He had the physicalassurance of strong-hearted men. After half an
hour's interview in the dining-room, during which they got in touch

with each other in an amazing way, Rita told us in her best GRANDE
DAME manner: "MAIS IL ESI PARFAIT, CET HOMME." He was perfect.

On board the Tremolino, wrapped up in a black CABAN, the
picturesque cloak of Mediterranean seamen, with those massive

moustaches and his remorseless eyes set off by the shadow of the
deep hood, he looked piratical and monkish and darkly initiated

into the most awful mysteries of the sea.
XLIII.

Anyway, he was perfect, as Dona Rita had declared. The only thing
unsatisfactory (and even inexplicable) about our Dominic was his

nephew, Cesar. It was startling to see a desolate expression of
shame veil the remorseless audacity in the eyes of that man

superior to all scruples and terrors.
"I would never have dared to bring him on board your balancelle,"

he once apologized to me. "But what am I to do? His mother is
dead, and my brother has gone into the bush."

In this way I learned that our Dominic had a brother. As to "going
into the bush," this only means that a man has done his duty

successfully in the pursuit of a hereditary vendetta. The feud
which had existed for ages between the families of Cervoni and

Brunaschi was so old that it seemed to have smouldered out at last.
One evening Pietro Brunaschi, after a laborious day amongst his

olive-trees, sat on a chair against the wall of his house with a
bowl of broth on his knees and a piece of bread in his hand.

Dominic's brother, going home with a gun on his shoulder, found a
sudden offence in this picture of content and rest so obviously

calculated to awaken the feelings of hatred and revenge. He and
Pietro had never had any personal quarrel; but, as Dominic

explained, "all our dead cried out to him." He shouted from behind
a wall of stones, "O Pietro! Behold what is coming!" And as the

other looked up innocently he took aim at the forehead and squared
the old vendetta account so neatly that, according to Dominic, the

dead man continued to sit with the bowl of broth on his knees and
the piece of bread in his hand.

This is why - because in Corsica your dead will not leave you alone
- Dominic's brother had to go into the MAQUIS, into the bush on the

wild mountain-side, to dodge the gendarmes for the insignificant
remainder of his life, and Dominic had charge of his nephew with a

mission to make a man of him.
No more unpromising undertaking could be imagined. The very

material for the task seemed wanting. The Cervonis, if not
handsome men, were good sturdy flesh and blood. But this

extraordinarily lean and livid youth seemed to have no more blood
in him than a snail.

"Some cursed witch must have stolen my brother's child from the
cradle and put that spawn of a starved devil in its place," Dominic

would say to me. "Look at him! Just look at him!"
To look at Cesar was not pleasant. His parchment skin, showing

dead white on his cranium through the thin wisps of dirty brown
hair, seemed to be glued directly and tightly upon his big bones,

Without being in any way deformed, he was the nearest approach
which I have ever seen or could imagine to what is commonly

understood by the word "monster." That the source of the effect
produced was really moral I have no doubt. An utterly, hopelessly

depraved nature was expressed in physical terms, that taken each
separately had nothing positivelystartling. You imagined him

clammily cold to the touch, like a snake. The slightest reproof,
the most mild and justifiable remonstrance, would be met by a

resentful glare and an evil shrinking of his thin dry upper lip, a
snarl of hate to which he generally added the agreeable sound of

grinding teeth.
It was for this venomousperformance rather than for his lies,

impudence, and laziness that his uncle used to knock him down. It
must not be imagined that it was anything in the nature of a brutal

assault. Dominic's brawny arm would be seen describing
deliberately an ample horizontalgesture, a dignified sweep, and

Cesar would go over suddenly like a ninepin - which was funny to
see. But, once down, he would writhe on the deck, gnashing his

teeth in impotent rage - which was pretty horrible to behold. And
it also happened more than once that he would disappear completely

- which was startling to observe. This is the exact truth. Before
some of these majestic cuffs Cesar would go down and vanish. He

would vanish heels overhead into open hatchways, into scuttles,
behind up-ended casks, according to the place where he happened to

come into contact with his uncle's mighty arm.
Once - it was in the old harbour, just before the Tremolino's last

voyage - he vanished thus overboard to my infinite consternation.
Dominic and I had been talking business together aft, and Cesar had

sneaked up behind us to listen, for, amongst his other perfections,
he was a consummate eavesdropper and spy. At the sound of the

heavy plop alongsidehorror held me rooted to the spot; but Dominic
stepped quietly to the rail and leaned over, waiting for his

nephew's miserable head to bob up for the first time.
"Ohe, Cesar!" he yelled contemptuously to the spluttering wretch.

"Catch hold of that mooring hawser - CHAROGNE!"
He approached me to resume the interrupted conversation.

"What about Cesar?" I asked anxiously.
"Canallia! Let him hang there," was his answer. And he went on

talking over the business in hand calmly, while I tried vainly to
dismiss from my mind the picture of Cesar steeped to the chin in

the water of the old harbour, a decoction of centuries of marine
refuse. I tried to dismiss it, because the mere notion of that

liquid made me feel very sick. Presently Dominic, hailing an idle
boatman, directed him to go and fish his nephew out; and by-and-by

Cesar appeared walking on board from the quay, shivering, streaming
with filthy water, with bits of rotten straws in his hair and a

piece of dirty orange-peel stranded on his shoulder. His teeth
chattered; his yellow eyes squinted balefully at us as he passed

forward. I thought it my duty to remonstrate.
"Why are you always knocking him about, Dominic?" I asked. Indeed,

I felt convinced it was no earthly good - a sheer waste of muscular
force.

"I must try to make a man of him," Dominic answered hopelessly.
I restrained the obviousretort that in this way he ran the risk of

making, in the words of the immortal Mr. Mantalini, "a demnition
damp, unpleasantcorpse of him."

"He wants to be a locksmith!" burst out Cervoni. "To learn how to
pick locks, I suppose," he added with sardonic bitterness.

"Why not let him be a locksmith?" I ventured.
"Who would teach him?" he cried. "Where could I leave him?" he

asked, with a drop in his voice; and I had my first glimpse of
genuine despair. "He steals, you know, alas! PAR TA MADONNE! I

believe he would put poison in your food and mine - the viper!"
He raised his face and both his clenched fists slowly to heaven.

However, Cesar never dropped poison into our cups. One cannot be
sure, but I fancy he went to work in another way.

This voyage, of which the details need not be given, we had to
range far afield for sufficient reasons. Coming up from the South

to end it with the important and really dangerous part of the
scheme in hand, we found it necessary to look into Barcelona for

certain definite information. This appears like running one's head
into the very jaws of the lion, but in reality it was not so. We

had one or two high, influential friends there, and many others
humble but valuable because bought for good hard cash. We were in

no danger of being molested; indeed, the important information
reached us promptly by the hands of a Custom-house officer, who

came on board full of showy zeal to poke an iron rod into the layer
of oranges which made the visible part of our cargo in the

hatchway.
I forgot to mention before that the Tremolino was officially known

as a fruit and cork-wood trader. The zealous officer managed to
slip a useful piece of paper into Dominic's hand as he went ashore,

and a few hours afterwards, being off duty, he returned on board
again athirst for drinks and gratitude. He got both as a matter of

course. While he sat sipping his liqueur in the tiny cabin,
Dominic plied him with questions as to the whereabouts of the

guardacostas. The preventive service afloat was really the one for
us to reckon with, and it was material for our success and safety