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We were soon out of the canal of Mestre, terminated by an isle which contains a cell dedicated to the Holy Virgin, peeping out of a thicket from whence spire up two tall cypresses. Its bells tingled as we passed along and dropped some paolis into a net tied at the end of a pole stretched out to us for that purpose.
"All that autumn I spent under her father's roof, and my leave having been extended all the winter following. The old Count had convinced himself by this time that by accepting the crown he would confer a signal service on Corsica, and had opened a lengthy correspondence with the two Paolis, whose hesitation to accept this view at once puzzled and annoyed him.
From his most Catholic Majesty we have received an order upon the minister for the sum of four thousand louis, which has been duly honoured, and from our blessed father, the Pope, an order for five hundred thousand paolis, amounting to about thirteen thousand pounds in sterling money, together with entire absolution for all sins already committed, and about to be committed, and a secure promise of paradise to those who fall in the maintenance of the true faith and the legitimate king.
"Since 1316 the headquarters of my branch of the Paolis has been at Sartoris, once the strongest fortified castle in Corsica, but now, alas! almost past repair, in fact little better than a heap of crumbling ruins. As you know, Mr O'Donnell, it takes a vast fortune to keep such a place merely habitable.
"But while we loved and Count Ugo wrote letters, the two Paolis were doing; and by-and-by they played the strangest stroke in all Corsica's history. That spring, at Aleria on the east coast, there landed a man of whom the Corsican's had never heard.
From his most Catholic Majesty we have received an order upon the minister for the sum of four thousand louis, which has been duly honoured, and from our blessed father, the Pope, an order for five hundred thousand paolis, amounting to about thirteen thousand pounds in sterling money, together with entire absolution for all sins already committed, and about to be committed, and a secure promise of paradise to those who fall in the maintenance of the true faith and the legitimate king.
"Still, the notion of being crowned King of Corsica tickled his vanity, and would have tickled it more had he begotten a son to succeed him. It opened new prospects of driving through crowds and bowing and lifting his hat: and he turned pardonably sulky when the two Paolis treated my proposals with suspicion.
This was a Count Ugo Colonna, a middle-aged man, descended from the oldest nobility of the island, and head of his family, which might more properly be called a clan; a patriot, in his way, too, though lacking the fire of the Paolis, to whom he had surrendered the leadership while remaining something of a figure-head.