The colonel paused for a few minutes. He had the leisurely conversational
manner of an old man.

"These people have undergone a change," he said at length, "since their
final subjugation by ourselves--exactly a hundred years ago, by the way.
They were a turbulent, fighting, obstinate people. Those qualities--good
enough in times of war--go bad in times of peace. They are a lawless,
idle, dishonest people now. Their grand fighting qualities have run to
seed in municipal disagreements and electioneering squabbles. And, worst
of all, we have grafted on them our French thrift, which has run to
greed. There is not a man in the district who would shoot you, count,
from any idea of the vendetta, but there are a hundred who would do it
for a thousand-franc note, or in order to prevent you taking back the
property which he has stolen from you. That is how it stands. And that is
why Pietro Andrei came to grief at Olmeta."

"And Mattei Perucca?" asked Lory, thereby causing the colonel to trip
suddenly over a stone.

"Oh, Perucca," he answered, "that was different. He died a more or less
natural death. He was a very stout man, and on receiving a letter, gave
way to such ungovernable rage that he fell in a fit. True, it was a
threatening letter; but such are common enough in this country. It may
have been a joke or may have had some comparatively harmless object. None
could have foreseen such a result."

They were now near the chateau, and the colonel rather suddenly shook
hands and went away.