“Say it.”

“It leaves one man behind, and one only, in our camp below.  He is my father, and he has some knowledge of surgery; I believe he could save my friend here.”

She stood considering.  “So much was known to me,” she answered at length; “that, after you, there would be but one left.  Three of my men have gone down to take him.  He will be here before long.”

“But, pardon me—­for as yet I know not whether your aim is to kill us or take us alive—­”

She interrupted me with a slight shrug of her shoulders.  “I have no wish to kill you.  But I must know what brings you here, and the rest can talk nothing but English.  As for this one”—­with a gesture of the hand towards Nat—­“he was foolish.  He tried to run away and warn you.”

“Then, signorina, let me promise, who know my father, that you will not take him alive.”

“I have sent three men.”

“You had done better to send thirty; but even so you will not succeed.”

“I have heard tell,” she said, again with a little movement of her shoulders, “that all Englishmen are mad.”

I laughed; and this laugh of mine had a singular effect on her.  She drew back and looked at me for an instant with startled eyes, as though she had never heard laughter in her life before, or else had heard too much.

“Tell me what you propose,” she said.

“I propose to send down a message to my father, and one of your men shall carry it with a white flag (for that he shall have the loan of my handkerchief).  I will write in Italian, that you may read and know what I say.”

“It is unnecessary.”

“I thank you.”  I found in my pockets the stump of a pencil and a scrap of paper—­an old Oxford bill—­and wrote—­

     “DEAR FATHER,

     “We are prisoners, and Nat is wounded, but whether past help or
      not I cannot say.  I believe you might do something for him. 
      If it suit your plans, the bearer will give you safe conduct: 
      if not, I remain your obedient son,”
          
                                        “PROSPER.”

I translated this for her, and folded the paper.

“Marc’antonio!” she called to one of the three men, who by this time had finished plaiting the litter and were strewing it with fern.

Marc’antonio—­a lean, slight fellow with an old scar on his cheek—­ stepped forward at once.  She gave him my note and handkerchief with instructions to hurry.

“Excuse me, principessa”—­he hesitated, with a glance at me and another at his comrades—­“but these two, with the litter, will have their hands full; and this prisoner is a strong one and artful.  Has he not already slain ’l Verru?”

“You will mind your own business, Marc’antonio, which is to run, as I tell you.”

The man turned without another word, but with a last distrustful look, and plunged downhill into the scrub.  The girl made a careless sign to the others to lay Nat on his litter, and, turning, led the way up the rocky front of the summit, presenting her back to me, choosing the path which offered fewest impediments to the litter-bearers in our rear.