for you lack ammunition, nor can your dagger gain any purpose against me, for I am in a strong fortress against it!" The man sensed how his affair would end, and he rushed to entreat the boy's pity in humility, to placate him gently, waving before him a silver coin which he toyed with in his fingers. Pity and mercy awoke in the boy's heart, and in the coin he saw the wage of the good he would render, and his gaze fastened upon it... Then his lips parted in a delicate smile as he slipped the coin into his pocket and arranged the hay over the wounded criminal; then he set about wiping away the traces of blood with precision and skill, and then lay down before the door as though nothing had happened...

After a while the police came, headed by an officer... It was Teodoro Gamba, Fortunato's cousin — a young man brimming over with strength and energy, who hunts down criminals and felons without pity or compassion for them, and tracks their traces without respite or leniency...

The officer smiled as he walked toward his cousin Fortunato, asking him for news of the fugitive criminal: "Did you not see a man pass by you just now?" The boy said: "Ah yes — a man pass by me just now!" The officer said: "Yes, a man with a long beard, with blood streaming from his thigh." Said Fortunato, making sport of his cousin: "Yes, I remember now — it was the priest. He was riding his beautiful horse Piero..." The officer's anger flared to see the boy mocking him, and he said: "You did see him — where is he? Speak, you rascal, or else..." And the boy went on jeering at the officer: "Do you suppose I could have seen him while I was sleeping peacefully?" Said the exasperated officer harshly: "Speak, you cursed boy — he passed by you just now!" And the boy answered, smiling in derision: "I am Fortunato, and this is the house of my father, Matteo Falcone. Would you care to take your rest?" The officer's patience gave out, and he burst forth in

fury, ordering the police: "Into the house, comrades — this devil must have hidden the criminal!" The police set off to carry out their orders, and the officer seized the boy by the ear to hold him back, while he squirmed and shouted: "My father Matteo Falcone will not be pleased that a band of strangers should enter his house while he is away!" And the officer began to threaten the boy: "Woe to you, and woe again! Do you not know that I can carry you off to Corte or to Bastia and cast you into the depths of a prison, dragging chains of iron, and then set your neck between the two edges of the guillotine as requital for what you have done?" And the boy dissolved in laughter at what he heard...

The police came back having met with disappointment and failure, and one of them came to the officer, saying: "We found no one — let us try some other road than this!"

Astonishment showed on Officer Gamba's face when it seemed to him that he had been dealt defeat, and he grew troubled at finding no path to his prey; for the house was before him, and he could see all that was in it in one flashing glance — it was nothing but a single room bare of furniture. Confusion had mastered him, while the boy at his side petted his cat and smiled at the perplexity they were in.

O wasted effort, O disappointed hope! They were about to turn back after all the effort they had spent and the hardship they had met — but the officer's eyes gleamed when a flash of hope appeared to him. He had threatened the boy, and threats had availed nothing; he had menaced him, and menace had gained nothing; so let him knock at another door — perhaps... He turned to the boy: "Fortunato, I thought ill of you, but I have found you brave and clever. Would that you might come with me!" Said Fortunato, still making sport of his cousin: "Gamba, hurry to your work, or Gianetto will vanish and you will never find him!" The officer drew out

his silver watch, saying: "Would you not like to have a watch like this, and strut in pride among your fellows through the streets of the city, with it hanging on your chest like a medal, while the people around you look and marvel, then press toward you asking 'What time is it?' and you smile..." And it seemed to the officer that from the child's eyes there shot a ray of hope and a ray of greed as he stared hard at the watch, saying: "No, I do not want it. When I am older, my uncle the commandant will give me a watch finer than this." The officer said: "Truly — yet his son has a watch like this one, and he is younger than you." The boy imagined the officer was mocking him to draw him on, and said: "Are you making fun of me?" Said the officer, holding the watch out to him, hope having returned to him once more: "Here it is — take it, and then tell me: where is the criminal Gianetto?" And the boy came forward calmly toward the watch, little by little, seeing it blazing and glittering under the rays of the sun, dazzling to the eye; then he grasped it, turning it over in his hands, brightening, his features smoothing, while his soul whispered to him: "Throw the coin back to its owner, and take this, for it is dearer and more precious!" And in the boy's soul the forces of fidelity and greed wrestled together: shall he betray his pledge and break his covenants? But the watch... the watch! Shall he lose it now that his hands have closed upon it?

And covetousness and greed and the love of money together overcame him, as he stood facing his cousin the officer, with the heap of hay behind him; and he raised his hand calmly, pointing backward... to the heap of hay...

The police rushed to scatter the heap of hay this way and that, and it opened upon a wounded man who could not carry himself. In the blink of an eye the police stripped Gianetto of his rifle and his dagger and bound him fast; yet he managed to turn his gaze toward the boy, sparks flying from his eye-sockets,