"What will you give me if I hide you?" he said, drawing nearer.
The bandit felt in the leather pocket that hung from his side and took out a five-franc piece, which he had put aside, no doubt, for powder. Fortunato smiled at the sight of the piece of silver, and, seizing hold of it, he said to Gianetto—
"Don't be afraid."
He quickly made a large hole in a haystack which stood close by the house. Gianetto crouched down in it, and the child covered him up so as to leave a little breathing space, and yet in such a way as to make it impossible for anyone to suspect that the hay concealed a man. He acted, further, with the ingenious cunning of the savage. He fetched a cat and her kittens and put them on the top of the haystack to make believe that it had not been touched for a long time. Then he carefully covered over with dust the bloodstains which he had noticed on the path near the house, and, this done, he lay down again in the sun with the utmost sangfroid.
Some minutes later six men with brown uniform with yellow collars, commanded by an adjutant, stood before Mateo's door. This adjutant was a distant relative of the Falcones. (It is said that further degrees of relationship are recognised in Corsica than anywhere else.) His name was Tiodoro Gamba; he was an energetic man, greatly feared by the banditti, and had already hunted out many of them.
"Good day, youngster," he said, coming up to Fortunato. "How you have grown! Did you see a man pass just now?"
"Oh, I am not yet so tall as you, cousin," the child replied, with a foolish look.
"You soon will be. But, tell me, have you not seen a man pass by?"
"Have I seen a man pass by?"
"Yes, a man with a pointed black velvet cap and a waistcoat embroidered in red and yellow."