Once more ambassadors set out for France, five in number; but the Genoese intercepted them off the coast. Three leapt into the sea to save themselves by swimming, one of whom was drowned; the two who were captured were first put to the torture, and then executed. The war assumed the frightful character of a merciless Vendetta on both sides. Doria, however, effected nothing. Sampiero defeated him again and again; and at last, in the passes of Luminanda, almost annihilated the Genoese forces. It required the utmost exertion of Doria's great skill and personal bravery to extricate himself on the latter occasion. He arrived in San Fiorenzo, bleeding, exhausted, and in despair, and soon after left the island. The Republic replaced him by Vivaldi, and afterwards by the artful and intriguing Fornari; but the Genoese had lost all hope of crushing Sampiero by war and open force. Against this man, who had come to the island as an outlaw with a few outlawed followers, they had gradually sent their whole force into the field—their own and a Spanish fleet, their mercenaries, Germans, fifteen thousand Spaniards, their greatest generals, Doria, Centurione, and Spinola; yet, the same Genoa that had conquered Pisa and Venice had proved unable to subdue a poor people, forsaken by the whole world, who came into the ranks of battle starving, in rags, unshod, badly armed, and who, when they returned home, found nothing but the ashes of their villages.
It was therefore decided that Sampiero must be murdered.
Dissensions, fomented by the Genoese, had long existed between him and the descendants of the old seigniors. Some, like Hercules of Istria, had deserted him from lust of Genoese gold, or because their pride revolted at the thought of obeying a man who had risen from the dust. Others had a Vendetta with Sampiero; they had a debt of blood to exact from him. These were the nobles of the Ornano family, three brothers—Antonio, Francesco, and Michael Angelo, cousins of Vannina. Genoa had won them with gold, and the promise of the seigniory of Ornano, of which Vannina's children were the rightful heirs. The Ornanos, again, gained the monk Ambrosius of Bastelica, and Sampiero's own servant Vittolo, a trusted follower, with whose help it was agreed to take Sampiero in an ambuscade. The governor, Fornari, approved of the plan, and committed its execution to Rafael Giustiniani.
Sampiero was in Vico when the monk brought him forged letters, urgently requesting him to come to Rocca, where a rebellion, it was said, had broken out against the popular cause. Sampiero instantly despatched Vittolo with twenty horse to Cavro, and himself followed soon after. He was accompanied by his son Alfonso, Andrea de' Gentili, Antonio Pietro of Corte, and Battista da Pietra. Vittolo, in the meantime, instructed the brothers Ornano, and Giustiniani, that Sampiero would pass through the defile of Cavro; on receiving which intelligence, they immediately set out for the spot indicated with a considerable force of foot and horse, and formed the ambuscade. Sampiero and his little band were riding unsuspectingly through the pass, when they suddenly found themselves assailed on every side, and the defile swarming with armed men. He saw that his hour was come. Yielding now to those impulses of natural affection which he had once so signally disowned, he ordered his son Alfonso to leave him, to flee, and save himself for his country. The son obeyed, and escaped. Most of his friends had fallen bravely fighting by his side, when Sampiero rushed into the mêlée, to hew his way through if it were possible. The day was just dawning. The three Ornanos had kept their eyes constantly upon him, at first afraid to assail the terrible man; but at length, spurred on by revenge, they pressed in upon him, some Genoese soldiery at their back. Sampiero fought desperately. He had thrown himself upon Antonio Ornano, and wounded him with a pistol-shot in the throat. But his carbine missed fire; Vittolo, in loading it, had put in the bullet first. Sampiero's face was streaming with blood; freeing his eyes from it with his left, his right hand still grasped his sword, and kept all at bay, when Vittolo, from behind, shot him through the back, and he fell. The Ornanos now rushed in upon the dying man, and finished their work. They cut off Sampiero's head, and carried it to the Governor.
It was on the 17th of January in the year 1567 that Sampiero fell. He had reached his sixty-ninth year, his vigour unimpaired by age or military toil. The stern grandeur of his soul, and his pure and heroic patriotism, have made his name immortal. He was great in the field, inexhaustible in council; owing all to his own extraordinary nature, without ancestry, he inherited nothing from fortune, which usually favours the parvenu, but from misfortune everything, and he yielded, like Viriathus, only to the assassin. He has shown, by his elevating example, what a noble man can do, when he remains unyieldingly true to a great passion.
Sampiero was above the middle height, of proud and martial bearing, dark and stern, with black curly hair and beard. His eye was piercing, his words few, firm, and impressive. Though a son of nature, and without education, he possessed acute perceptions and unerring judgment. His friends accused him of seeking the sovereignty of his native island; he sought only its freedom. He lived as simply as a shepherd, wore the woollen blouse of his country, and slept on the naked earth. He had lived at the most luxurious courts of his time, at those of Florence and Versailles, but he had contracted none of their hollowness of principle, or corrupt morality. The rugged patriot could murder his wife because she had betrayed herself and her child to her country's enemies, but he knew nothing of those crimes that pervert nature, and those principles that would refine the vile abuse into a philosophy of life. He was simple, rugged, and grand, headlong and terrible in anger, a whole man, and fashioned in the mightiest mould of primitive nature.
CHAPTER XIX.
SAMPIERO'S SON, ALFONSO—TREATY WITH GENOA.
At the news of Sampiero's fall, the bells were rung in Genoa, and the city was illuminated. The murderers quarrelled disgracefully over their Judas-hire; that of Vittolo amounted to one hundred and fifty gold scudi.
Sorrow and dismay fell upon the Corsican nation; its father was slain. The people assembled in Orezza; three thousand armed men, many weeping, all profoundly sad, filled the square before the church. Leonardo of Casanova, Sampiero's friend and fellow-soldier, broke the silence. He was about to pronounce the patriot's funeral oration.