A detachment of ten gendarmes is at present stationed in Sartene. The same number is usually posted in the chief town of every canton, and in those villages which are particularly troublesome. The officer of the company was an Alsatian, who had lived twenty-two years in the island, seemingly quite happily, and without any expectation of meeting a countryman in Sartene. Whenever I meet an Alsatian or a Lothringian—the latter always speak very inaccurate German—I feel deep sorrow for these lost German brethren of mine. It always brings a pang to my heart, to think of a branch of the noble old German oak in the hands of the French. This officer had severe complaints to make regarding the dangerous service in which he was employed, and the petty warfare he had to carry on with the banditti. He pointed to a mountain in the distance—the lofty Incudine. "Look," said he, "yonder sits a captain of banditti, whom we have to hunt like a wild sheep. There are fifteen hundred francs on his head, but they are not so easy to win. A few days ago we apprehended twenty-nine men who had been carrying provisions to the fellow. I have them here in the barracks." "What will be their punishment?" "A year's imprisonment, if they are convicted. They are herdsmen or mountain-people, friends and relations of the bandit." Poor Corsica! what, under circumstances like these, is to become of thy industry and thy agriculture! The view of the dark mountain of Incudine where the poor bandit is sitting, and the recollection of the feuds of Sartene, recall to my mind some stories from the inexhaustible stores of the Corsican romance of revenge. Let us sit down together upon a rock, in sight of these glorious mountains, and the waters of the Gulf of Valinco, and listen to two stories about Corsican guns and their owners. CHAPTER IV. TWO STORIES OF THE VENDETTA. ORSO PAOLO. The people of the village of Monte d'Olmo were one day celebrating a festival of the Church. The priests had taken their places before the altar, and numbers of devout worshippers had already assembled within the sacred edifice, while not a few still lingered over their gossip outside. Among these latter were the Vincenti and Grimaldi—two families between which a hereditary feud had existed from time immemorial. To-day they ventured to look each other in the face, as the sacred festivity compelled at least a temporary suspension of all animosities. Somebody started the question, whether or not the priests should be made to wear the capote or cowled cloak of their order during the procession. "No," said Orso Paolo, of the Vincenti family, "they should be made to do nothing of the kind, for it was never the custom in our forefathers' times." "Yes," cried Ruggero, of the Grimaldi family, "they ought to wear their capotes, for that is the regulation of our Holy Church."