THE DEATH OF SAMPIERO.
Once more ambassadors set out for France, five in number; but the
Genoese intercepted them off the coast. Three leapt into the sea to
save themselves by swimming, one of whom was drowned; the two who
were captured were first put to the torture, and then executed. The
war assumed the frightful character of a merciless Vendetta on both
sides. Doria, however, effected nothing. Sampiero defeated him again
and again; and at last, in the passes of Luminanda, almost annihilated
the Genoese forces. It required the utmost exertion of Doria's
great skill and personal bravery to extricate himself on the latter
occasion. He arrived in San Fiorenzo, bleeding, exhausted, and in
despair, and soon after left the island. The Republic replaced him by
Vivaldi, and afterwards by the artful and intriguing Fornari; but the
Genoese had lost all hope of crushing Sampiero by war and open force.
Against this man, who had come to the island as an outlaw with a few
outlawed followers, they had gradually sent their whole force into
the field--their own and a Spanish fleet, their mercenaries, Germans,
fifteen thousand Spaniards, their greatest generals, Doria, Centurione,
and Spinola; yet, the same Genoa that had conquered Pisa and Venice had
proved unable to subdue a poor people, forsaken by the whole world, who
came into the ranks of battle starving, in rags, unshod, badly armed,
and who, when they returned home, found nothing but the ashes of their
villages.
It was therefore decided that Sampiero must be murdered.
Dissensions, fomented by the Genoese, had long existed between him
and the descendants of the old seigniors. Some, like Hercules of
Istria, had deserted him from lust of Genoese gold, or because their
pride revolted at the thought of obeying a man who had risen from the
dust. Others had a Vendetta with Sampiero; they had a debt of blood
to exact from him. These were the nobles of the Ornano family, three
brothers--Antonio, Francesco, and Michael Angelo, cousins of Vannina.
Genoa had won them with gold, and the promise of the seigniory of
Ornano, of which Vannina's children were the rightful heirs. The
Ornanos, again, gained the monk Ambrosius of Bastelica, and Sampiero's
own servant Vittolo, a trusted follower, with whose help it was agreed
to take Sampiero in an ambuscade. The governor, Fornari, approved of
the plan, and committed its execution to Rafael Giustiniani.
Sampiero was in Vico when the monk brought him forged letters, urgently
requesting him to come to Rocca, where a rebellion, it was said, had
broken out against the popular cause. Sampiero instantly despatched
Vittolo with twenty horse to Cavro, and himself followed soon after.
He was accompanied by his son Alfonso, Andrea de' Gentili, Antonio
Pietro of Corte, and Battista da Pietra. Vittolo, in the meantime,
instructed the brothers Ornano, and Giustiniani, that Sampiero would
pass through the defile of Cavro; on receiving which intelligence, they
immediately set out for the spot indicated with a considerable force
of foot and horse, and formed the ambuscade. Sampiero and his little
band were riding unsuspectingly through the pass, when they suddenly
found themselves assailed on every side, and the defile swarming
with armed men. He saw that his hour was come. Yielding now to those
impulses of natural affection which he had once so signally disowned,
he ordered his son Alfonso to leave him, to flee, and save himself
for his country. The son obeyed, and escaped. Most of his friends had
fallen bravely fighting by his side, when Sampiero rushed into the
_mêlée_, to hew his way through if it were possible. The day was just
dawning. The three Ornanos had kept their eyes constantly upon him, at
first afraid to assail the terrible man; but at length, spurred on by
revenge, they pressed in upon him, some Genoese soldiery at their back.
Sampiero fought desperately. He had thrown himself upon Antonio Ornano,
and wounded him with a pistol-shot in the throat. But his carbine
missed fire; Vittolo, in loading it, had put in the bullet first.
Sampiero's face was streaming with blood; freeing his eyes from it with
his left, his right hand still grasped his sword, and kept all at bay,
when Vittolo, from behind, shot him through the back, and he fell. The
Ornanos now rushed in upon the dying man, and finished their work. They
cut off Sampiero's head, and carried it to the Governor.
It was on the 17th of January in the year 1567 that Sampiero fell.
He had reached his sixty-ninth year, his vigour unimpaired by age or
military toil. The stern grandeur of his soul, and his pure and heroic
patriotism, have made his name immortal. He was great in the field,
inexhaustible in council; owing all to his own extraordinary nature,
without ancestry, he inherited nothing from fortune, which usually
favours the _parvenu_, but from misfortune everything, and he yielded,
like Viriathus, only to the assassin. He has shown, by his elevating
example, what a noble man can do, when he remains unyieldingly true to
a great passion.
Sampiero was above the middle height, of proud and martial bearing,
dark and stern, with black curly hair and beard. His eye was piercing,
his words few, firm, and impressive. Though a son of nature, and
without education, he possessed acute perceptions and unerring
judgment. His friends accused him of seeking the sovereignty of his
native island; he sought only its freedom. He lived as simply as a
shepherd, wore the woollen blouse of his country, and slept on the
naked earth. He had lived at the most luxurious courts of his time, at
those of Florence and Versailles, but he had contracted none of their
hollowness of principle, or corrupt morality. The rugged patriot could
murder his wife because she had betrayed herself and her child to her
country's enemies, but he knew nothing of those crimes that pervert
nature, and those principles that would refine the vile abuse into
a philosophy of life. He was simple, rugged, and grand, headlong and
terrible in anger, a whole man, and fashioned in the mightiest mould of
primitive nature.