Biagio, who afterwards followed him through his whole life. One day he
and Biagio and a third prisoner were ordered to go to work in the fields.
One of the overseers wished to construct a garden around his house. They
dug there quietly, but their eyes began to wander and wander. They were
outside the walls; they saw the plain and the mountains; they even saw up
to Etna. “It is the time,” whispered Falco to Biagio. “I will rather die
than go back to prison,” said Biagio. Then they whispered to the other
prisoner that he must stand by them. He did not wish to do so, because
his time of punishment was soon up. “Else we will kill you,” they said,
and then he agreed.
The guard stood over them with his loaded rifle in his hand. On account
of their fetters, Falco and Biagio hopped with feet together over to the
guard. They swung their shovels over him, and before he had time to think
of shooting he was thrown down, bound, and had a clump of earth in his
mouth. Thereupon the prisoners pried open their chains with the shovels,
so that they could take a step, and crept away over the plain to the
hills.
When night came Falco and Biagio abandoned the prisoner whom they had
taken with them. He was old and feeble, so that he would have hindered
their flight. The next day he was seized by the carabinieri, and shot.
They shudder when they think of it. “Falco is merciless,” they say. They
know that he will not spare the railway.
Story after story comes to frighten the poor people working on the
railway on the slopes of Etna.
They tell of all the sixteen murders that Falco has committed. They tell
of his attacks and plunderings.
There is one story more terrifying than all the others together.
When Falco escaped from the galleys he lived in the woods and caves, and
in the big quarry near Diamante. He soon gathered a band about him, and
became a wonderful and famous brigand hero.
All his family were held in much greater consideration than before. They
were respected, as the mighty are respected. They scarcely needed to
work, for Falco loved his relations and was generous to them. But he was
not lenient towards them; he was very stern.
Mother Zia was dead, and Nino was married and lived in his father’s
cottage. It happened one day that Nino needed money, and he knew no
better way than to go to the priest,--not Don Matteo, but to old Don
Giovanni. “Your Reverence,” said Nino to him, “my brother asks you for
five hundred lire.” “Where shall I find five hundred lire?” said Don
Giovanni. “My brother needs them; he must have them,” said Nino.
Then old Don Giovanni promised to give the money, if he only were given
time to collect it. Nino was hardly willing to agree to that. “You can
scarcely expect me to take five hundred lire from my snuff-box,” said
Don Giovanni. And Nino granted him three days’ respite. “But beware of
meeting my brother during that time,” he said.
The next day Don Giovanni rode to Nicolosi to try to claim a payment. Who
should he meet on the way but Falco and two of his band. Don Giovanni
threw himself from his donkey and fell on his knees before Falco. “What
does this mean, Don Giovanni?”--“As yet I have no money for you, Falco,
but I will try to get it. Have mercy upon me!”
Falco asked, and Don Giovanni told the whole story. “Your Reverence,”
said Falco, “he has been deceiving you.” He begged Don Giovanni to go
with him to Diamante. When they came to the old house Don Giovanni rode
in behind the wall of San Pasquale, and Falco called Nino out. Nino came
out on one of the balconies. “Eh, Nino!” said Falco, and laughed. “You
have cheated the priest out of money?” “Do you know it already?” said
Nino. “I was just going to tell it to you.”
Now Falco became sterner. “Nino,” he said, “the priest is my friend, and
he believes that I have wished to rob him. You have done very wrong.” He
suddenly put his gun to his shoulder and shot Nino down, and when he had
done so he turned to Don Giovanni, who had almost fallen from his donkey
with terror. “You see now, your Reverence, that I had no part in Nino’s
designs on you!”
And that happened twenty years ago, when Falco had not been a brigand for
more than five years.
“Will Falco spare the railway,” people say, as they tell it, “when he did
not spare his own brother?”
There was yet more.
After Nino’s murder there was a vendetta over Falco. Nino’s wife was
so terrified when she found her husband dead that half her body became
paralyzed, and she could no longer walk. But she took her place at the
window in the old cottage. There she has sat for twenty years with a gun
beside her, and waited for Falco. And of her the great brigand has been
afraid. For twenty years he has not gone past the home of his ancestors.
The woman has not deserted her post. No one ever goes to the church of
San Pasquale without seeing her revengeful eyes shining behind the panes.
Who has ever seen her sleep? Who has seen her work? She could do nothing
but await her husband’s murderer.
