I thought much upon this lad Rocca Serra. Why had he died? Was it for loathing her? But men do not easily loathe such beauty. Was it for love of her? But men do not slay themselves for fortunate love. Had her loathing been in some way the secret of his despair? I recalled my words to her, and how she had answered them, turning in the steep track among the pines "I am your hostage. Do with me as you will." "If I could! Ah, if I could!" I liked to think that the lad had loved her and been disdained; yet I pitied him for being disdained, and half hated him for having dared to love her. Yes, for certain he had loved her. But, if so, her secret had need be as strange almost as that of Sara, the daughter of Raguel, whom seven husbands married, to perish on the marriage eve—"for a wicked spirit loveth her, which hurteth nobody but those which come unto her."
In dreams I found myself travelling beyond the grave in search of this dead lad, to question him; and not seldom would awake with these lines running in my head, remembered as old perplexing favourites with my father, though God knows how I took a fancy that they held the clue—
"I long to talk with some old lover's ghost
Who dy'd before the God of Love was born.
I cannot think that he, who then loved most,
Sunk so low as to love one which did scorn.
But since this god produc'd a Destiny,
And that Vice-Nature Custom lets it be,
I must love her that loves not me.
"O, were we waken'd by this tyranny
T'ungod this child again, it could not be
I should love her who loves not me.
"Rebel and Atheist too, why murmur I
As though I felt the worst that love could do?
Love may make me leave loving, or might try
A deeper plague—to make her love me too;
Which, since she loves before, I'm loth to see:
Falsehood is worse than hate: and that must be
If she whom I love should love me."
Many wild conjectures I made and patiently built upon, which, if I were to write them down here, would merely bemuse the reader or drive him to think me crazy. There on my enchanted mountain summit, ringed about day after day by the silent land, removed from all human company but Marc'antonio's, with no clock but the sun and no calendar but the creeping change of the season upon the macchia, what wonder if I forgot human probabilities at times in piecing and unpiecing solutions of a riddle which itself cried out against nature?
Marc'antonio was all the while as matter-of-fact as a good nurse ought to be. He had fashioned me a capital pair of crutches out of boxwood, and no sooner could I creep about on them than he began to discourse, over the camp-fire, on the hunting excursions we were soon to make together.
"Pianu, pianu; we will grow strong, and get our hand in by little and little. At first there will be the blackbirds and the foxes—"
"You shoot foxes in Corsica?" I asked.
Marc'antonio stared at me. "And why not, cavalier? You would not have us run after them and despatch them with the stiletto!"
I endeavoured to explain to him the craft and mystery of fox-hunting as practised in England. He shook his head over it, greatly bewildered.
"It seems a long ceremony for one little fox," was his criticism.
"But if we did it with less ritual the foxes would disappear out of the country," I answered him.
"And why not?"
This naturally led me into a discourse on preserving game and on our
English game laws, which, I regret to say, gravelled him utterly.
"A peace of God for foxes and partridges! Why, what do you allow, then, for a man?"
I explained that we did not shoot men in England. His jaw dropped.
"Mbe! In the name of the Virgin, whatever do you do with them?"
"We hang them sometimes, and sometimes we fight duels with them." I expounded in brief the distinction between these processes and their formalities, whereat he remained for a long while in a brown study.
"Well," he admitted, "by all accounts you English have achieved liberty; but, per Baccu, you do strange things with it!"
"Blackbirds, to begin with," he resumed, "and foxes, and a hare, maybe. Then in the next valley there are boars—small, and wild, and fierce, but our great half-tame ones have driven them off this mountain. After them we will extend ourselves and stalk for deer."
