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. CHAPTER XIX. SAMPIERO'S SON, ALFONSO--TREATY WITH GENOA. At the news of Sampiero's fall, the bells were rung in Genoa, and the city was illuminated. The murderers quarrelled disgracefully over their Judas-hire; that of Vittolo amounted to one hundred and fifty gold scudi. Sorrow and dismay fell upon the Corsican nation; its father was slain. The people assembled in Orezza; three thousand armed men, many weeping, all profoundly sad, filled the square before the church. Leonardo of Casanova, Sampiero's friend and fellow-soldier, broke the silence. He was about to pronounce the patriot's funeral oration. This man was at the time labouring under the severest personal affliction. Unheard-of misfortunes had overtaken him. He had shortly before escaped from prison, by the aid of a heroic youth, his own son. Leonardo had been made prisoner by the Genoese, who had thrown him into a dungeon in Bastia. His son, Antonio, meditated plans of rescue night and day. Disguised in the dress of the woman who brought the prisoners their food, he made his way into his father's cell. He conjured his father to make his escape and leave him behind; though they should put him to death, he said, he was but a stripling, and his death would do him honour, while it preserved his father's arm and wisdom for his country; their duty as patriots pointed out this course. Long and terrible was the struggle in the father's mind. At last he saw that he ought to do as his son had said; he tore himself from his arms, and, wrapped in the female dress, passed safely out. When the youth was discovered, he gave himself up without resistance, proud and happy. They led him to the governor, and, at his command, he was hung from the window of his father's castle of Fiziani. Leonardo, the generous victim's fate written in stern characters on his face, rose now like a prophet before the assembled people--