We could not trace the course of the bullet, and judged it best to spare meddling with a hurt we could not help.  So, having bathed away the clotted blood and bandaged him, we strewed a fresh bed of fern, and watched by him, moistening his lips from time to time with water, for which he moaned.  The sun began to sink on the far side of the mountain, and the shadow of the summit, falling into the deep gulf at our feet, to creep across the green tree-tops massed there.  While it crept, and I watched it, Billy related in whispers how he had been sprung upon and gagged, so swiftly that he had no chance to cry alarm or to feel for the trigger of his musket.  He rubbed his hands delightedly when in return I told the story of my lucky shot.  In his ignorance of Italian he had caught no inkling of the peril that lucky shot had brought upon me, nor did I choose to enlighten him.

The shadow of the mountain was stretching more than halfway across the valley, and in the slanting light the rosy tinge of the crags appeared to be melting and suffusing the snow-peaks beyond, when my father walked into the camp unannounced.  He carried a gun and a folding camp-stool, and was followed by Marc’antonio, who fluttered my white handkerchief from the ramrod of his musket.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen!” said my father, lifting his hat and looking about him.

I could see at a glance that his stature and bearing impressed the Corsicans.  They drew back for a moment, then pressed around him like children.

“Mbe!  E bellu, il Inglese,” I heard one say to his fellow.

After quelling the brief tumult against me, and while I busied myself with Nat, the girl had disappeared—­I could not tell whither.  But now one of the band ran up the slope calling loudly to summon her.  “O principessa, ajo, ajo!  Veni qui, ajo!” and, gazing after him, I saw her at the entrance of a cave some fifty feet above us, erect, with either hand parting and holding back the creepers that curtained her bower.

She let the curtains fall-to behind her, and, stepping down the hillside, welcomed my father with the gravest of curtsies.

“Salutation, O stranger!”

“And to you, O lady, salutation!” my father made answer, with a bow.  “Though English,” he went on, slipping easily into the dialect she used with her followers, “I am Corsican enough to forbear from asking their names of gentlefolk in the macchia; but mine is John Constantine, and I am very much at your service.”

“My men call me the Princess Camilla.”

“A good name,” said my father, and seemed to muse upon it for a moment while he eyed her paternally.  “A very good name, O Princess, and beloved of old by Diana—­

     “’Aeternum telorum et virginitatis amorem
      Intemerata—­’

“But I come at your bidding and must first of all apologize for some little delay; the cause being that your messenger found me busy patching up a bullet-hole in one of your men.”