Mathias Sandorf

When Point Pescade had told his story, a clasp from the doctor’s hand thanked him for what he had done. The next question was how to foil the brigands. To leave the Casa degli Inglesi, and retreat in the middle of the night down the flanks of the volcano, with Zirone and his people knowing every footpath and every refuge, was to expose themselves to complete destruction. To wait for daylight to entrench themselves and defend themselves in the house, would be a far more advantageous plan. When the day came, if they had to retreat, they could at least do so in broad daylight, and would not go out, like blind men, down the precipices and solfataras. The decision was, therefore, to remain and fight. The preparations for the defense immediately commenced.

At first the two windows of the Casa degli Inglesi had to be closed, and their shutters firmly fastened down. As embrasures there were the openings between where the rafters of the roof rested on the front wall. Each man was provided with a quick-firing rifle and twenty cartridges. The doctor, Pierre, and Luigi could assist with their revolvers, but Cape Matifou had only his arms, and Point Pescade had only his hands. Perhaps they were not the worst armed.

Nearly forty minutes passed and no attempt at attack had been made. Zirone, knowing that Dr. Antekirtt had been warned by Point Pescade, and could not be surprised, had possibly abandoned his idea. With fifty men under his command and all the advantage that a thorough knowledge of the ground could give him, he had certainly all the chances on his side.

Suddenly about eleven o’clock the sentry reported a number of men approaching in skirmishing order so as to attack the hut on three sides—the fourth side, for its backing on to the slope, afforded no possible retreat. The maneuver having been discovered, the door was shut and barricaded, and the men took their posts near the rafters with orders not to fire unless they were sure of their object.

Zirone and his men advanced slowly and cautiously, taking advantage of the cover of the rocks to reach the crest of the Piarro del Lago. On this crest there were heaped up enormous masses of trachyte and basalt, intended probably to protect the Casa degli Inglesi from being destroyed by the snow during the winter. Having reached this plateau the assailants could more easily charge up to the house, break through the door or windows, and with the aid of their superior numbers carry off the doctor and his people.

Suddenly there was a report. A light smoke drifted in between the rafters. A man fell mortally wounded. The bandits at once rushed back and disappeared behind the rocks. But gradually, profiting by the unevenness of the ground, Zirone brought his men to the foot of the Piarro del Lago; but he did not do so until a dozen shots had been fired from the eaves of the Casa degli Inglesi—and two more of his associates were stretched dead on the snow.

Zirone then gave the word to storm, and at the cost of several more wounded the whole band rushed on the Casa degli Inglesi. The door was riddled with bullets, and two sailors were wounded, but not seriously, and had to stand aside while the struggle grew brisker. With their pikes and hatchets the assailants attempted to break in the door and one of the windows, and a sortie had to be undertaken to repel them under an incessant fusillade from all sides. Luigi had his hand pierced by a bullet, and Pierre, without the assistance of Cape Matifou, would have been killed by a pike thrust, had not Hercules seized the pike and settled its possessor at one blow.

During this sortie Cape Matifou was quite a terror. Twenty times was he shot at, and not a bullet reached him. If Zirone won Point Pescade was a dead man, and the thought of this redoubled his anger. Against such resistance the assailants had again to retreat; and the doctor and his friends returned into the Casa and reviewed their position.

“What ammunition have you left?” asked he.

“Ten or a dozen cartridges per man,” said Luigi.

“And what o’clock is it?”

“Hardly midnight.”

Four hours still to daybreak! The men must be more careful with the ammunition, for some of it would be wanted to protect the retreat at the earliest streak of dawn.

But how could they defend the approaches or prevent the capture of the Casa degli Inglesi if Zirone and his band again tried an assault? And that is what he did in a quarter of an hour’s time, after taking all the wounded to the rear under shelter of a line of lava that did duty for an intrenchment. When they had done this the bandits, enraged at the resistance, and drunk with fury at the sight of five or six of their injured comrades, mounted the ridge and appeared on the crest of the plateau.

Not a shot was fired as they crossed the open, and hence Zirone concluded that the besieged were running short of ammunition. The idea of carrying off a millionaire was just the thing to excite the cupidity of the scoundrels that followed him. Such was their fury during this attack that they forced the door and the window, and would have taken the house by assault had not a volley point blank killed five or six of them. They had, therefore, to return to the foot of the plateau, not without wounding two of the sailors, who could take no further part in the fray.

Four or five rounds were all that remained to the defenders of the Casa degli Inglesi. Under these circumstances retreat even during daylight had almost become impossible. They felt that they were lost if help did not come. But where could help come from? Unfortunately they could not expect that Zirone and his companions would give up their enterprise. They were still nearly forty in number, unhurt and well armed. They knew that the besieged would soon be unable to reply to their fire, and they returned to the charge.

Suddenly enormous blocks like the rocks of an avalanche came rolling down the slope and crushed three between them before they had time to step aside.

Cape Matifou had started the rocks in order to hurl them over the crest of the Piarro del Lago. But this means of defense was not enough. The heap of rocks would soon be used up, and the besieged would have to surrender or seek help from outside.

Suddenly an idea occurred to Point Pescade which he did not care to mention to the doctor for fear that he would not give his consent. But he went and whispered it to Cape Matifou.

He knew from what he had heard at Santa Grotta that a detachment of gendarmes was at Cassone. To reach Cassone would only take an hour, and it would take another hour to get back. Could he not run away and fetch this detachment? Yes, but only by passing through the besiegers, and making off to the westward.

“It is necessary for me to go through, and I will through!” he said. “I am an acrobat, or I am not.”

And he told Cape Matifou what he proposed to do.

“But,” said Matifou, “your risk—”

“I will go!”