He described the deer to me and its habits. It was, as I made out, an animal not unlike our red deer, but smaller, and of a duller coat; shy, too, and scarce. He gave me reasons for this. In summer the Corsican shepherds, each armed with a gun, pasture their sheep on the mountains, in winter along the plains and valleys; in either season driving off the poor stag, which in summer is left to range the parched lowlands and in winter the upper snows. Of late years, however, owing to the unsettled state of politics, the shepherds pastured not half the numbers of sheep that Marc'antonio remembered in his youth, and by consequence the deer had multiplied and grown bolder. He could promise me a stag. Nay, he even hoped that owing to these same causes the mufri were pushing down by degrees to the seaboard from the inland mountains, which they mostly haunted. Ah, that was sport for kings! If fortune, one of these fine days, would send us a full-grown mufrone now!
But we began upon the blackbirds. I remember yet my first, and how, while I stood trembling a little with that excitement which only a sick man can know who takes up his gun again, Marc'antonio held up the bird and ripped open its crop, filled to bursting with myrtle berries; and the exquisite violet scent they exhaled.
Already I had flung my crutches away, and three weeks later we were after the deer in good earnest. I had lost all account of time; but winter was upon us, with a wealth of laurestinus flower upon the macchia and a sense of stillness in the air such as we feel at home on windless sunny mornings in December after a night of frost. We had started before dawn, and crossed the valley by the track leading past our deserted hut and up between the granite pinnacles on which, when the sunset touched them, I had so often gazed. We had followed it up beyond the pines and over a pass leading out among a range of undulating foot-hills, which seemed to waver and lose heart a dozen times before making up their minds to unite and climb, and be a snowcapped mountain. But they mounted to the snows at length, and the snows had driven down the stag which, under Marc'antonio's guidance, I stalked for two hours, and shot before noon-day. We left him in the track, to be recovered as we returned, and very cautiously made our way to the crest of the next ridge. I chose a granite boulder for my shelter, gained it, crawled under its lee, and, peering over, had whipped my gun to my shoulder and very nearly pulled the trigger—was, in fact, looking along the sight—when I found that I was aiming at a man; and not only that, but at Billy Priske!
I believe, on my faith that thenceforward he owed his life to the shape of his legs—so unlike a deer's.
He was picking his way across the dry bed of a torrent in the dip not fifty yards below us, leaping from slab to slab of outcropping granite as a man crosses a brook by stepping-stones; and upon a slab midway he halted, drew off his hat, extracted a handkerchief, and stood polishing his bald head while he took stock of the climb before him.
"Billy! Billy Priske!"
He tilted his head still higher, towards the ridge and the rock on which I stood against his skyline, frantically waving.
"HOO-ROAR!"
"And to think, lad," he panted, ten minutes later, as he stretched himself on the heath beside me—"to think of your mistaking me for a deer!"
"Did I say so, Billy? Then I lied. It was for a mufro I took you.
Marc'antonio here had as good as promised me one."
His beaming smile changed on the instant to a look of extreme gravity.
"See you, lad," he said, "have you ever come across one of these here wild sheep?"
"Not yet."
"I thought not. Well, I have; and I advise you not to talk irreligious about 'em."
"I will talk about nothing," said I, "until you tell me how my father is, and of all your adventures."
"He's well, lad—hearty, and well, and thriving. And he sends you his love, and a paper for your friend here. 'Tis from the Princess; and the upshot is, you're released from your word and free to come back with me."
Marc'antonio, proud of an opportunity to display his scholarship, broke the seal and read the letter with a magisterial frown, which changed, however, to a pleasant, friendly smile as he handed it across to me.
"Your captivity is at an end, cavalier. You said well, after all, that your patience would win the day."
"My patience, Marc'antonio? What, then, of yours?"
The tears sprang suddenly to his eyes, good fellow that he was, and now my good friend. I stretched out a hand, and he grasped and held it for a moment between his twain. We used no more words.
"So my father is with the Princess?" I asked, turning on Billy, who stared—and excusably—at this evidence of our emotion.
"No, he bain't," said Billy; "leastways, he was with her when I left him, at a place called Olmeta, or something of the sort. But by this time he've a-gone north again."
"And why goes he north?"
"Because that's where the Genoese have shut up the lady."
"Meaning the Queen Emilia?"
Billy nodded.
"And you have travelled the length of Corsica alone to tell me this and take me back with you?"
