and bid you for the present a sportsman-like welcome to the luxuries
of the Paradise of Thieves."

All the time that he had been speaking, the dubious-looking men
with carbines and dirty slouch hats had been gathering silently
in such preponderating numbers that even Muscari was compelled
to recognize his sally with the sword as hopeless. He glanced around him;
but the girl had already gone over to soothe and comfort her father,
for her natural affection for his person was as strong or stronger than
her somewhat snobbish pride in his success. Muscari, with the illogicality
of a lover, admired this filial devotion, and yet was irritated by it.
He slapped his sword back in the scabbard and went and flung himself
somewhat sulkily on one of the green banks. The priest sat down
within a yard or two, and Muscari turned his aquiline nose on him
in an instantaneous irritation.

"Well," said the poet tartly, "do people still think me too romantic?
Are there, I wonder, any brigands left in the mountains?"

"There may be," said Father Brown agnostically.

"What do you mean?" asked the other sharply.

"I mean I am puzzled," replied the priest. "I am puzzled about
Ezza or Montano, or whatever his name is. He seems to me much more
inexplicable as a brigand even than he was as a courier."

"But in what way?" persisted his companion. "Santa Maria!
I should have thought the brigand was plain enough."