a boar, with stag’s horns and a pheasant’s tail.
“Ellis tells me there’s splendid shooting in Corsica,” said the colonel, as he sat at breakfast, alone with his daughter. “If it hadn’t been for the distance, I should like to spend a fortnight there.”
“Well,” replied Miss Lydia, “why shouldn’t we go to Corsica? While you are hunting I can sketch—I should love to have that grotto Captain Ellis talked about, where Napoleon used to go and study when he was a child, in my album.”
It was the first time, probably, that any wish expressed by the colonel had won his daughter’s approbation. Delighted as he was by the unexpected harmony on their opinions, he was nevertheless wise enough to put forward various objections, calculated to sharpen Miss Lydia’s welcome whim. In vain did he dwell on the wildness of the country, and the difficulties of travel there for a lady. Nothing frightened her; she liked travelling on horseback of all things; she delighted in the idea of bivouacking in the open; she even threatened to go as far as Asia Minor—in short, she found an answer to everything. No Englishwoman had ever been to Corsica; therefore she must go. What a pleasure it would be, when she got back to St. James’s Place, to exhibit her album! “But, my dear creature, why do you pass over that delightful drawing?” “That’s only a trifle—just a sketch I made of a famous Corsican bandit who was our guide.” “What! you don’t mean to say you have been to Corsica?”
As there were no steamboats between France and Corsica, in those days, inquiries were made for some ship about to sail for the island Miss Lydia proposed to discover. That very day the colonel wrote to Paris, to countermand his order for the suite of apartments in which he was to have made some stay, and bargained with the skipper of a Corsican schooner, just about to set sail for Ajaccio, for two poor cabins, but the best that could be had. Provisions were sent on board, the skipper swore that one of his sailors was an excellent cook, and had not his equal for bouilleabaisse; he promised mademoiselle should be comfortable, and have a fair wind and a calm sea.
The colonel further stipulated, in obedience to his daughter’s wishes, that no other passenger should be taken on board, and that the captain should skirt the coast of the island, so that Miss Lydia might enjoy the view of the mountains.
CHAPTER II
On the day of their departure everything was packed and sent on board early in the morning. The schooner was to sail with the evening breeze. Meanwhile, as the colonel and his daughter were walking on the Canebiere, the skipper addressed them, and craved permission to take on board one of his relations, his eldest son’s godfather’s second cousin, who was going back to Corsica, his native country, on important business, and could not find any ship to take him over.
“He’s a charming fellow,” added Captain Mattei, “a soldier, an officer in the Infantry of the Guard, and would have been a colonel already if the other (meaning Napoleon) had still been emperor!”
“As he is a soldier,” began the colonel—he was about to add, “I shall be very glad he should come with us,” when Miss Lydia exclaimed in English:
“An infantry officer!” (Her father had been in the cavalry, and she consequently looked down on every other branch of the service.) “An uneducated man, very likely, who would be sea-sick, and spoil all the pleasure of our trip!”
The captain did not understand a word of English, but he seemed to catch what Miss Lydia was saying by the pursing up of her pretty mouth, and immediately entered upon an elaborate panegyric of his relative, which he wound up by declaring him to be a gentleman, belonging to a family of corporals, and that he would not be in the very least in the colonel’s way, for that he, the skipper, would undertake to stow him in some corner, where they should not be aware of his presence.
The colonel and Miss Nevil thought it peculiar that there should be Corsican families in which the dignity of corporal was handed down from father to son. But, as they really believed the individual in question to be some infantry corporal, they concluded he was some poor devil whom the skipper desired to take out of pure charity. If he had been an officer, they would have been obliged to speak to him and live with him; but there was no reason why they should put themselves out for a corporal—who is a person of no consequence unless his detachment is also at hand, with bayonets fixed, ready to convey a person to a place to which he would rather not be taken.
“Is your kinsman ever sea-sick?” demanded Miss Nevil sharply.
“Never, mademoiselle, he is as steady as a rock, either on sea or land!”
“Very good then, you can take him,” said she.
“You can take him!” echoed the colonel, and they passed on their way.
Toward five o’clock in the evening Captain Mattei came to escort them on board the schooner. On the jetty, near the captain’s gig, they met a tall young man wearing a blue frock-coat, buttoned up to his chin; his face was tanned, his eyes were black, brilliant, wide open, his whole appearance intelligent and frank. His shoulders, well thrown back, and his little twisted mustache clearly revealed the soldier—for at that period mustaches were by no means common, and the National Guard had not carried the habits and appearance of the guard-room into the bosom of every family.
When the young man saw the colonel he doffed his cap, and thanked him in excellent language, and without the slightest shyness, for the service he was rendering him.
“Delighted to be of use to you, my good fellow!” said the colonel, with a friendly nod, and he stepped into the gig.
“He’s not very ceremonious, this Englishman of yours,” said the young man in Italian, and in an undertone, to the captain.
The skipper laid his forefinger under his left eye, and pulled down the corners of his mouth. To a man acquainted with the language of signs, this meant that the Englishman understood Italian, and was an oddity into the bargain. The young man smiled slightly and touched his forehead, in answer to Mattei’s sign, as though to indicate that every Englishman had a bee in his bonnet. Then he sat down beside them, and began to look very attentively, though not impertinently, at his pretty fellow-traveller.
“These French soldiers all have a good appearance,” remarked the colonel in English to his daughter, “and so it is easy to turn them into officers.” Then addressing the young man in French, he said, “Tell me, my good man, what regiment have you served in?” The young man nudged his second cousin’s godson’s father gently with his elbow, and suppressing an ironic smile, replied that he had served in the Infantry of the Guard, and that he had just quitted the Seventh Regiment of Light Infantry.
“Were you at Waterloo? You are very young!”
“I