"No, I didn't. Leastways—" Billy opened his bag of provender, selected a crust, and began to munch it very deliberately. "There's a saying," he went on between mouthfuls, "about somebody or other axin' more questions in one breath than a wise man can answer in a week; and likewise, there's another saying that even a bagpipe won't speak till his belly be full. Well, now, as for coming alone, in the first place and in round numbers I didn't; and as for coming to tell you this, partly it was and partly it wasn't; and as for your going back with me, that's for you to choose."
"Well, then," said I, humouring him, "we will take you point by point, in order. To begin with, you did not come alone—ergo, you had company. What company?"
"Very poor company, lad, and by name Stephanu. That hatchet-faced Prince Camillo chose him out for a guide to me—" Billy paused, with his mouth open for a bite. "Why, whatever is the matter?" he asked; for I had turned to translate this to Marc'antonio, and Marc'antonio had started up with a growl and an oath.
"Did Stephanu come willingly?" I asked.
"As I was tellin', the Prince chose him for guide to me, and he couldn't have chosen a worse one. If you'll believe me, there wasn't an ounce of comfort in the man from the start; and this morning, having put me in the road so that I couldn't miss it, he turned back and left me—in a sweatin' hurry, too."
I glanced at Marc'antonio, who had risen and was striding to and fro upon the ridge with his fists clenched. There was mischief here for a certainty, and Stephanu's behaviour confirmed it. For a moment, however, I forbore to translate further, and resumed my catechising of Billy.
"In the second place you came with my release, and to bring me news, and—with what purpose beside?"
"Why, with a message for the ship, to be sure."
"The ship?" I stared at him. "What ship?"
"Why, the Gauntlet ketch! You don't tell me," said Billy, with a glance westward, where, however, the hills intervened and hid the coast from us—"you don't tell me you haven't sighted her! But she's here, lad—she must be here! Your father sent home word by her that she was to be back wi' reinforcements by the first day of November; and did you ever in your life know your uncle disappoint him?"
"Marc'antonio," said I, "what is this I hear from Billy about a ship?"
Marc'antonio gave a start, and looked from me to Billy in evident confusion.
"Truly, cavalier, there was a ship. I spied her there three days ago, at sunset, making for the island."
"Was she the same ship that first brought us to the island?"
"She was very like," he answered unwillingly. "Yes, indeed, cavalier, I have no doubt she was the same ship."
"And you never told me! Nay, I see now why for these three days we have been hunting to the east of our camp, and always where the coast was hidden. Yes, yes, I see now a score of tricks you have played me while I trusted to your better knowledge—Marc'antonio," I said sternly, "did you indeed believe so ill of me as that at sight of the ship I should forget my parole?"
"It was not that, cavalier; believe me, it was not that. I feared—"
"Speak on, man."
"I feared you might forget our talks together, and, when your release came, forget also that other adventure on which I had hoped to bind you. The Princess—"
"Then your fear, my friend, did me only a little less injustice. You have heard how my father perseveres for a woman's sake; and I am my father's son, I hope. As for the Princess—"
"She is in worse case than ever, cavalier, since they have contrived to get rid of Stephanu."
"On the contrary, my friend, her case is hopeful at length; since this release sets us free to help her."
We trudged back to the camp, pausing on the way while Marc'antonio skewered the deer's legs and slung him on a pole between us. As we started afresh Billy observed for the first time that I walked with a limp.
"A broken leg," said I, carelessly; for it would not have done to tell him all the truth.
"Well, well," said he, content with the explanation, "accidents will happen to them that travel; and a broken leg, they say, is stronger when well set."
"If that's so," said I, "I've a double excuse to be thankful"—which he did not understand, as I did not mean him to.
Darkness fell on us a little before we reached the camp. From the first I had recognized there could be no chance to-day of visiting the shore and seeking the Gauntlet at her anchorage. We were weary, too, and hungry, and nothing remained to do but light the camp fire, cook our supper, and listen to Billy's tale of his adventures, a good part of which will be found in the following chapter. I ought to say, rather, that Billy and I conversed, while Marc'antonio—for we spoke in English—sat by the fire busy with his own thoughts; and, by his face, they were gloomy ones.