When people hear that, they are even more afraid. Falco has luck on his
side, they think. The woman who wishes to kill him cannot move from her
place. He has luck on his side. He will also succeed in destroying the
railway. Fortune has never failed Falco. The carabinieri have hunted, but
have never been able to catch him. The carabinieri have feared Falco more
than Falco has feared the carabinieri.
People tell a story of a young carabiniere lieutenant who once pursued
Falco. He had arranged a line of beaters and hunted Falco from one
thicket to another. At last the officer was certain that he had Falco
shut in in a grove. A guard was stationed round the wood, and the
officer searched the covert, gun in hand. But however much he searched,
he saw no Falco. He came out, and met a peasant. “Have you seen Falco
Falcone?”--“Yes, signor; he just went by me, and he asked me to greet
you.”--“_Diavolo!_”--“He saw you in the thicket, and he was just going
to shoot you, but he did not do so, because he thought that perhaps it
was your duty to prosecute him.”--“_Diavolo! Diavolo!_”--“But if you try
another time--”--“_Diavolo! Diavolo! Diavolo!_”
Do you think that lieutenant came back? Do you not think that he
instantly sought out a district where he did not need to hunt brigands?
And the workmen on Etna asked themselves: “Who will protect us against
Falco? He is terrible. Even the soldiers tremble before him.”
They remember that Falco Falcone is now an old man. He no longer plunders
post-wagons; he does not carry off land-owners. He sits quiet generally
in the quarry near Diamante, and instead of robbing money and estates, he
takes money and estates under his protection.
He takes tribute from the great landed proprietors and guards their
estates from other thieves, and it has become calm and peaceful on Etna,
for he allows no one to injure those who have paid a tax to him.
But that is not reassuring. Since Falco has become friends with the
great, he can all the more easily destroy the railway.
And they remember the story of Niccola Galli, who is overseer on the
estate of the Marquis di San Stefano on the southern side of Etna. Once
his workmen struck in the middle of the harvest time. Niccola Galli was
in despair. The wheat stood ripe, and he could not get it reaped. His
workmen would not work; they lay down to sleep at the edge of a ditch.
Niccola placed himself on a donkey and rode down to Catania to ask his
lord for advice. On the way he met two men with guns on their shoulders.
“Whither are you riding, Niccola?”
Before Niccola had time to say many words they took his donkey by the bit
and turned him round. “You must not ride to the Marquis, Niccola?”--“Must
I not?”--“No; you must ride home.”
As they went along, Niccola sat and shook on his donkey. When they were
again at home the men said: “Now show us the way to the fields!” And
they went out to the laborers. “Work, you scoundrels! The marquis has
paid his tribute to Falco Falcone. You can strike in other places, but
not here.” That field was reaped as never before. Falco stood on one side
of it and Biagio on the other. The grain is soon harvested with such
overseers.
When the people remember that, their terror does not decrease. “Falco
keeps his word,” they say. “He will do what he has threatened to do.”
No one has been a robber chief as long as Falco. All the other famous
heroes are dead or captives. He alone keeps himself alive and in his
profession by incredible good fortune and skill.
Gradually he has collected about him all his family. His brothers-in-law
and nephews are all with him. Most of them have been sent to the galleys,
but not one of them thinks whether he suffers in prison; he only asks if
Falco is satisfied with him.
In the newspapers there are often accounts of Falco’s deeds. Englishmen
thrust a note of ten lire into their guide’s hand if he will show them
the way to Falco’s quarry. The carabinieri no longer shoot at him,
because he is the last great brigand.
He so little fears to be captured that he often comes down to Messina
or Palermo. He has even crossed the sound and been in Italy. He went to
Naples when Guglielmo and Umberto were there to christen a battle-ship.
He travelled to Rome when Umberto and Margherita celebrated their silver
wedding.
The people think of it all, and tremble. “Falco is loved and admired,”
the workmen say. “The people worship Falco. He can do what he will.”
They know too that when Falco saw Queen Margherita’s silver wedding, it
pleased him so much that he said: “When I have lived on Etna for five and
twenty years, I shall celebrate my silver wedding with Mongibello.”
People laughed at that and said that it was a good idea of Falco’s. For
he had never had a sweetheart, but Mongibello with its caves and forests
and craters and ice-fields had served and protected him like a wife. To
no one in the world did Falco owe such gratitude as to Mongibello.
