My fingers found only a tangle of dry fern, and glancing up at the
ridge, I stared straight along the barrel of a musket. At the same
moment a second barrel glimmered out between the bushes on my left.
"_Signore, favorisca di rendersi_," said a voice, very quiet and
polite. I stared around me, hopeless, at bay: and while I stared and
clutched my useless gun, from behind a rock some twenty paces up the
slope a girl stepped forward, halted, rested the butt of her musket
on the stone, and, crossing her hands above the nozzle of it, calmly
regarded us.
Even in my rage her extraordinary wild beauty held me at gaze for a
moment. She wore over a loose white shirt a short waist-tunic of
faded green velvet, with a petticoat or kilt of the same reaching a
little below her knees, from which to the ankles her legs were cased
in tight-fitting leathern gaiters. Her stout boots shone with
toe-plates of silver or polished steel. A sad-coloured handkerchief
protected her head, its edge drawn straight across her brow in a
fashion that would have disfigured ninety-nine women in a hundred.
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