iving considerable
advantage from this letter, when the business was further complicated by
a fresh incident. Agostini, the bandit, wrote to the public prosecutor,
to complain that his handwriting had been counterfeited, and his
character aspersed, by some one who desired to represent him as a man
who made a traffic of his influence. "If I can discover the forger," he
said at the end of his letter, "I will make a striking example of him."

It was quite clear that Agostini did not write the threatening letter
to the mayor. The della Rebbia accused the Barricini of it and _vice
versa_. Both parties broke into open threats, and the authorities did
not know where to find the culprit.

In the midst of all this Colonel Ghilfuccio was murdered. Here are
the facts, as they were elicited at the official inquiry. On the 2d of
August, 18--, toward nightfall, a woman named Maddalena Pietri, who was
carrying corn to Pietranera, heard two shots fired, very close together,
the reports, as it seemed to her, coming from the deep lane leading to
the village, about a hundred and fifty paces from the spot on which she
stood. Almost immediately afterward she saw a man running, crouching
along a footpath among the vines, and making for the village. The man
stopped for a minute, and turned round, but the distance prevented the
woman Pietri from seeing his features, and besides, he had a vine-leaf
in his mouth, which hid almost the whole of his face. He made a signal
with his head to some comrade, whom the witness could not see, and then
disappeared among the vines.

The woman Pietri dropped her burden, ran up the path, and found Colonel
della Rebbia, bathed in his own blood from two bullet wounds, but still
breathing. Close beside him lay his gun, loaded and cocked, as if he had
been defending himself against a person who had attacked him in front,
just when another had struck him from behind. Although the rattle was
in his throat, he struggled against the grip of death, but he could not
utter a word--this the doctors explained by the nature of the wounds,
which had cut through his lungs: the blood was choking him, it flowed
slowly, like red froth. In vain did the woman lift him up, and ask him
several questions. She saw plainly enough that he desired to speak, but
he could not make himself understood. Noticing that he was trying to get
his hand to his pocket, she quickly drew out of it a little note-book,
which she opened and gave to him.