It so happened that it was the French Jacques who admitted the English Jack.
The Countess’s faithful servitor placed the letter in the hands of the one for whom it was intended, explaining, as best he could, how it came to be opened.
“The Count and a big, stout man went away this very morning. They may have gone to Corsica, but I do not know.”
Jack felt sure that they had, and the next morning he was on his way thither.
CHAPTER XI.
A CORSICAN CHANT.
If one could rise in the air like a bird and look down upon the island of Corsica, he might think that he saw before him the petrified skeleton of some great marine monster. From north to south, through the centre of the island, runs a ridge of mountains resembling a spinal column, while upon either side of this central ridge branch a number of shorter parallel ridges bearing a close resemblance to the ribs of such an animal. In each of these valleys, near the central ridge, are the sources of small rivers which run east or west, as the case may be, into the Mediterranean Sea. The banks are composed of alluvial soil, and, for that reason, near the sea the rivers widen out, covering large areas of land which become marshes, full, at certain seasons of the year, of pestilential vapours, the cause of disease and death among the inhabitants. The sides of the mountains and the borders of the adjacent ravines are covered by dense masses of shrubbery and groves or forests of trees. In Australia, the outlaw, fleeing from justice, takes refuge in “the bush,” from which circumstance he has derived the characteristic name of “bushranger.” On the other hand, the Corsican outlaws or banditti take refuge, when pursued by the officers of the law, in the maquis, which, in the Corsican vernacular, has the same meaning as the Australian “bush.”
In one of the deepest of the ravines on the western side of the central ridge of mountains which traverses the island of Corsica, a band of some twenty men was assembled. They were nondescript in appearance, each being dressed after a fashion of his own, although there was one point of resemblance between them, for each was armed with a rifle, had a pair of pistols in his belt, and a closer examination would have revealed a stiletto hidden away beneath the folds of his shirt or jacket. They were what they appeared to be—Corsican banditti or, in other words, outlaws—men wanted by the police—chiefly for murder.
And yet they were different from the usual banditti which infest Corsica, as a closer acquaintance with their leader will soon determine. He was a man of gigantic stature and the possessor of great physical strength. He was seated apart from the members of his band in company with his lieutenant, a man much smaller in size, but muscular and agile, as a natural result of a continual outdoor life.
The leader was called Cromillian. No one of his band supposed that this was his real name, but he offered no explanation and none was asked. He had suddenly appeared in Corsica, gathered a band of trusted followers, and for a year had carried on a peculiar system of brigandage. As the plan followed by him supplied his adherents with the means of subsistence, they ventured no criticism of his peculiar manner of doing business, although they often wondered among themselves as to what the final outcome of it would be.
The lieutenant’s name was Paoli, and, although next in command to Cromillian, he had no clearer idea of his leader’s ultimate object than had the other members of the band. The wild, roving life suited him and he was content to remain where he was, for he had long ago forfeited his rights as a law-abiding citizen and was a marked man in the eyes of the emissaries of the law.