Cape Matifou never dared to resist Point Pescade.

Both then went to the right of the Casa degli Inglesi, where the snow had accumulated to a considerable depth.

Ten minutes afterward, while the struggle continued along the front, Cape Matifou appeared pushing before him a huge snowball, and among the rocks that the sailors continued to hurl on to their assailants he sent the snowball, which rolled down the slope past Zirone’s men, and stopped fifty yards in the rear at the bottom of a gentle hollow. It half broke with the shock; it opened and from it emerged a living man, active and “a little malicious,” as he said of himself.

It was Point Pescade. Inclosed in the carapace of hardened snow, he had dared being started on the slope of the mountain at the risk of being rolled into the depths of some abyss!

And now he was free, he made the best haste he could along the footpaths to Cassone.

It was then half past twelve.

At this moment the doctor, not seeing Pescade, thought he was wounded. He called him.

“Gone!” said Cape Matifou.

“Gone?”

“Yes! To get some help!”

“And how?”

“In a snowball!”

And Cape Matifou told him what Pescade had done.

“Ah! Brave fellow!” exclaimed the doctor. “Courage, my friends! The scoundrels will not have us after all.”

And the masses of rock continued to roll down on the assailants, although the means of defense were rapidly becoming exhausted.

About three o’clock in the morning the doctor, Pierre, Luigi, Cape Matifou, and the sailors, carrying their wounded, would have to evacuate the house and allow it to fall into the possession of Zirone, twenty of whose companions had been killed. The retreat would have to be up the central cone—that heap of lava, scoriæ and cinders, whose summit, the crater, was an abyss of fire. All, however, were to ascend the cone, and carry their wounded with them. Of the 1000 feet they would have to climb over 700 feet would be through the sulphurous fumes that the winds beat down from the top.

The day began to break, and already the crests of the Calabrian Mountains above the eastern coast of the Straits of Messina were tipped with the coming light. But in the position in which the doctor and his men found themselves the day had no chance of being welcomed. They would have to fight as they retreated up the slope, using their last cartridges and hurling down the last masses of rock that Matifou sent flying along with such superhuman strength. They had almost given themselves up for lost when the sound of guns was heard below them. A moment of indecision was observed among the bandits; they hesitated; and then they broke into full flight down the mountain side. They had sighted the gendarmes who had arrrived from Cassone, Point Pescade at their head.

He had not had to go as far as the village. The gendarmes had heard the firing and were already on the road. All he had to do was to lead them to the Casa degli Inglesi.

Then the doctor and his men took the offensive. Cape Matifou, as if he were an avalanche himself, bounded on the nearest and knocked down two before they had time to get away, and then he rushed at Zirone.

“Bravo, old Cape! Bravo!” shouted Pescade, running up. “Down with him! Lay him flat! The contest, gentlemen, the desperate contest between Zirone and Cape Matifou!”

Zirone heard him, and with the hand that remained free he fired his revolver at Pescade, who fell to the ground.

And then there was a terrible scene. Cape Matifou had seized Zirone and was dragging him along by his neck. The wretch, half-strangled, could do nothing to help himself.

In vain the doctor, who wished to have him alive, shouted out for him to be spared. In vain Pierre and Luigi rushed up to stop him. Cape Matifou thought of one thing only—Zirone had mortally wounded Point Pescade! He heard nothing, he saw nothing. He gave one last leap on to the edge of the gaping crater of a solfatara, and hurled the bandit into the abyss of fire!

Point Pescade, seriously wounded, was lifted on to the doctor’s knee. He examined and bathed the wound. When Cape Matifou returned to him, great tears were rolling down his cheeks.

“Never fear, old Cape; never fear! It is nothing!” murmured Pescade.

Cape Matifou took him in his arms like a child, and followed by all, went down the side of the cone, while the gendarmes gave chase to the last fugitive of Zirone’s band.

Six hours afterward the doctor and his men had returned to Catania, and were on board the “Ferrato.” Point Pescade was laid in the cabin, with Dr. Antekirtt for surgeon, and Cape Matifou for nurse; he was well looked after. His wound, a bullet in the shoulder, was not of a serious kind. His cure was only a question of time. When he wanted sleep Cape Matifou told him tales, always the same tales and Point Pescade was soon in sound slumber.

However, the doctor’s campaign had opened unsuccessfully. After nearly falling into Zirone’s hands he had not been able to get hold of Sarcany’s companion and obtain the information from him that he wanted—and all owing to Cape Matifou! Although the doctor stayed at Catania for eight days he could obtain no news of Sarcany. If Sarcany had intended to rejoin Zirone in Sicily his plans had been changed probably when he heard the result of the attempt on Dr. Antekirtt.

The “Ferrato” put to sea on the 8th of September, bound for Antekirtta, and she arrived after a rapid passage.

Then the doctor, Pierre, and Luigi conferred as to their future plans. The first thing to do was obviously to get hold of Carpena, who ought to know what had become of Sarcany and Silas Toronthal.

Unfortunately for the Spaniard, although he escaped the destruction of Zirone’s band he remained at Santa Grotta, and his good fortune was of short duration. In fact, ten days afterward one of the doctor’s agents informed him that Carpena had been arrested at Syracuse—not as an accomplice of Zirone, but for a crime committed more than fifteen years ago, a murder at Almayate in the province of Malaga, which had caused his flight to Rovigno.

Three weeks later Carpena, whose extradition was obtained, was condemned to the galleys and sent to the coast of Morocco, to Ceuta, which is one of the chief penitentiary establishments of Spain.

“At last,” said Pierre, “there is one of the scoundrels settled for life!”

“For life? No!” answered the doctor. “If Andrea Ferrato died in prison, it is not in prison that Carpena ought to die.”

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