and then he spat, saying: "You—!" The boy threw back his coin, but Gianetto, too occupied to heed it, said to the officer: "My dear Gamba: I cannot walk, so you will be forced to carry me!" The officer drew himself up with hauteur and pride, and turned his cheek away in arrogance, then said: "The intoxication of triumph and the pleasure of victory rouse in me a strength by which I could carry you alone upon my shoulder until you reach the city." And the police dispersed — some dressing Gianetto's wounds, some prepar-ing him a litter of straw, with the officer standing over them, watching... And a few steps away, the boy Fortunato was toying with his watch, joyful and beaming... And while each was at his work, unflagging and undelaying, Matteo Falcone and his wife came down...

Matteo Falcone stood bewildered, understanding nothing of what was around him; but Gamba rushed to tell the story, praising Fortunato and thanking him for the good he had rendered him, and went on: "This wicked criminal fought us off with strength and force, then burrowed into the hay so that not one of us could sense his presence — and had it not been for Fortunato..." The father and the mother cried out together: "Fortunato!..." Said the officer calmly: "Yes — had it not been for Fortunato, we could never have found him, and all the hardship we suffered and all the effort we spent would have gone for nothing. I shall inform his uncle the commandant, that he may send him a handsome reward, and I shall enter your name and his in the report I submit to the public prosecutor." The father felt the full weight of the blow, and his heart cracked when it appeared to him that his son had sold his honor for a paltry price; and from the depths he gave a faint cry, like the echo of the beating of his wounded heart: "The shame — oh, the shame!" Then he turned and found Gianetto flung upon a bed of straw, bound to it without gentleness or mercy;

and he fixed his gaze on the man

and could not turn it away — in his head grief and regret, on his face gloom and sorrow, in his eyes anguish and heartbreak. And he saw the man turn his eyes toward the house, spit, and say: "Here — here is the house of the base traitors!"

What man would let his soul whisper to him to insult this Corsican, who suspects that his dignity might be dented or his guarded honor debased? Woe to him... woe to any man whose lips part with a word from which Matteo scents insult and mockery — for a single shot from his rifle, or a single thrust of his dagger, is the only punishment for whoever does it! Nor will his mind be at ease or his heart be calm until he washes away the insult in the blood of the brazen boaster! But... but what is he to do, when it is his own son who has dented his honor and stained his good name? He felt the stabs of pain cutting into his heart, and he saw scandal and disgrace in what his son had done, and he put his hand to his burning brow while cares tore at him...

The son, seeing what was written on his father's face, wished to placate the poor man; he turned his face toward the house and walked heavily, then came back with a vessel full of milk in his hands, and offered it in humility and submission to Gianetto — but the man screamed in his face: "Away with you — away, you—!" Then he turned to a policeman at his side and asked him for water... He drank from the hand of the policeman who, only a while before, had been pouring a hail of lead upon him — but as for the son of Matteo... "Matteo Falcone"...

The officer and the police set off carrying the criminal to the city, while Matteo and Giuseppa stood in their places with bowed heads, her face darkened, and the boy between them turning his eyes now to his mother's face and now to his father's, beside himself. Then the father looked at his son with cruelty and said in a hoarse voice like the crash of thunder: "Well done, what you have done!" The boy shrieked in terror: "Father — I—!" and flung himself down kneeling at his father's feet, the

tears scattering from his eyes, begging him for tenderness and mercy. The father shouted: "Away, away, you wretch!" — and he froze where he was.

The mother saw the end of the chain dangling from the boy's vest pocket and said: "Where did you get this?" He said: "My cousin Gamba gave it to me." The father tore it off violently and hurled it hard against a rock, so that it shattered into pieces, saying: "This is the first traitor in our family." And the child's tears poured down once more, while Matteo stared at him with hard, blazing looks; then he walked in silence toward the forest with his rifle on his shoulder, and then... then he called the boy, who followed him weeping. Giuseppa set off after them, her heart quaking, the earth all but reeling beneath her from excess of grief, and she seized her husband's arm, imploring him: "Matteo, Matteo — he is your son!" The man said in wrath: "Go back — go back! He is my son, and I am his father!" The woman clutched her son to her with all her strength, as though she would wrest him from his father's hands, shedding hot tears. Then she returned to the house to kneel before the image of the Virgin and pray in devout supplication.

In the forest, by a great rock, the man stopped and called his son: "Come — come here, boy. Kneel and say your prayers!" But the boy rushed toward his father: "Father, do not kill me!" The man roared a roar that made the place ring and shook the boy's strength from him: "Say your prayers!" The boy obeyed under compulsion; then after a while he raised his head with tears in his eyes, and the man said: "Have you finished them?" The boy crept toward his father: "Ah, father! Do not kill me! Mercy, father, and pardon! I will never do the like again. I will ask my uncle the commandant to treat his prisoner kindly. Do not kill me!! I am your son — I have done wrong, and I beg forgiveness and pity!" Then he poured out words to soften what had hardened in his father's heart — but the father had already leveled his rifle at him, saying: