Though Orso, having lived so long on the mainland, was not so sensitive as other Corsicans to the enormity of the insult, still, if any supporter of the Barricini had appeared in his sight at that moment, he would probably have taken vengeance on him for the outrage he ascribed to his enemies.

“The cowardly wretches!” he cried.  “To avenge themselves on a poor brute, when they dare not meet me face to face!”

“What are we waiting for?” exclaimed Colomba vehemently.  “They come here and brave us!  They mutilate our horses! and we are not to make any response?  Are you men?”

“Vengeance!” shouted the herdsmen.  “Let us lead the horse through the village, and attack their house!”

“There’s a thatched barn that touches their Tower,” said old Polo Griffo; “I’d set fire to it in a trice.”

Another man wanted to fetch the ladders out of the church steeple.  A third proposed they should break in the doors of the house with a heavy beam intended for some house in course of building, which had been left lying in the square.  Amid all the angry voices Colomba was heard telling her satellites that before they went to work she would give each man of them a large glass of anisette.

Unluckily, or rather luckily, the impression she had expected to produce by her own cruel treatment of the poor horse was largely lost on Orso.  He felt no doubt that the savage mutilation was due to one of his foes, and he specially suspected Orlanduccio; but he did not believe that the young man, whom he himself had provoked and struck, had wiped out his shame by slitting a horse’s ear.  On the contrary, this mean and ridiculous piece of vengeance had increased Orso’s scorn for his opponents, and he now felt, with the prefect, that such people were not worthy to try conclusions with himself.  As soon as he was able to make himself heard, he informed his astonished partisans that they would have to relinquish all their bellicose intentions, and that the power of the law, which would shortly be on the spot, would amply suffice to avenge the hurt done to a horse’s ear.

“I’m master here!” he added sternly; “and I insist on being obeyed.  The first man who dares to say anything more about killing or burning, will quite possibly get a scorching at my hands!  Be off!  Saddle me the gray horse!”

“What’s this, Orso?” said Colomba, drawing him apart.  “You allow these people to insult us?  No Barricini would have dared to mutilate any beast of ours in my father’s time.”

“I promise you they shall have reason to repent it.  But it is gendarme’s and jailer’s work to punish wretches who only venture to raise their hands against brute beasts.  I’ve told you already, the law will punish them; and if not, you will not need to remind me whose son I am.”

“Patience!” answered Colomba, with a sigh.