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.