Corleone: A Tale of Sicily

oot of Mount Etna,' as it would be translated. It is a small, well-kept station near the sea, surrounded by gardens of o

n the orange blossoms were all out, scenting the sea more than a mile from land, and he had seen the spring in England, which, once in every four or five years, is worth seeing; but he had not dreamt of such dazzling glories of colour as filled the earth and sky and sea of Sicily. It was not tropical, for there was nothing uncultivated nor unfruitful in sight; it seemed as though the little belt of gardens he saw around him must be the richest in the whole world, and as though neither man nor beast nor flower

, the two repeating rifles in their leathern cases were very good reminders of

rter who took the things to th

' asked Orsino, surpris

he man with a grin. 'Almost all the signori have them n

as they were arranging the things. 'Pu

he porter knowingly, as he fe

the coachman, a big dark man with a stubbly

aculated t

way?' asked San Giacinto of the

nown up there, but I am of Messina. It is always better to be known

the porter, his shaven mouth st

owing how many of the people made the journey to

America, which they call

ock of his whip, but San Giacinto laughed. Ponza is a small island

man?' inquired Sa

employer's reputation. 'But for that-the master is a good man! He only got the knife a little way into the other's throat-so much-' he

b upwards under the ri

s only a pocket knife and would not have gone through the clothes,

awn by three skinny horses was crawling up a steep but well-built road, on which the yellow dust lay two inches thick. The coachman cracked his long whip of twisted cord with a noise like a quick succession of pistol shots, th

e, the horses settled down to a straining walk, and the coachman stopped cracking his whip, sinking into himself, round-shouldered, as souther

Curse your fathers and mothers, and whoever made you! Curse the souls of your dead, your

next, but as if to give the poor beasts time to understand what he said. It was a kind of lita

ou revile them in that way?' asked Orsino, speak

is slouching shoulders, and

he said. 'They understand. In your

better, and th

nsist of a little straw and water. This they eat, and this they are. How can they draw a heavy carriage uphill? It is a miracle. The Madonna attends to it. If I beat them,

ed the spider-like animals again, in a dull, monot

whole string of similar expressions, till the unhappy brutes strained and threw th

ss, indeed, compared with a Neapolitan or Calabrian village. Here and there among the whitewashed houses there were othe

f the bells and the wheels he could have heard their bones rattle as their skeleton legs s

m height who stood before the door, dressed in a clean white shirt and a decent brown velveteen jack

big army revolver and a cartridge case at his belt, and a heavy cavalry sabre by his side. They were tall, quiet-eyed, sober-looking men, and they salu

this gentleman is my cousin, Don Or

sergeant, and as San Giacinto assented, he turned to

others were put in. The carabineers had all disappeared, their quarters and stables being close by; so near, in

up to Camaldoli,' observed

part I prefer the other man's face. Stupidity is always a necessary qu

t our heels, I imagine t

lations. This is the only man who can furnish carriages

carriages and horses o

ed it. 'We shall see. In a day or two we shall find out whether you can have them at all. If it turns out

myself,' suggested

tolerate you. That is the most

without a squad of carabineers

your revolver always in your pocket and take a rifle when you go out of th

had dragged the carriage up from the station, for they were lean indeed, but you

ad is long and you must drive up as high as paradise. Tho

ano

ke a piano,' answered the man, without a smile. 'You also h

eed, one of the finest and best equipped bodies of men in the world. They are selected with the greatest care, and every man has to prove that neither he nor his father has ever been in jail, even for the slightest misdemeanour. The troopers and the men of the foot corps rank as corporals of the regular army, and many of them have been sergeants. In the same way each degree of rank is reckoned as equal to the next higher in the army,

from the summit of which rose a thin wreath of perfectly white smoke. From time to time San Giacinto pointed out to his companion the proposed direction of his light railway, which was to follow the same general direction as the carria

and dived into a quiet-looking house, returning presently with a big, painted earthenware jug full of wine, and a couple of solid glasses, which he filled and held out, without a word, to San Giacinto and Orsino. The w

wineshops, but this is the house of a very rich signore, who makes at least a thousand barrels every yea

It is as strong as s

er,' answered San Giacinto.

began to be broken by patches of arid ground, where dark stone cropped up,

lready famous in Rome, was at work in his dingy study, with a sheet of governmental stamped paper before him. He was a curious compound of a provincial and a

f which were rusty, while two of them were bright, as though they had been recently much used. He hardly spoke at all, b

body at the house?

be safer not to go straight to the door, but to get under the wall, and come up

ryly, and Orsino looked hard

I might be so bold as to offer my advice, I should say that you had better cut down

nquired Orsino, not und

ndo Pagliuca, believe me. But there are persons of no conscience, who do not esteem life as anything. But I do not mean to signify Don F

the man whom he had sent with them being beside the padrone on the box. He had a long old-fashioned g

re out in the country again, winding up through the beginning of the black lands. San Giacinto looked about him, and then began to get out one of the Winchesters, withou

hem, I suppose?'

of c

load the other,' said

nsidering the precaution superfluous, and he g

d them at a foot pace. The two gentlemen could, of course, not see the road in fron

ide, looking sharply ahead of him. Basili's man slipped the sling of his gun over his head in an instant, and laid the weapon across his knees, and Orsino

ut the two carabineers chargin

the sergeant. 'As soon as he saw us he wheeled and galloped on. He i

trouble lately?'

for a disguise,' answered the soldier, gravely. 'That fell

ut, and made a sign to the sergeant, signifying that they could not c

one, who had neither moved nor looked round du

rp curve to the left, following a spur of the mountain. No one was in sight, nor was there any sound of hoofs in the distance. To the ri

ruth of what she had said about the possibility of a man hiding himself in the fissures of the lava, to fire upon a traveller in perfect security. With s

the spring, and somehow the vivid yellow of the flowers makes the dark stone and hardened ash look still darker and more desolate. Here and there, every two or three miles, there are groups of deserted huts built of black tufo, doorless and windowless, and almost always on the edge of some bit of arable land that stretches westward between two old lava beds. The distances are so great that the peasants move out in a body to cultivate these outlying fields at certain times of the year, and sleep in the improvi

gh that as long as they kept together, even a large band of brigands would not attack them on the open road, but there were plenty of narrow places where the earth was high on each side, and where a single well-directed volley migh

broken land for greater safety, and the carriage jogged steadily on across the high land, towards i

ergeant to the padrone, from time to

ve when, at an abrupt curve of the road, the horses sla

them for the first time since they had started. 'You can se

nd reflecting the lowering sun. Nearer the building, the pink bloom of the flowering peaches formed a low cloud of exquisite colour, and the fresh green of the taller trees of all kinds made a feathery screen above and a compact mass of dark shadow lower down. The narrow drive was thickly hedged with quantities of sweetbrier and sweet hawthorn, which increased as the road descended, till it filled everything up to a man's height and higher. The way was so narrow tha

of it the trees were so thick as to make it almost gloomy, eve

with its leaves dropped upon Orsino's knees. Another shot, fired very low down, struck a spoke of one of the carriage wheels, and sent the splinters flying, burying itself somewhere in the body of the vehicle. Another and another followed, all fired either far too high or much too low to strike any of the party. As the shots all came from the same

Orsino. 'Shoot anybody you see, and do not mis

ntered the brush, not another shot was fired. Cl

. Instantly his rifle was at his shoulder, and he fired. San Giacinto

ing the door of the carriage. Tatò had disappeared. B

in the thicket, Orsino leading, as h