as a Frenchman would have done.
“Yes,” replied the colonel's pleasant voice, with no ring of recognition in it.
“It is Mattei—the driver of the St. Florent diligence,” explained the man, who, indeed, carried his badge of office, a long whip.
“Of course; but I recognized you almost at once,” said the colonel, with that friendliness which is so noticeable in the Republic to-day.
“You have seen me on the road often enough,” said the man, “and I have seen you, Monsieur le Colonel, riding over to the Casa Perucca.”
“Of course.”
“You know Perucca's agent, Pietro Andrei?”
“Yes.”
“He was shot in the back on the Olmeta road this afternoon.”
Colonel Gilbert gave a slight start.
“Is that so?” he said at length, quietly, after a pause.
“Yes,” said the diligence-driver; and without further comment he walked on, keeping well in the middle of the road, as it is wise to do when one has enemies.
CHAPTER III. A BY-PATH.
“L'intrigue c'est tromper son homme; L'habileté c'est faire qu'il se trompe lui-même.”
For an idle-minded man, Colonel Gilbert was early astir the next morning, and rode out of the town soon after sunrise, following the Vescovato road, and chatting pleasantly enough with the workers already on foot and in saddle on their way to the great plain of Biguglia, where men may labour all day, though, if they spend so much as one night there, must surely die. For the eastern coast of Corsica consists of a series of
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