With such a transcendent accomplishment, Mateo Falcone had acquired a great reputation.  He was said to be as good a friend as he was a dangerous enemy; accommodating and charitable, he lived at peace with all the world in the district of Porto-Vecchio.  But it is said of him that in Corte, where he had married his wife, he had disembarrassed himself very vigorously of a rival who was considered as redoubtable in war as in love; at least, a certain gun-shot which surprised this rival as he was shaving before a little mirror hung in his window was attributed to Mateo.  The affair was smoothed over and Mateo was married.  His wife Giuseppa had given him at first three daughters (which infuriated him), and finally a son, whom he named Fortunato, and who became the hope of his family, the inheritor of the name.  The daughters were well married:  their father could count at need on the poignards and carbines of his sons-in-law.  The son was only ten years old, but he already gave promise of fine attributes.

On a certain day in autumn, Mateo set out at an early hour with his wife to visit one of his flocks in a clearing of the maquis.  The little Fortunato wanted to go with them, but the clearing was too far away; moreover, it was necessary some one should stay to watch the house; therefore the father refused:  it will be seen whether or not he had reason to repent.

He had been gone some hours, and the little Fortunato was tranquilly stretched out in the sun, looking at the blue mountains, and thinking that the next Sunday he was going to dine in the city with his uncle, the Caporal [Note:  Civic Official], when he was suddenly interrupted in his meditations by the firing of a musket.  He got up and turned to that side of the plain whence the noise came.  Other shots followed, fired at irregular intervals, and each time nearer; at last, in the path which led from the plain to Mateo’s house, appeared a man wearing the pointed hat of the mountaineers, bearded, covered with rags, and dragging himself along with difficulty by the support of his gun.  He had just received a wound in his thigh.

This man was an outlaw, who, having gone to the town by night to buy powder, had fallen on the way into an ambuscade of Corsican light-infantry.  After a vigorous defense he was fortunate in making his retreat, closely followed and firing from rock to rock.  But he was only a little in advance of the soldiers, and his wound prevented him from gaining the maquis before being overtaken.

He approached Fortunato and said:  “You are the son of Mateo Falcone?”—­“Yes.”

“I am Gianetto Saupiero.  I am followed by the yellow-collars [Note:  Slang for Gendarmes.].  Hide me, for I can go no farther.”

“And what will my father say if I hide you without his permission?”

“He will say that you have done well.”

“How do you know?”

“Hide me quickly; they are coming.”

“Wait till my father gets back.”