"Then hooly, hooly rase she up, And hooly she came nigh him, And when she drew the curtain by-- 'Young man, I think you're dyin'.'" _Barbara Allan's Cruelty_. Evening fell, of a sudden filling the great hollow with purple shadows. As the stars came out the Corsicans on the slope to my left lit a fire of brushwood and busied themselves around it, cooking their supper. They were no ordinary bandits, then; or at least had no fear to betray their whereabouts, since on the landward side on so clear a night the glow would be visible for many miles. I watched them at their preparations. Their dark figures moved between me and the flames as they set up a tall tripod of pine poles and hung their cauldron from the centre of it, upon a brandice. The princess had withdrawn to her cave and did not reappear until Stephanu, who seemed to be head-cook, announced that supper was ready, whereupon she came and took her seat with the rest in a ring around the fire. Marc'antonio brought me my share of seethed kid's flesh with a capful of chestnuts roasted in the embers; a flask of wine too, and a small pail of goat's milk with a pannikin, for Nat. The fare might not be palatable, but plainly they did not intend us to starve. Marc'antonio made no answer when I thanked him, but returned to his seat in the ring, where from the beginning of the meal--as at a signal--his companions had engaged in a furious and general dispute. So at least it sounded, and so shrill at times were their contending voices, and so fierce their gesticulations, that for some minutes I fully expected to see them turn to other business the knives with which they attacked their meal. The Princess sat listening, speaking very seldom. Once only in a general hush the firelight showed me that her lips were moving, and I caught the low tone of her voice, but not the words. Not once did she look in my direction, and yet I guessed that she was speaking of me: for the words "ostagiu," "Inglese," and the name "Giuseppe" or "Griuse"--of the man I had shot--had recurred over and over in their jabber, and recurred when she ceased and it broke forth again.