And
we staggered along under this heat, in this light, in this burning,
arid, desolate valley cut by this ravine of turbulent water which
seemed to be ever hurrying onward, without being able to fertilize
these rocks, lost in this furnace which greedily drank it up without
being penetrated or refreshed by it.

But suddenly there was visible at our right a little wooden cross sunk
in a little heap of stones. A man had been killed there; and I said
to my companion:

"Tell me about your bandits."

He replied:

"I knew the most celebrated of them, the terrible St. Lucia. I will
tell you his history.

"His father was killed in a quarrel by a young man of the same
district, it is said; and St. Lucia was left alone with his sister. He
was a weak and timid youth, small, often ill, without any energy. He
did not proclaim the vendetta against the assassin of his father. All
his relatives came to see him, and implored of him to take vengeance;
he remained deaf to their menaces and their supplications.

"Then, following the old Corsican custom, his sister, in her
indignation, carried away his black clothes, in order that he might
not wear mourning for a dead man who had not been avenged. He was
insensible to even this outrage, and rather than take down from the
rack his father's gun, which was still loaded, he shut himself up, not
daring to brave the looks of the young men of the district.

"He seemed to have even forgotten the crime and he lived with his
sister in the obscurity of their dwelling.

"But, one day, the man who was suspected of having committed the
murder, was about to get married. St. Lucia did not appear to be moved
by this news, but, no doubt, out of sheer bravado, the bridegroom, on
his way to the church, passed before the two orphans' house.

"The brother and the sister, at their window, were eating little fried
cakes when the young man saw the bridal procession moving past the
house. Suddenly he began to tremble, rose up without uttering a word,
made the sign of the cross, took the gun which was hanging over the
fireplace, and he went out.

"When he spoke of this later on, he said: 'I don't know what was the
matter with me; it was like fire in my blood; I felt that I should do
it, that in spite of everything I could not resist, and I concealed
the gun in a cave on the road to Corte.'

"An hour later, he came back, with nothing in his hand, and with his
habitual air of sad weariness. His sister bel