Orso lost no time in assenting to this plan, and after a few moments’ silence, Colomba continued: 

“Perhaps, Orso, you think I was joking when I talked of an assault on the Barricini’s house.  Do you know we are in force—­two to one at the very least?  Now that the prefect has suspended the mayor, every man in the place is on our side.  We might cut them to pieces.  It would be quite easy to bring it about.  If you liked, I could go over to the fountain and begin to jeer at their women folk.  They would come out.  Perhaps—­they are such cowards!—­they would fire at me through their loopholes.  They wouldn’t hit me.  Then the thing would be done.  They would have begun the attack, and the beaten party must take its chance.  How is anybody to know which person’s aim has been true, in a scuffle?  Listen to your own sister, Orso!  These lawyers who are coming will blacken lots of paper, and talk a great deal of useless stuff.  Nothing will come of it all.  That old fox will contrive to make them think they see stars in broad midday.  Ah! if the prefect hadn’t thrown himself in front of Vincentello, we should have had one less to deal with.”

All this was said with the same calm air as that with which she had spoken, an instant previously, of her preparations for making the bruccio.

Orso, quite dumfounded, gazed at his sister with an admiration not unmixed with alarm.

“My sweet Colomba,” he said, as he rose from the table, “I really am afraid you are the very devil.  But make your mind easy.  If I don’t succeed in getting the Barricini hanged, I’ll contrive to get the better of them in some other fashion.  ’Hot bullet or cold steel’—­you see I haven’t forgotten my Corsican.”

“The sooner the better,” said Colomba, with a sigh.  “What horse will you ride to-morrow, Ors’ Anton’?”

“The black.  Why do you ask?”

“So as to make sure he has some barley.”

When Orso went up to his room, Colomba sent Saveria and the herdsmen to their beds, and sat on alone in the kitchen, where the bruccio was simmering.  Now and then she seemed to listen, and was apparently waiting very anxiously for her brother to go to bed.  At last, when she thought he was asleep, she took a knife, made sure it was sharp, slipped her little feet into thick shoes, and passed noiselessly out into the garden.

This garden, which was inclosed by walls, lay next to a good-sized piece of hedged ground, into which the horses were turned—­for Corsican horses do not know what a stable means.  They are generally turned loose into a field, and left to themselves, to find pasture and shelter from cold winds, as best they may.