Meanwhile the gendarmes beleaguered the spot, keeping under cover. The brave Arrhigi kept close, watchful no doubt. He must have had a stout heart; but we do not paint, we only give the leading details; the reader's imagination will supply the rest.
At length the troops marched up. A French gendarme, boldly or incautiously, approached the entrance; he was shot dead on the spot. Then, no doubt was left that Arrhigi was there. Either to spare life, or because no one was found bold enough to lead the forlorn hope in storming the entrance, it was resolved to blow up the cave. The engineers set to work, a shaft was sunk from above, a barrel of gunpowder was lodged in it—the explosion was ineffectual; it left the massive vault and sides of the narrow cavern as firm as ever. It was too deep to be reached without regular mining. Besides, the night was bitter, and the whole party shaking with cold.
Engineering operations were abandoned. As they could neither beard the bandit in his den, nor blow him up, it was determined to starve him out. The troops bivouacked, fires were lighted, and sentinels posted. The siege was converted into a blockade, all in due military order.
“Centinelle, prend garde à vous!” was passed from post to post. “Centinelle, prend garde à moi!” answered the bold Arrhigi from his rocky hold.
The blockade was maintained for five days and four nights, not without some loss on the part of the besiegers, for Arrhigi opened fire from time to time, as opportunity offered, and no less than seven of his enemies were struck down by his unerring bullets. Some were wounded.
“Brave soldiers of Napoleon,” cried Arrhigi, “carry off your wounded comrades, who want your assistance.”
It seems extraordinary that 400 troops should be held at bay by a single man for so long a period; but such was the fact. Perhaps the officials hoped to take him alive, or they might wish to spare a further effusion of blood in actual conflict with the desperate bandit. Arrhigi's cavern had a small store of provisions and some gourds of water. When these were expended, he resolved on making a last effort to force his way through the troops. Could he have stood out a day longer, he might probably have escaped, as the weather became so tempestuous that it would have been impossible for them to maintain their exposed position in those bleak mountains.
On the fourth night, just before the dawn of day, he made the attempt. Dashing from the cavern, and shooting down the nearest sentries right and left with his double-barrelled gun, he gained the thickets. An alarm was raised, and there was a general pursuit. Arrhigi fled towards the Golo, intending, probably, to place that river between him and his pursuers. It was now daylight, and they were upon him before he reached it. Again brought to bay, he took his stand sheltered by a rock. The soldiers cried out to him to surrender; but the resolute bandit, refusing quarter, continued to resist till he was shot through the head.
We left Xavier Massoni escaping into the maquis, but slightly wounded in the thigh. The gendarmes were so occupied with his brother Pierre and Arrhigi, that he reached, unpursued, a distant forest in the heart of the mountains. Soon, however, an officer of the Gendarmerie Corse, with a detachment of forty or fifty men, was laid on his track. After seven days they discovered the lone cave in which, the last of his band, he had hoped for concealment. It was high up the face of the mountain, but the party scaled it, and summoning Xavier to surrender, he gave his parole. Just at that moment a gendarme offering a shot, the bandit levelled his gun at him and killed him. He then threw down his arms and came out of the cave, prepared to surrender himself. A sentry posted near, imagining that he intended to escape, shot him dead without challenging him or allowing him time to give himself up. The sentry was punished, as they wished to take the bandit alive, hoping that he would discover those who were in league with him.
Thus fell, with a gallantry worthy of a better cause, these renowned banditti chiefs, who for many years had infested the country, and filled it with alarm and grief. The rest of the band dispersed, were killed, or taken prisoners. Arrhigi's heroic defence closed the series of romantic stories on which the Corsicans delight to dwell. His example might have encouraged the outlaws to emulate his daring resistance; but the unusual force brought against him convinced them that the authorities were no longer to be trifled with. The brigands became thoroughly disheartened, and we hear of no more desperate encounters with the gendarmerie. In the course of the following year, the deep solitudes of the Corsican forests and mountains, echoing no longer to the crack of the rifle, were left in the undisturbed possession of the shepherds and their flocks, the foxes and the moufflons.