“It is a great pity,” said Cromillian, sarcastically, “that he is not living, and here to give advice to his kinsman. I know not whether it is an adage, but it is a well-known fact that the sons and grandsons of great men seldom resemble them.”
“Your wits are too much for me,” said Paoli, “but please have the grace to hear me out. It was a maxim of my illustrious ancestor that every citizen should constitute himself a soldier and defend his rights by force of arms. Not to avenge wrongs committed against one’s own blood or that of his friends, has always been deemed by the Corsicans to denote a coward. I am a true son of Corsica and, for that, you call me a clown, a fool. If you and I were not sworn friends, there might be cause for a coolness between us. Heed this now, and say whether I was right or wrong.
“My dearest friend, Antonio Marcelli, had a beautiful sister, Vinetta. A man from Bastia, named Ossa d’Oria, came to Ajaccio. He was young and handsome, and reputed to be a single man. Young Vinetta was misled by him and, to conceal her shame, committed suicide. I wrote to Antonio, but he was down sick with a fever and unable to return to Corsica. I made my friend’s cause my own and went to Bastia. I found that I was to be deprived of a sweet revenge, for the scoundrel had been drowned while bathing. His father was dead and he had no brothers or near relatives. But he had a wife. What was I to do?”
“That was embarrassing,” Cromillian remarked. “What did you do?”
“This was one of the cases,” answered Paoli, “where the flint of your gun must serve you. I put a ball through the head of the wife. That is what I call good old Corsican justice. Then I took to the mountains, and here I am, a jolly bandit like yourself.”
Cromillian turned upon him, savagely: “You call that justice? I call it murder! Cold-blooded murder!! This savage custom of vengeance executed upon relatives for wrongs committed by an ancestor, the lives of sons sacrificed for fancied wrongs alleged against fathers, has been the curse and blight of Corsica for the last five hundred years. The vendetta, that hydra-headed monster, strikes its fangs deep into the heart of every Corsican child before it is able to lisp its own name. Mothers lull their babies to sleep crooning the death song, nurses inflame their young imaginations with frightful stories of blood, revenge, and death. It has grown with their growth, strengthened with their strength, until to-day we stand before the world distinguished only as being the most savage, the most barbarous people upon the face of this fair earth.”
“Do they say that of us?” asked Paoli.
“Listen!” said Cromillian, “I read in an old newspaper when I was in France that if the island of Corsica could vomit forth all the blood which has been poured out upon its soil, in the course of time, in the vendetta and on the field of battle, it would overwhelm its cities and villages, drown its people, and crimson the sea from its shores to Genoa. Six hundred and sixty-six thousand slain by the hand of the assassin alone! Dost like the picture?”
“Well,” said Paoli, “what are we going to do about it? We take up life where our fathers left it.”
“There is going to be a change, a reformation!” cried Cromillian. “I, with my single arm, with the help of God, will commence the work. There will, necessarily, be much bloodshed at first—there always has been in every case where great evils were to be overcome. My life will be sacrificed, but it will be in a good and merciful cause, and when I shall have done my work, some other man will take it up just where I leave it, and so it will go on until your children’s children and mine may be able to look a civilised man in the face.”