"He who writes these lines is the bastard of Castro-Reale, whom men call the Piccinino and the _Justicier d'aventure_. He it was who killed the knave Ninfo. He did it at sunrise, to the sound of the bells which announced the death agony of Cardinal Palmarosa. He did it so that it may not be thought that all villains can die in their beds. "Let the first man who reads this inscription copy or remember it and carry it to the people of Catania!" "Let us rub it out," said Michel, "or my brother's audacity will be fatal to him." "No, let us not rub it out," said the monk. "Your brother is too prudent not to be far away from here before this, and we have no right to deprive the nobles and people of Catania of a terrible example and a bloody lesson. The proud Castro-Reale assassinated! assassinated by the cardinal! lured into a trap by this vile abbé! Ah! I ought to have guessed it! He had too much vigor and courage still to stoop to suicide. Do not accuse your brother of being over severe, Michel, and do not look upon this vengeance as a mere useless crime. You do not know what your father was in his good days, his great days. You do not know that he was on the point of mending his ways and becoming once more the dispenser of justice on the mountain. He was repentant. He believed in God, he still loved his country, and he adored your mother. If he could but have lived as he was living a year more, she would have loved him, and would have forgiven everything. She would have come and shared his perils, she would have been the brigand's wife instead of being the prisoner and victim of his murderers. She would have brought you up herself, she would never have been parted from you! You would have drunk the milk of a lioness and you would have grown to manhood in the tempest. Everything would be better so! Sicily would be nearer its deliverance than it will be ten years hence; and I should not have continued to be a monk. Instead of walking up the mountain, with folded arms, to see this body lying in a corner and the Piccinino flying among the precipices, we should all be together, rifle in hand, fighting desperately against the Swiss mercenaries of Naples, and perhaps marching on Catania with the yellow flag flaunting its golden folds in the morning breeze! Yes, everything would be better so, I tell you, Prince of Castro-Reale!--But God's will be done!" added Fra Angelo, remembering at last that he was a monk. Being certain that the Piccinino must have left the valley long before the hour named in the inscription as that of the murder, Michel and the monk went no farther, but retraced their steps from that wild spot where the abbé's corpse would be at the mercy of the vulture for some hours to come, before anyone would interrupt his ghastly feast. As they turned away, they saw the ill-omened bird fly over their heads, returning with savage eagerness to his prey.