In less than eight or ten minutes, I see a crowd of peasants coming down the hills, armed with guns, pitchforks, or cudgels:  I withdraw inside of the barn, but without the slightest fear, for I cannot suppose that, seeing me alone, these men will murder me without listening to me.

The first ten or twelve peasants come forward, gun in hand and ready to fire:  I stop them by throwing down my gazzette, which they lose no time in picking up from the ground, and I keep on throwing money down as the men come forward, until I had no more left.  The clowns were looking at each other in great astonishment, not knowing what to make out of a well-dressed young man, looking very peaceful, and throwing his money to them with such generosity.  I could not speak to them until the deafening noise of the bells should cease.  I quietly sit down on my large bag, and keep still, but as soon as I can be heard I begin to address the men.  The priest, however, assisted by his beadle and by the herdsman, interrupts me, and all the more easily that I was speaking Italian.  My three enemies, who talked all at once, were trying to excite the crowd against me.

One of the peasants, an elderly and reasonable-looking man, comes up to me and asks me in Italian why I have killed the sheep.

“To eat it, my good fellow, but not before I have paid for it.”

“But his holiness, the papa, might choose to charge one sequin for it.”

“Here is one sequin.”

The priest takes the money and goes away:  war is over.  The peasant tells me that he has served in the campaign of 1716, and that he was at the defence of Corfu.  I compliment him, and ask him to find me a lodging and a man able to prepare my meals.  He answers that he will procure me a whole house, that he will be my cook himself, but I must go up the hill.  No matter!  He calls two stout fellows, one takes my bag, the other shoulders my sheep, and forward!  As we are walking along, I tell him,—­

“My good man, I would like to have in my service twenty-four fellows like these under military discipline.  I would give each man twenty gazzette a day, and you would have forty as my lieutenant.”

“I will,” says the old soldier, “raise for you this very day a body-guard of which you will be proud.”

We reach a very convenient house, containing on the ground floor three rooms and a stable, which I immediately turned into a guard-room.

My lieutenant went to get what I wanted, and particularly a needlewoman to make me some shirts.  In the course of the day I had furniture, bedding, kitchen utensils, a good dinner, twenty-four well-equipped soldiers, a super-annuated sempstress and several young girls to make my shirts.  After supper, I found my position highly pleasant, being surrounded with some thirty persons who looked upon me as their sovereign, although they could not make out what had brought me to their island.  The only thing which struck me as disagreeable was that the young girls could not speak Italian, and I did not know Greek enough to enable me to make love to them.