People ask when Falco and Mongibello are going to celebrate their silver
wedding. And people answer that it will be this spring. Then the workmen
think: “_He is coming to destroy our railway on the day of Mongibello_.”
They are filled with doubt and terror. They soon will not dare to work
any more. The nearer the time approaches when Falco is to celebrate his
union with Mongibello, the more there are who leave Signor Alfredo. Soon
he is practically alone at the work.
* * * * *
There are not many people in Diamante who have seen the big quarry on
Etna. They have learned to avoid it because Falco Falcone lives there.
They have been careful to keep out of range of his gun.
They have not seen the great hole in Mongibello’s side from which their
ancestors, the Greeks, took stone in remote times. They have not seen the
beautifully colored walls, and the mighty rocks that look like ruined
pillars. Perhaps they do not know that on the bottom of the quarry grow
more magnificent flowers than in a conservatory. There it is no longer
Sicily; it is India.
In the quarry are mandarin trees, so yellow with fruit that they look
like gigantic sun-flowers; the camellias are as big as tambourines; and
on the ground between the trees lie masses of magnificent figs and downy
peaches embedded in fallen rose-leaves.
One evening Falco is sitting alone in the quarry. Falco is busy making a
wreath, and he has beside him a mass of flowers. The string he is using
is as thick as a rope; he holds his foot on the ball so that it shall not
roll away from him. He wears spectacles, which continually slip too far
down his hooked nose.
Falco is swearing horribly, for his hands are stiff and callous from
incessantly handling a gun, and cannot readily hold flowers. The fingers
squeeze them together like steel tongs. Falco swears because the lilies
and anemones fall into little pieces if he merely looks at them.
Falco sits in his leather breeches and in the long, buttoned-up coat,
buried in flowers like a saint on a feast-day. Biagio and his nephew,
Passafiore, have gathered them for him. They have piled up in front of
him an Etna of the most beautiful flowers of the quarry. Falco can choose
among lilies and cactus-flowers and roses and pelargoniums. He roars at
the flowers that he will trample them to dust under his leather sandals
if they do not submit themselves to his will.
Never before has Falco Falcone had to do with flowers. In the whole
course of his life he has never tied a nosegay for a girl, or plucked a
rose for his button-hole. He has never even laid a wreath on his mother’s
grave.
Therefore the delicate flowers rebel against him. The flower sprays are
entangled in his hair and in his hat, and the petals have caught in his
bushy beard. He shakes his head violently, and the scar in his cheek
glows red as fire as it used to do in the old days, when he fought with
the carabinieri.
Still the wreath grows, and thick as a tree-trunk it winds round Falco’s
feet and legs. Falco swears at it as if it were the steel fetters that
once dragged between his ankles. He complains more, when he tears himself
on a thorn or burns himself on a nettle, than he did when the whip of the
galley guard lashed his back.
Biagio and Passafiore, his nephew, do not dare to show themselves; they
lie concealed in a cave till everything is ready. They laugh at Falco
with all their might, for such wailings as Falco’s have not sounded in
the quarry since unhappy prisoners of war were kept at work there.
Biagio looks up to great Etna, which is blushing in the light of the
setting sun. “Look at Mongibello,” he says to Passafiore; “see how it
blushes. It must guess what Falco is busy with down in the quarry.” And
Passafiore answers: “Mongibello has probably never thought that it would
ever have anything on its head but ashes and snow.”
But suddenly Biagio stopped laughing. “It is not well, Passafiore,” he
said. “Falco has become too proud. I am afraid that the great Mongibello
is going to make a fool of him.”
The two bandits look one another in the eyes questioningly. “It is well
if it is only pride,” says Passafiore.
But now they look away at the same moment, and dare say no more. The same
thought, the same dread has seized them both. Falco is going mad. He is
already mad at times. It is always so with great brigand chiefs; they
cannot bear their glory and their greatness; they all go mad.
Passafiore and Biagio have seen it for a long time, but they have borne
it in silence, and each has hoped that the other has seen nothing. Now
they understand that they both know it. They press each other’s hands
without a word. There is still something so great in Falco. Both of them,
Passafiore and Biagio, will take care that no one shall perceive that he
is no longer the man he was.
Finally Falco has his wreath ready; he hangs it on the barrel of his gun
and comes out to the others. All three climb out of the quarry, and at
the nearest farm-house they take horses in order to come quickly to the
top of Mongibello.
