“Excuse me, father Joachimo, I am in no humour to-day to partake in the gaiety of my friends.”
Pressed, however, by repeated entreaties, the young man at last yielded, and, advancing to the barrier, and unloosing his rifle from the slings, took a cartridge from his pouch, and proceeded to charge his piece with much deliberation. While doing this, his eyes were fixed on a crevice in the tower, from which was hanging a little iron cage containing the mouldering remains of a human skull. At this spectacle his countenance changed from its usual ruddy hue to a mortal paleness, and tears were seen to fill his eyes.
Having charged his rifle, Antonio took his position in the attitude of firing; but, it was remarked, that in taking aim, he levelled the barrel higher than the mark at the foot of the tower. A moment of solemn silence was followed by a flash, a sharp crack,—and the whizzing bullet struck the skull in the cage. The shock brought both to the ground, and, at the same instant, the young man, quick as thought, leaped over the palisades, and, gathering up the fragments of skull, quickly disappeared. The spectators of this strange scene asked each other what it meant; and, in the midst of the hubbub, Joachimo, the old peasant who had invited Antonio to try his skill in the feat of arms, raised his voice to satisfy their curiosity.
“My children,” he said, “Corsican blood has not degenerated; of this you have witnessed a striking proof in the act of Antonio. The skull, which hung on the tower wall, was that of a man unjustly condemned to death, of a man whose only crime was, his having taken vengeance with his own hand for the insult offered his wife by an inhabitant of the continent. The skull was that of Antonio's father; and a son, a true Corsican, could not submit to having his father's remains dishonoured. This day he has wiped out the ignominy,—henceforth Antonio is an outlaw, proscribed by the men of law, by the French; but we Corsicans shall ever esteem him a man of honour and of courage.”
The crowd then dispersed, full of admiration for the brave Antonio, and the event of the morning became the theme of the evening's conversation in all the families of the neighbourhood.
Meanwhile Antonio, having gained the forest, rapidly threaded its tangled paths for nearly an hour. He then stopped in one of its deepest recesses, and, having keenly reconnoitred every avenue of approach, threw himself weary at the foot of a tree, and opening the handkerchief in which he had wrapped his father's skull, gave vent to a flood of tears.
“Oh, my father!” he said, “my father! why could I not take vengeance on the authors of your death? why could I not avenge myself on the descendants of the base Frenchman who insulted my mother? why could I not wash out, in their blood, the shame that has fallen on our family, and embittered our existence?”
At the thought of vengeance the eyes of the young islander flashed fire, his tears dried up, and that heart, just now so open to tender emotions, would have prompted him to plunge his dagger in the bosom of those who were the cause of his misery.
Again, the fit changed; for, in the midst of this storm of passion, a name quivered on his lips, like the star seen in the drifting clouds when the tempest is raging.
“Madaléna!” he cried, “all is now finished between us;—Antonio is a bandit.”