He will find me his match, sir."
One by one, a little before the sun sank, they bade me farewell and
passed--free men--down the path that dipped into the pine forest.
On the edge of the dip each man turned and waved a hand to me.
The princess, with Marc'antonio beside her, stood and watched them as
they passed out of sight.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE FOREST HUT.
"Then hooly, hooly rase she up,
And hooly she came nigh him,
And when she drew the curtain by--
'Young man, I think you're dyin'.'"
_Barbara Allan's Cruelty_.
Evening fell, of a sudden filling the great hollow with purple
shadows. As the stars came out the Corsicans on the slope to my left
lit a fire of brushwood and busied themselves around it, cooking
their supper. They were no ordinary bandits, then; or at least had
no fear to betray their whereabouts, since on the landward side on so
clear a night the glow would be visible for many miles.
I watched them at their preparations. Their dark figures moved
between me and the flames as they set up a tall tripod of pine poles
and hung their cauldron from the centre of it, upon a brandice.
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