They ride at full gallop so that they have no chance to talk, but as they
pass the different farms they can see the people dancing on the flat
roofs. And from the sheds, where the laborers sleep at night, they hear
talk and laughter. There happy, peaceful people are sitting, guessing
conundrums and matching verses. Falco storms by, such things are not for
him. Falco is a great man.
They gallop towards the summit. At first they ride between almond-trees
and cactus, then under plane-trees and stone-pines, then under oaks and
chestnut-trees.
The night is dark; they see nothing of the beauty of Mongibello. They do
not see the vine-encircled Monte Rosso; they do not see the two hundred
craters that stand in a circle round Etna’s lofty peak like towers round
a town; they do not see the endless stretches of thick forest.
In Casa del Bosco, where the road ends, they dismount. Biagio and
Passafiore take the wreath and carry it between them. As they walk along,
Falco begins to talk. He likes to talk since he has grown old.
Falco says that the mountain is like the twenty-five years of his life
that he has passed there. The years that founded his greatness had
blossomed with deeds. To be with him then had been like going through
an endless arbor, where lemons and grapes hung down overhead. Then his
deeds had been as numerous as the orange-trees round Etna’s base. When
he had come higher the deeds had been less frequent, but those he had
executed had been mighty as the oaks and chestnut-trees on the rising
mountain. Now that he was at the summit of greatness, he scorned to act.
His life was as bald as the mountain top; he was content to see the
world at his feet. But people ought to understand that, if he should now
undertake anything, nothing could resist him. He was terrible, like the
fire-spouting summit.
Falco walks before and talks; Passafiore and Biagio follow him in silent
terror. Dimly they see the mighty slopes of Mongibello with their towns
and fields and forests spread out beneath them. And Falco thinks that he
is as mighty as all that!
As they struggle upwards they are beset with a growing feeling of
dread. The gaping fissures in the ground; the sulphur smoke from the
crater, which rolls down the mountain, too heavy to rise into the air;
the explosions inside the mountain; the incessant, gently rumbling
earthquake; the slippery, rough ice-fields crossed by gushing brooks;
the extreme cold, the biting wind,--make the walk hideous. And Falco
says that it is like him! How can he have such things in his soul? Is it
filled with a cold and a horror to be compared to Etna’s?
They stumble over blocks of ice, and they struggle forward through snow
lying sometimes a yard deep. The mountain blast almost throws them down.
They have to wade through slush and water, for through the day the sun
has melted a mass of snow. And while they grow stiff with cold, the
ground shakes under them with the everlasting fire.
They remember that Lucifer and all the damned are lying under them. They
shudder because Falco has brought them to the gates of Hell.
But nevertheless beyond the ice-field they reach the steep cone of ashes
on the very summit of the mountain. Here they drag themselves up, walking
on sliding ashes and pumice-stone. When they are half way up the cone
Falco takes the wreath, and motions to the others to wait. He alone will
scale the summit.
The day is just breaking, and as Falco reaches the top the sun is
visible. The glorious morning light streams over Mongibello and over the
old Etna brigand on its summit. The shadow of Etna is thrown over the
whole of Sicily, and it looks as if Falco, standing up there, reached
from sea to sea, across the island.
Falco stands and gazes about him. He looks across to Italy; he fancies
he sees Naples and Rome. He lets his glance pass over the sea to the land
of the Turk to the east and the land of the Saracen to the south. He
feels as if it all lay at his feet and acknowledged _his_ greatness.
Then Falco lays the wreath on the summit of Mongibello.
When he comes down to his comrades he solemnly presses their hands. As
he leaves the cone they see that he picks up a piece of pumice-stone,
and puts it in his pocket. Falco takes with him a souvenir of the most
beautiful hour of his life. He has never before felt himself so great as
on the top of Mongibello.
On that day of happiness Falco will do no work. The next day, he says, he
will begin the undertaking of freeing Mongibello from the railway.
* * * * *
There is a lonely farm-house on the road between Paternó and Adernó. It
is quite large, and it is owned by a widow, Donna Silvia, who has many
strong sons. They are bold people who dare to live alone the whole year
in the country.
It is the day following the one when Falco crowned Mongibello. Donna
Silvia is sitting on the grass-plot with her distaff; she is alone; there
is no one else at home on the farm. A beggar comes softly creeping in
through the gate.
