“O King of Corsica”—­she turned to me—­“behold your palace!”

Her eyes were watching me, but in what expectation I could not tell.  I stepped carelessly to the doorway and took a glance around the interior.

“It might be worse; and I thank you, Princess.”

“Ajo, Marc’antonio!  Since the stranger approves of it so far, go carry his friend within.”

“Your pardon, Princess,” I interposed; “the place is something too dirty to house a sick man, and until it be cleaned my friend will do better in the fresh air.”

She shrugged her shoulders.  “Your subjects, O King, have left it in this mess, and they will help you very little to improve it.”

I walked over to the palisade and looked across it upon an unsightly area foul with dried dung and the trampling of pigs.  For weeks, if not months, it must have lain uninhabited, but it smelt potently even yet.

“My subjects, Princess?”

“With Giuse lying sick, the hogs roam without a keeper:  and my people have chosen you in his room.”  She paused, and I felt, rather than saw, that both the men were eyeing me intently.  I guessed then that she was putting on me a meditated insult; to the Corsican mind, doubtless a deep one.

“So I am to keep your hogs, Princess?” said I, with a deliberate air.  “Well, I am your hostage.”

“I am breaking no faith, Englishman.”

“As to that, please observe that I am not accusing you.  I but note that, having the power, you use it.  But two things puzzle me:  of which the first is, where shall I find my charges?”

“Marc’antonio shall fetch them down to you from the other side of the mountain.”

“And next, how shall I learn to tend them?” I asked, still keeping my matter-of-fact tone.

“They will give you no trouble.  You have but to pen them at night and number them, and again at daybreak turn them loose.  They know this forest and prefer it to the other side:  you will not find that they wander.  At night you have only to blow a horn which Marc’antonio will bring you, and the sound of it will fetch them home.”

“A light job,” said Stephanu, with a grin, “when a man can bring his stomach to it.”

“Not so light as you suppose, my friend,” I answered.  “The sty, here, will need some cleansing; since if these are to be my subjects, I must do my best for them.  It may not amount to much, but at least my hogs shall keep themselves cleaner than some Corsicans, even than some Corsican cooks.”

“Stephanu,” said Marc’antonio, gravely, “the Englishman meant that for you:  and I tell you what I have told you before, that yours are no fitly kept hands for a cook.  I have travelled abroad and seen the ways of other nations.”

“The sty will need mending too, Princess,” said I:  “but before nightfall I will try to have it ready.”

“You will find tools in the hut,” she answered, with a glance at Marc’antonio, who nodded.  “For food, you shall be kept supplied.  Stephanu has brought, in his suck yonder, flesh, cheese, and wine sufficient for three days, with milk for your friend:  and day by day fresh milk shall be sent down to you.”