This story first takes you to Misslimeri, a little Sicilian village, and into the home of Don Ruggero, a wealthy landowner. Don Ruggero is an iron-hearted man and strongly prejudiced against the lower classes. His son, Corrado, a young fellow, loves Rosalia, a shepherdess, but Don Ruggero has always refused to allow their marriage and to recognize little Vincenzino, their child, as his grandchild. Finally to destroy all Corrado’s hopes, he discharges poor Rosalia from his farm, where she had been employed for many years. Even the sight of her departure with Vincenzino in her arms does not soften him. Rosalia is the very ideal of the Sicilian beauty, and Capt. Altieri, an officer in the service of the Dominators, the Bourbons, admires her immensely, but all his approaches are strongly repulsed by her. Don Ruggero and his son have for a long time conspired to free their motherland from the hands of the Bourbons, and when they receive news of the arrival of Garibaldi, who had sailed with only 1,000 soldiers from Quarto, near Genoa, to fight for the freedom of Sicily, they leave their village to join him and the other conspirators. The rendezvous is at Plana del Greci, where they find Garibaldi just starting out to conquer Palermo. In the meantime Capt. Altieri steals from Rosalia her little son, hoping thus to succeed in his vile scheme, and starts out to join the Bourbons’ headquarters in Marineo near Corleone. Colonel Bosco, the commander-in-chief of the Bourbon army, entrusts Capt. Altieri with an important message to be delivered to the almost doomed Palermo. Altieri starts out, and on his way meets Rosalia, who implores him for the restoration of her child. Upon the sight of her, he forgets his important mission and drags her into an uninhabited house, where he has concealed Vincenzino in an upper room. The little boy, hearing the cries of his mother, rushes down to save her and drops some ashes into the eyes of her aggressor. Taking advantage of his instantaneous blindness, she steals the message Altieri had with him and runs away to Garibaldi’s headquarters. Her courageous act meets with high approval from Garibaldi, and wins for her the consent of Don Ruggero to her long-delayed marriage to Corrado.