Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad
"You tricked us that day in the mountain glen, and for the first time an
Alcanta brigand lost his prisoners and his ransom money through being
outwitted. But did you think that was the end? If so you failed to
appreciate us.
"Look you, my dear, we could have done without the money, for our family
has been robbing and accumulating for ages, with little need to expend
much from year to year. It is all in the Bank of Italy, too, and drawing
the interest, for my father is a wise man of business. That four hundred
thousand lira was to have been our last ransom, and after we had fairly
earned it you tricked us and did not pay.
"So my father and I determined to get even with you, as much through
revenge as cupidity. We were obliged to desert the valley at once,
because we were getting so rich that the government officials became
uneasy and warned us to go or be arrested. So we consulted together and
decided upon our little plot, which was so simple that it has worked
perfectly. We came to you with our sad story, and you thought we had
reformed, and kindly adopted me as one of your party. It was so easy
that I almost laughed in your foolish faces. But I didn't, for I can
act. I played the child very nicely, I think, and you quite forgot I was
a brigand's daughter, with the wild, free blood of many brave outlaws
coursing in my veins. Ah, I am more proud of that than of my acting.
"Innocent as I seemed, I watched you all carefully, and knew from
almost the first hour where the money had been put. I stole the key to
Uncle John's trunk on the train, while we were going from Taormina to
Syracuse; but I did not take the money from it because I had no better
place to keep it, and the only danger was that he would force the lock
some day. But Ferralti's money--I call him Ferralti because it is a
prettier name than Weldon--bothered me for a long time. At the first he
would not let that little satchel out of his sight, and when he finally
did he had removed the money to some other place.
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In a village there lived two men who had the self-same name. Both were named Claus. But one of them owned four horses, and the other owned only one horse; so to distinguish between them people called the man who had four horses Big Claus, and the man who had only one horse Little Claus. Now I'll tell you what happened to these two, for this is a true story.
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