He sat and gazed lazily in front of him. Presently, leaving his cigarette
to smoulder, he began to buzz through his teeth, in the bucolic manner,
an air of Offenbach. He was, in a word, entirely agricultural, and
consequently slow of speech.

"Yes, count," he said, with conviction, after a long pause; "there is
only one drawback to Corsica."

"Ah?"

"The Corsicans," said the colonel, gravely. "You do not know them as I
do; for I suppose you have only been here a few days?"

De Vasselot's quick eyes glanced for a moment at the colonel's face, but
no reply was made to the supposition. Then the colonel fell to his
guileless Offenbach again. There is nothing so innocent as the meditative
rendering of a well-known tune. A popular air is that which echoes in
empty heads.

Colonel Gilbert glanced sideways at his companion. He had not thought
that this was a silent man. Nature was singularly at fault in her
mouldings if this slightly made, dark-eyed Frenchman was habitually
taciturn. And the colonel was vaguely uneasy.

"My horse," he said, "is up at Olmeta. I took a walk round by the river.
It is my business to answer innumerable questions from the Ministry of
the Interior. Railway projects are still in the air, you understand. I
must know my Corsica. Besides, as I tell you, I thought I was on my own
land."