THE BRIGANDS
Body of the bandit Turri Turri
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...By a footpath around Nusco, in fact, they came upon an ugly pile of dead men: there were four of them, glassy-eyed and heaped one on top of the other, in floppy poses which signalled that they had been killed not long before. The strange thing was that their beards had been burned off. As they stood conjecturing over that, there came a knocking and rustling sound of sticks and leaves behind them and an old wrinkled peasant woman with a kerchief appeared. She told them—without the aid of many incisors—that the dead men had been killed by Turri-Turri, head of all the bandits. “He hates your King Victor Emanuel. He burns the beards and moustaches of the Italiani he kills.” |
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