Miss Lydia may possibly have overheard this artless praise of her beauty and been startled by it; for she went below almost immediately.
Shortly after Orso also retired. As soon as he had left the deck the maid reappeared, and, having cross-questioned the sailor, carried back the following information to her mistress. The /ballata/ which had been broken off on Orso's appearance had been composed on the occasion of the death of his father, Colonel della Rebbia, who had been murdered two years previously. The sailor had no doubt at all that Orso was coming back to Corsica /per fare la vendetta/, such was his expression, and he affirmed that before long there would be /fresh meat/ to be seen in the village of Pietranera. This national expression, being interpreted, meant that Signor Orso proposed to murder two or three individuals suspected of having assassinated his father--individuals who had, indeed, been prosecuted on that account, but had come out of the trial as white as snow, for they were hand and glove with the judges, lawyers, prefect, and gendarmes.
"There is no justice in Corsica," added the sailor, "and I put much more faith in a good gun than in a judge of the Royal Court. If a man has an enemy he must choose one of the three S's." (A national expression meaning /schioppetto/, /stiletto/, /strada/--that is, /gun/, /dagger/, or /flight/.
These interesting pieces of information wrought a notable change in Miss Lydia's manner and feeling with regard to Lieutenant della Rebbia. From that moment he became a person of importance in the romantic Englishwoman's eyes.
