While, however, their gaiety was at the highest, it was interrupted by loud knocking at the house door, and hoarse voices were heard without, demanding immediate admittance. A short consultation took place between my friend and their host, who agreed that no resistance could be offered, that the door should be opened, and they must all submit to their fate. Then the banditti rushed in with fierce gestures; truculent men, with shaggy hair and beards, wrapped in dark capotes, with long guns in their hands, and daggers in their belts and bosoms. “Spare our lives, and take our money, and all that we have,” was the cry of some of the travellers. Nor were the bandits slow in falling upon the sacs and malles, and beginning to rummage their contents, without, however, offering the slightest molestation to any of the party, who stood aghast witnessing their movements.
So far from it, suddenly, as if by a concerted signal, the outlaws, relinquishing their booty, throw off their dark mantles, disclosing all the bravery of the picturesque costume of Gallurese mountaineers, and grouping themselves round the table, leaned on the slender barrels of their fusils with a proud expression of countenance which seemed to say:—“We are outlaws, indeed; but we hold sacred the laws of hospitality and honour.”
The travellers found that they were safe, and, recovering from their panic, finished their supper with renewed gaiety. The outlaws withdrew, but shortly returning, some of them accompanied by their wives and children en habits de fête, the evening was spent in the exhibition of national dances, with songs and merriment.
This formed the concluding scene in the little drama which my informant had got up for the gratification of his friends. Travellers might naturally wish to see specimens of a race so unique and so celebrated as the Corsican and Sardinian bandits, if they could do so with impunity, just as they would a lion or a tiger uncaged and in his native woods, from a safe point of view. My informant was able to gratify his friends at the expense of a temporary fright. Perhaps they might have been better pleased if the “Deus ex machinâ” had not appeared to disclose the plot, and they had been suffered to consider the happy dénouement as the natural result of the outlaws' magnanimity. Such, by all accounts, it might have been.
But I can assure my readers that it requires a stout heart, and a strong faith in what one has heard of the redeeming qualities in the outlaws' character, to meet them in the open field without shuddering. It was in the dusk of early morning, that, soon after leaving a village on the borders of the Campidano, where we had passed the night, we suddenly fell in with a party of ten or twelve of these men, who crossed our track making for the hills. They were mounted on small-sized horses, stepping lightly under the great weight they carried; for the bandits were stalwart men, and heavily accoutred. Their guns were, variously, slung behind them, held upright on the thigh, or carried across the saddle-bows; short daggers were stuck in each belt, and a longer one hung by the side; a large powder-horn was suspended under the arm. Saddles en pique, with sheepskin housings, and leathern pouches attached on both sides, supplying the place of knapsack and haversack, completed the equipment. The “cabbanu,” a cloak of coarse brown cloth, hung negligently from the shoulders, and underneath appeared the tight-fitting pelisse or vest of leather; and the loose white linen drawers, which give the Sardes a Moorish appearance, were gathered below the knee underneath a long black gaiter tightly buckled.
Already familiar with the garb and equipments of a Sarde mountaineer, these details were caught at a glance. The gaze was riveted on the features of these desperate men,—the keen black eyes flashing from their swarthy countenances, to which a profusion of hair, falling on the shoulders from beneath the dark berette, gave, with their bushy beards, a ferocious aspect;—and, above all, the resolute but melancholy cast of features which expressed so well their lot of daring—and despair.
Whether the party was bent on a plundering raid, or returning from some terrible act of midnight murder, there was nothing to indicate; but the impression was that they were the men “to do or die” in whatever enterprise they were engaged. The party kept well together, riding in single file with almost military precision. Their pace was steady, with no appearance of haste, though they must probably have been aware that some carabineers were stationed in the place hard by, which we had just left. It was a startling apparition,—these “children of the mist”—sweeping by us in grim cavalcade over a wild heath, in the cold grey dawn of a November day, every hand stained with blood, every bosom steeled to vengeance. They took no notice of us, though we passed them closely, not even exchanging salutations with our cavallante. We gazed on them till they were out of sight.
No such thoughts as those suggested by the occurrences just related occupied our minds while we ascended the defile which penetrates the mountain chain intervening between Tempio and the valleys terminating on the coast. The savage character and the traditions of the locality might have inspired them, but we were under the protection of the courier, a privileged person—probably for good reasons,—and, besides this, as I have already said, under no sort of personal apprehension. Our attention was divided between the stern magnificence of the gorge, the more striking from its being now half veiled in darkness, and the difficulties of the ascent which, as usual, increased step by step, until, at last, winding stairs cut in the rock surmounted the highest cliffs and landed us at the summit of the pass.
On emerging from the gloomy defile, there was a total change of scene. We found ourselves on open downs, apparently of great extent, with a flood of light shed over them by a bright moon, and two brilliant planets in the south-west, pointing like beacon lights to the position of Tempio. An easy descent of the sloping downs brought us to the level of a vast elevated plateau, extending, with slight undulations, and broken by only one rocky ridge, to the vicinity of the town. When at the summit of the pass, we had still eight or ten miles to accomplish. Late as it was, the ride would have been highly enjoyable, in that pure atmosphere, with the vault of heaven blazing overhead, and the stillness of the night broken only by our horses' hoofs, but for the weariness of the poor beasts after a long day's journey and the toilsome ascent of a mountain pass, and the ruggedness of the tracks along which we had to pick our way.
Welcome, therefore, were the lights of Agius, Luras, and Nuches, villages standing some little way out of the road, at from two to three miles' distance from Tempio. These places, Agius in particular, were formerly notorious for robbery and vendetta, notwithstanding which the population, which is chiefly pastoral, has always maintained a high character for kindness, hospitality, industry, and temperance.