From that day Madaléna never returned to the wood. Every morning the unhappy Antonio retraced his steps to the place of meeting, but only to have his hopes crushed. He was forgotten, perhaps scorned. Love, the sentiment of the heart, had yielded to the influence of the frivolous ideas of society, the conventional maxims of the world. This young maiden had not the courage to affirm in the face of all, “I love Antonio, because he is not guilty of any crime; I love him because he has avenged his father, because he is a true son of Corsica.” But she had not the spirit, the strength of mind, to say this. The Corsican blood had degenerated in her veins, or she would have felt that it was no crime for Antonio to achieve the removal from public view of the horrid spectacle which was a continual witness of shame and ignominy,—exposed by a relic of barbarism, called law, to the gaze and scorn of all who passed along the streets,—that no stain rested on the memory of Antonio's father, because, as a husband and a father, he had avenged the honour of his wife and his children.
A year after these events, the whole population of the village of Allari was again astir. Its only bell clanged incessantly, and gay troops of both sexes, in holiday dress, flocked through the streets in the direction of the Mairie. It was a bright morning of the month of April; joy floated in the air, and pleasure sparkled in every eye. Presently, a nuptial procession was formed, and took its way towards the church. All eyes rested on the bride and bridegroom; they did not wear the Corsican dress, but adopted French fashions. Everything about them betokened wealth, and an affectation of continental manners.
As soon as the procession had entered the church, the streets became deserted; but a young man, who from an early hour had concealed himself in the cemetery, now glided round the church, casting anxious glances on every side, as if apprehensive of being discovered. His clothes, torn to tatters, his unshorn beard and long, dishevelled, hair, blood-shot eyes, and haggard countenance, betokened the extremity of anguish and want. His feet were naked, and he carried in his hand a short rifle.
Arrived at the church door, and having glanced within, he paused for a moment, leaning against the pillar. The nuptial ceremony had reached the point where the minister of God, after pronouncing the mystic words, demands of the betrothed their assent to the marriage union; when, just as the bride was in the act of uttering the word which binds for ever the destinies of both, the barrel of the rifle, held by the man stationed at the door, was levelled, and the fiancée fell, pierced in the breast with a mortal wound. The man, who fired, threw down his rifle, and, dashing into the church like one demented, took the dying woman in his arms, and cried,—
“Madaléna, you broke your troth to me; you rendered me desperate; we die together!”
And, unsheathing his dagger, he plunged it several times into his breast, falling on the dying woman, who opened her eyes, and, recognising her lover, expired with the name of “Antonio” on her lips.
Her betrothed was conveyed away by his relations, and the recollection of this terrible scene disturbed for a long while the tranquillity of the village. The church in which it took place was, after the catastrophe, stripped of all its sacred ornaments, and left to decay. Its ruins may still be seen on a point of rising ground, and, if an inquiring traveller takes a turn behind the church, he will find in the cemetery, on the spot where Antonio was concealed, a grave-stone inscribed with the names of Madaléna and Antonio, surmounted by a rude representation of a rifle and a dagger.
CHAP. XV.
Morosaglia, Seat of the Paolis.—Higher Valley of the Golo.—Orography of Corsica.—Its Geology.