“Assassinations multiplied; young girls disappeared and children were snatched from their cradles despite the lamentations of their mothers to furnish those diabolical feasts at which, it was generally believed, the sacramental vessels stolen from the profaned churches were used as goblets.
“Terror took such possession of men’s souls that, when the bell rang for the Angelus, nobody dared to leave his house, though even there was no certain security against the banditti of the crag.
“But who were they? Whence had they come? What was the name of their mysterious chief? This was the enigma which all sought to explain, but which thus far no one could solve, although it was noticed that from this time on the armor of the feudal lord had disappeared from the place it had previously occupied, and afterwards various peasants had affirmed that the captain of this inhuman crew marched at its head clad in a suit of mail which, if not the same, was its exact counterpart.
“But in the essential fact, when stripped of that fantastic quality with which fear augments and embellishes its cherished creations, there was nothing necessarily supernatural nor strange.
“What was more common in outlaws than the barbarities for which this band was distinguished or more natural than that their chief should avail himself of the abandoned armor of the Count of the Segre?
“But the dying revelations of one of his followers, taken prisoner in the latest affray, heaped up the measure of evidence, convincing the most incredulous. Less or more in words, the substance of his confession was this:
“‘I belong,’ he said, ‘to a noble family. My youthful irregularities, my mad extravagances, and finally my crimes drew upon my head the wrath of my kindred and the curse of my father, who, at his death, disinherited me. Finding myself alone and without any resources whatever, it was the Devil, without doubt, who must needs suggest to me the idea of gathering together some youths in a situation similar to my own. These, seduced by the promise of a future of dissipation, liberty and abundance, did not hesitate an instant to subscribe to my designs.
“‘These designs consisted in forming a band of young men of gay temper, unscrupulous and reckless, who thenceforward would live joyously on the product of their valor and at the cost of the country, until God should please to dispose of each according to His will, as happens to me this day.