you. He is in the verandah—like a wild beast. I will take monsieur's horse.”
Colonel Gilbert went through the palms and bamboos and orange-trees alone, towards the house; and there, walking up and down, and stopping every moment to glance towards the door, of which the bell still sounded, he perceived a large, stout man, clad in light tweed, wearing an old straw hat and carrying a thick stick.
“Ah!” cried Perucca, “so you have heard the news. And you have come, I hope, to apologize for your miserable France. It is thus that you govern Corsica, with a Civil Service made up of a parcel of old women and young counter-jumpers! I have no patience with your prefectures and your young men with flowing neck-ties and kid gloves. Are we a girls' school to be governed thus? And you—such great soldiers! Yes, I will admit that the French are great soldiers, but you do not know how to rule Corsica. A tight hand, colonel. Holy name of thunder!” And he stamped his foot with a decisiveness that made the verandah tremble.
The colonel laughed pleasantly.
“They want some men of your type,” he said.
“Ah!” cried Perucca, “I would rule them, for they are cowards; they are afraid of me. Do you know, they had the impertinence to send one of their threatening letters to poor Andrei before they shot him. They sent him a sheet of paper with a cross drawn on it. Then I knew he was done for. They do not send that pour rire.”
He stopped short, and gave a jerk of the head. There was somewhere in his fierce old heart a cord that vibrated to the touch of these rude mountain customs; for the man was a Corsican of long descent and pure blood. Of such the fighting nations have made good soldiers in the past, and even Rome could not make them slaves.
“Or you could do it,” went on Perucca, with a shrewd nod, looking at him beneath shaggy brows. “The velvet glove—eh? That would surprise them, for they have never felt the touch of one. You, with your laugh and idle ways, and behind them the perception—the perception of the devil—or a woman.”
The colonel had drawn forward a basket chair, and was leaning back in it with crossed legs, and one foot swinging.
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