On the fourth night, just before the dawn of day, he made the attempt. Dashing from the cavern, and shooting down the nearest sentries right and left with his double-barrelled gun, he gained the thickets. An alarm was raised, and there was a general pursuit. Arrhigi fled towards the Golo, intending, probably, to place that river between him and his pursuers. It was now daylight, and they were upon him before he reached it. Again brought to bay, he took his stand sheltered by a rock. The soldiers cried out to him to surrender; but the resolute bandit, refusing quarter, continued to resist till he was shot through the head.
We left Xavier Massoni escaping into the _maquis_, but slightly wounded in the thigh. The _gendarmes_ were so occupied with his brother Pierre and Arrhigi, that he reached, unpursued, a distant forest in the heart of the mountains. Soon, however, an officer of the _Gendarmerie Corse_, with a detachment of forty or fifty men, was laid on his track. After seven days they discovered the lone cave in which, the last of his band, he had hoped for concealment. It was high up the face of the mountain, but the party scaled it, and summoning Xavier to surrender, he gave his _parole_. Just at that moment a _gendarme_ offering a shot, the bandit levelled his gun at him and killed him. He then threw down his arms and came out of the cave, prepared to surrender himself. A sentry posted near, imagining that he intended to escape, shot him dead without challenging him or allowing him time to give himself up. The sentry was punished, as they wished to take the bandit alive, hoping that he would discover those who were in league with him.
Thus fell, with a gallantry worthy of a better cause, these renowned banditti chiefs, who for many years had infested the country, and filled it with alarm and grief. The rest of the band dispersed, were killed, or taken prisoners. Arrhigi's heroic defence closed the series of romantic stories on which the Corsicans delight to dwell. His example might have encouraged the outlaws to emulate his daring resistance; but the unusual force brought against him convinced them that the authorities were no longer to be trifled with. The brigands became thoroughly disheartened, and we hear of no more desperate encounters with the _gendarmerie_. In the course of the following year, the deep solitudes of the Corsican forests and mountains, echoing no longer to the crack of the rifle, were left in the undisturbed possession of the shepherds and their flocks, the foxes and the _moufflons_.