CHAPTER V.

VENDETTA OR NOT?

I was not destined to leave the quiet Corte without some slightly unpleasant recollections, and that owing to my guide of Monte Rotondo. It was not till after I had returned to the town that I learned to what a furious and passionate individual I had trusted myself. Although he had told me a falsehood, and, proving to be unacquainted with the road to the summit, had compelled me to take the goat-herd Angelo as guide, I gave him the full hire we had agreed on. But the fellow, in the most impudent way, demanded half as much again. The vehement language on both sides drew the notice of some Corsican gentlemen, who took my part. "This is a stranger," said one of them to the guide, "and with us the stranger is always in the right." I replied to the polite speaker, "that I claimed my rights not as a stranger, but as a man, and that I should instantly have recourse to the authorities of the town, if the rascal continued to molest me." The latter threw his wages on the table, and stormed out of the room, exclaiming that he should know how to have his revenge on the German. On this the landlady of the locanda came to me and bade me be on my guard, as the fellow was passionate beyond all bounds, and last year had stabbed a man in the market-place.

Somewhat anxious, I asked the reason. "Because," said the landlady, "the Lucchese had struck his little brother for hanging on to his cart, as children do. The boy ran with his complaint to his brother, who instantly rushed out with his dagger, and murdered the other with one blow."

"How was he punished?" "With five months' imprisonment; for somehow or other the murder could not be properly proved." "Now, I confess—_la giustizia Corsa è un poco corta_—your Corsican justice is a little short; but, my good woman, you knew the ungovernable temper of this man—you knew he had already shed blood, and yet you yourself engaged me this devil for a guide, and allowed an unarmed stranger to enter the hills with him!"

"I thought, sir, you would see it in his eyes, and I gave you a wink once or twice, too. The fellow had offered himself, and if I had been the reason of your sending him away, then _I_ should have got myself into trouble."

I now remembered that the good woman had asked me as I was going off with the guide: "When do you expect to return?" and that when I said, "In two days," she shrugged her shoulders, and seemed to intimate something with her eyes.

"Very well," I said to the woman, "I shall not give the man a single quattrino more than was agreed on. On that my mind is made up."

He came in the evening and took away quietly enough the money I had thrown down. But although this looked like an admission of his misconduct, I thought it best to maintain a sharp look-out, and did not go beyond the gates after night-fall.

The following evening I took a walk in the company of a Corsican officer whose acquaintance I had made. Outside the gate I witnessed a slight specimen of Corsican temperament. A youth of about fifteen had tied a horse to a fence, and was throwing stones at it, quite beside himself with rage, and howling out his fury like some maddened beast. The poor animal had probably offended him by a fit of obstinacy. I stood looking at him, and provoked at such malignant brutality, at last called to him to cease. Instantly my companion said to me: "For Heaven's sake come away, and be quiet." I obeyed, not a little struck with the scene, and the suppressed tones in which my companion had addressed me. This, too, was a glimpse of the state of Corsican society.

Shortly after, the youth flew past on the horse like a demon, his hair streaming, his face on flame, his eyes still sparkling with fury.

I felt deeply at that moment that I was among barbarians, and a sudden longing for Florence and its mild Italians filled me.

But there was still another disagreeable little incident in store for me. We had not gone a mile further into the hills, when I saw my guide walking along a height a little distance from the road, his gun upon his shoulder. He sat down on a rock, resting his piece across his knee. I did not know whether he still bore me a grudge, and meant mischief, but it was possible. I pointed him out to my companion, and continued my walk past him, not choosing to show any signs of fear; but I felt uncomfortable. "He will not shoot at you," said the officer, "unless you have offended him by some injurious word. But if you have done that, no saying what may happen; these men will stand no insult." He did not shoot, for which I was obliged to the bloodthirsty vampire, or the poor devil, let me rather call him—for nature sins here more than man. The blood that is shed among the Corsican hills is seldom shed from such a despicable motive as lust of gold—almost always from false notions of honour. The Corsican Vendetta is a chivalrous duel for life and death.