Page:The Writings of Prosper Merimee-Volume 2.djvu/249

Rh sergeant. "They were both of them with the Padre — the greatest woman-wheedler in the whole country, so it's my business to march them off. And, indeed, there's nothing more for us to do here. But for that d———d Corporal Taupin—the drunken Frenchman showed himself before I'd surrounded the mâquis—we should have had them all like fish in a net."

"Are there only seven of you here?" inquired Colomba. "It strikes me, gentlemen, that if the three Poh brothers—Gambini, Sarocchi, and Teodoro—should happen to be at the Cross of Santa Christina, with Brandolaccio and the Padre, they might give you a good deal of corn to grind. If you mean to have a talk with the Commandante della Campagna, I'd just as soon not be there. In the dark, bullets don't show any respect for persons."

The idea of coming face to face with the dreaded bandits mentioned by Colomba made an evident impression on the soldiers. The sergeant, still cursing Corporal Taupin—"that dog of a Frenchman"—gave the order to retire, and his little party moved toward Pietranera, carrying the pilone and the cooking-pot; as for the pitcher, its fate was settled with a kick.

One of the men would have laid hold of Miss