Falco asked, and Don Giovanni told the whole story. “Your Reverence,” said Falco, “he has been deceiving you.” He begged Don Giovanni to go with him to Diamante. When they came to the old house Don Giovanni rode in behind the wall of San Pasquale, and Falco called Nino out. Nino came out on one of the balconies. “Eh, Nino!” said Falco, and laughed. “You have cheated the priest out of money?” “Do you know it already?” said Nino. “I was just going to tell it to you.”
Now Falco became sterner. “Nino,” he said, “the priest is my friend, and he believes that I have wished to rob him. You have done very wrong.” He suddenly put his gun to his shoulder and shot Nino down, and when he had done so he turned to Don Giovanni, who had almost fallen from his donkey with terror. “You see now, your Reverence, that I had no part in Nino’s designs on you!”
And that happened twenty years ago, when Falco had not been a brigand for more than five years.
“Will Falco spare the railway,” people say, as they tell it, “when he did not spare his own brother?”
There was yet more.
After Nino’s murder there was a vendetta over Falco. Nino’s wife was so terrified when she found her husband dead that half her body became paralyzed, and she could no longer walk. But she took her place at the window in the old cottage. There she has sat for twenty years with a gun beside her, and waited for Falco. And of her the great brigand has been afraid. For twenty years he has not gone past the home of his ancestors.
The woman has not deserted her post. No one ever goes to the church of San Pasquale without seeing her revengeful eyes shining behind the panes. Who has ever seen her sleep? Who has seen her work? She could do nothing but await her husband’s murderer.
When people hear that, they are even more afraid. Falco has luck on his side, they think. The woman who wishes to kill him cannot move from her place. He has luck on his side. He will also succeed in destroying the railway. Fortune has never failed Falco. The carabinieri have hunted, but have never been able to catch him. The carabinieri have feared Falco more than Falco has feared the carabinieri.