He is an old man with a long, hooked nose which hangs down over his upper
lip, a bushy beard, pale eyes with red eyelids. They are the ugliest eyes
imaginable; the whites are yellowish, and they squint. The beggar is
tall and very thin; he moves his body when he walks, so that it looks as
if he wriggled forward. He walks so softly that Donna Silvia does not
hear him. The first thing she notices is his shadow, which, slender as a
snake, bends down towards her.
She looks up when she sees the shadow. Then the beggar bows to her and
asks for a dish of macaroni.
“I have macaroni on the fire,” says Donna Silvia. “Sit down and wait; you
shall have your fill.”
The beggar sits down beside Donna Silvia, and after a while they begin to
chat. They soon talk of Falco.
“Is it true that you let your sons work on Donna Micaela’s railway?” says
the beggar.
Donna Silvia bites her lips together, and nods an assent.
“You are a brave woman, Donna Silvia. Falco might be revenged on you.”
“Then he can take revenge,” says Donna Silvia. “But I will not obey one
who has killed my father. He forced him to escape from prison in Augusta,
and my father was captured and shot.”
And so saying she rises and goes in to get the food.
As she stands in the kitchen she sees the beggar through the window,
sitting and rocking on the stone-bench. He is not quiet for a moment. And
in front of him writhes his shadow, slender and lithe as a snake.
Donna Silvia remembers what she had once heard Caterina, who had been
married to Falco’s brother, Nino, say. “How will you recognize Falco
after twenty years?” people had asked her. “Should I not recognize the
man with the snake-shadow?” she answered. “He will never lose it, long
as he may live.”
Donna Silvia presses her hand on her heart. There in her yard Falco
Falcone is sitting. He has come to be revenged because her sons work on
the railway. Will he set fire to the house, or will he murder her?
Donna Silvia is shaking in every limb as she serves up her macaroni.
Falco begins to find the time long as he sits on the stone-bench. A
little dog comes up to him and rubs against him. Falco feels in his
pocket for a piece of bread, but he finds only a stone, which he throws
to the dog.
The dog runs after the stone and brings it back to Falco. Falco throws it
again. The dog takes the stone again, but now he runs away with it.
Falco remembers that it is the stone he picked up on Mongibello, and goes
after the dog to get it back. He whistles to the dog, and it comes to him
instantly. “Drop the stone!” The dog puts its head on one side and will
not drop it. “Ah, give me the stone, rascal!” The dog shuts its mouth. It
has no stone. “Let me see; let me see!” says Falco. He bends the dog’s
head back and forces it to open its mouth. The stone lies far in under
the gums, and Falco tries to force it out. Then the dog bites him, till
the blood flows.
Falco is terrified. He goes in to Donna Silvia. “I hope your dog is
healthy,” he says.
“My dog? I have no dog. It is dead.”--“But the one running outside?”--“I
do not know which one you mean,” she says.
Falco says nothing more, nor does he do Donna Silvia any harm. He simply
goes his way, frightened; he thinks that the dog is mad, and he fears
hydrophobia.
* * * * *
One evening Donna Micaela sits alone in the music-room. She has put out
the lamp and opened the balcony doors. She likes to listen to the street
in the evening and at night. No more smiths and stone-cutters and criers
are heard. There is song, laughter, whispering, and mandolins.
Suddenly she sees a dark hand laid on the balcony railing. The hand drags
up after it an arm and a head; within a moment a whole human being swings
himself into the balcony. She sees him plainly, for the street-lamps are
still burning. He is a small, broad-shouldered, bearded fellow, dressed
like a shepherd, with leather sandals, a slouch hat, and an umbrella tied
to his back. As soon as he is on his feet he snatches his gun from his
shoulder and comes into the room with it in his hands.
She sits still without giving a sign of life. There is no time either to
summon help or to escape. She hopes that the man will take what he wishes
to take, and go away without noticing her, sitting back in the dark room.
The man puts his gun down between his legs, and she hears him scratching
with a match. She shuts her eyes. He will believe that she is asleep.
When the robber gets the match lighted, he sees her instantly. He coughs
to wake her. As she remains motionless, he creeps over to her and
carefully stretches out a finger towards her arm. “Do not touch me! do
not touch me!” she screams, and can no longer sit still. The man draws
back instantly. “Dear Donna Micaela, I only wanted to wake you.”