“The affairs with which I was most particularly concerned in those parts were the affairs of vendetta. There are some magnificent vendettas, as dramatic as they could well be, ferocious, heroic. In this district we come across the finest stories of revenge that you could possibly imagine, hatred centuries old, appeased for a moment, never wiped out, abominable plots, murders become massacres, deeds of which men were ready to boast themselves. For two years I heard tell of nothing but the price of blood, of the terrible Corsican custom which obliges a man to revenge every wrong upon the person who committed it, upon his descendants and those near to him. I have seen old men’s throats cut, and their children’s and their cousins’; my head was filled with these stories.
“Now one day I learnt that an Englishman had just taken, for a number of years, a small villa at the end of the bay. He had brought with him a French manservant whom he had engaged at Marseilles on his way out.
“Soon everybody began to take an interest in this strange person, who lived alone in his house, never going out except to shoot or fish. He spoke to no one, never went into the town, and, every morning, spent an hour or two at pistol and carbine practice.
“Legends grew up about him. People suggested that he was an important personage who had left his native land for political reasons; then it was stated that he was hiding after having committed an abominable crime. They even quoted circumstances of a peculiarly horrible nature.
“I was anxious, in my position as examining magistrate, to get some information about this man; but I found it impossible to discover anything. His name he gave as Sir John Rowell.
“I was content, then, with keeping him under close watch; but in fact I had no cause to believe in any suspicious circumstances connected with him.
“But as the rumours about him continued and grew, and became common property, I resolved to try and see this stranger for myself, and I made a habit of shooting regularly in the neighbourhood of his property. For a long time I waited my chance. At last it presented itself in the form of a partridge which I shot at and killed under the Englishman’s nose. My dog brought it to me, but, taking it with me, I went to make excuses for my discourteous act and to request Sir John Rowell to accept the bird.
“He was a big man with red hair and a red beard, very tall and very stout, a polite and placid Hercules. There was about him no trace of the so-called British stiffness, and he thanked me warmly for my civility in French of which the accent was unmistakably from the other side of the English Channel. At the end of a month we had chatted together five or six times.
“At last one evening, as I was passing his gate, I saw him smoking a pipe, straddling a chair in his garden. I greeted him, and he asked me to come in and drink a glass of beer. I did not oblige him to repeat his invitation.
“He received me with every mark of that meticulous English courtesy, spoke enthusiastically of France and Corsica, declaring that he was delighted with cette pays and cette rivage.
“Thereupon, with the greatest care and under the form of a lively curiosity, I asked him some questions about his life and his plans. He answered without a sign of embarrassment, and told me that he had travelled a great deal in Africa, India, and America. He added with a laugh:
“ ‘Oh, yes, I’ve had plenty of adventures.’
“Then he began to tell me hunting-stories, and gave me most interesting details about hunting hippopotamuses, tigers, and even gorillas.
“ ‘They are all formidable animals,’ I observed.
“ ‘Oh, no,’ he said with a smile, ‘the worst is man.’ And his smile changed to a laugh, the pleasant laughter of a hearty happy Englishman.
“ ‘I’ve hunted man a lot, too.’
“Then he began to speak of weapons, and invited me to come in and be shown his various types of guns.
“His drawing room was hung with black—black silk embroidered with gold. Large yellow flowers twisted upon the dark material, gleaming like flames.
“ ‘It’s a Japanese material,’ he told me.
“But in the centre of the largest panel a strange thing caught my eye. Upon a square of red velvet a black object lay in sharp relief: I went up to it; it was a hand, a man’s hand. Not the hand of a skeleton, white and clean, but a black, dried hand, with yellow nails, the muscles laid bare, and traces of stale blood, like dirt, on the bones that had been cut clean off, as though with a blow from an ax, at the centre of the forearm.
“Round the wrist an enormous iron chain, riveted and welded on this foul limb, fastened it to the wall by a ring strong enough to hold an elephant.
“ ‘What is that?’ I asked.
“ ‘That’s my best enemy,’ answered the Englishman calmly. ‘It came from America. It was cut off with a sabre and the skin torn off with a sharp stone and dried in the sun for eight days. Oh, it was a fortunate thing for me.’
“I touched this human relic, which must have belonged to a colossus. The fingers, excessively long, were attached by enormous muscles which in places still retained shreds of flesh. The hand was frightful to see; flayed in this wise, it instinctively made me think of the revenge of some savage.
“ ‘The man must have been very strong,’ I said.
“ ‘Oh, yes,’ said the Englishman sweetly, ‘but I was stronger than he. I put that chain on to hold him.’
“I thought the man was jesting, and said: ‘The chain is quite useless now; the hand will not escape.’
“Sir John Rowell replied in a grave voice:
“ ‘It was always trying