"What puzzles me, Billy," said I, as we parted for the night, "is who can be aboard of the ketch. Reinforcements? Why, what reinforcements could my uncle send?"
"The devil a one of me knows, as the Irishman said," answered Billy, cheerfully. "But sent 'em he has, and, if I know anything of Mr. Gervase, they're good ones."
I was up before dawn, and the sun rose over the shoulder of our mountain to find me a mile and more on my way down the track which led to the sea. I passed the clearing and the copse where Nat had taken his wound, and the rock, high on my right, where I had stood and spied him running, the _macchia-filled hollows and dingles, the wood, the village (still desolate), the graveyard where we had first encamped; and so came to the meadow below it, where Mr. Fett had gathered his mushrooms. It was greener than I remembered it, owing to the autumn rains.
I pulled up with a start. At the foot of the meadow, where the stream ran in a curve between it and the woods, stood a man. He held a fishing-rod in his hand, and was stepping back to make a cast; but, at a cry from me, paused and turned slowly about.
"Uncle Gervase!"
"My dear Prosper!" He dropped his rod and advanced, holding out his hands to me. "Why lad, lad, you have grown to a man in these months!"
"And it really is you, uncle!" I cried again, as yet scarcely believing it, though I clasped him by both hands. "And what are you doing here?"
"Why," said he, quizzically, "'tis a monstrous confession for this time of the year, but I was fishing for trout; and, what is more, I have taken two, with Walton's number two June-fly, lad—Mr. Grylls's variety—the wings, if you remember, made of the black drake's feathers, with a touch of grey horsehair on the shank. I wished to know, first, if a Corsican trout would answer to a Cornish fly, and, next, if they keep the same seasons as in England. They do, Prosper—there or thereabouts. To tell you the truth—though, as they say an angler may catch a fish, but it takes a fisherman to tell the truth about him—I found them woundily out of condition, and restored them, as Mr. Grylls would put it, to their native element."
"You don't tell me that the Vicar is here, too?" I asked, prepared at this time to be surprised at nothing.
"He is not, lad, though I pleaded with him very earnestly to come, being, as you may guess, put to my wits' end by your father's message."
"But how, then, have you managed?"
"Pretty well, Prosper—pretty well. But come and see for yourself. The Gauntlet lies at her old anchorage—or so Captain Pomery tells me—and 'tis but a step down the creek to where my boat is waiting."
We walked down beside the stream, my uncle, as we went, asking a score of questions about our adventures and about my father and his plans—questions which I was in no state of mind to answer coherently. But this mattered the less since he had no leisure to listen to my answers.
I felt, as I said just now, ready to be surprised at nothing. But in this I was mistaken, as I found when we rounded the corner by the creek's head, and my eyes fell on a boat waiting, a stone's throw from the landing-place, and on the crew that manned her.
"Good Lord!" I cried, and stood at a halt.
They were seven—six rowers and a coxswain—and all robed in russet gowns that reached to their ankles. The Trappist monks!
CHAPTER XXI.
OF MY FATHER'S ANABASIS; AND THE DIFFERENT TEMPERS OF AN ENGLISH GENTLEMAN AND A WILD SHEEP OF CORSICA.
"Bright thoughts, clear deeds, constancy, fidelity, bounty, and
generous honesty are the gems of noble minds; wherein
(to derogate from none) the true heroick English Gentleman hath
no peer."—SIR THOMAS BROWNE.
"La domesticite n'a eu aucune influence sur le developpement
intellectuel des mouflons que nous avons possedes. . . .
Les hommes ne les effrayaient plus; il semblait meme que ces
animaux eussent acquis plus de confiance dans leur force en
apprenant a nous connaitre. Sans doute on ne peut point
conclure de quelques individus a l'espece entiere; mais on peut
assurer sans rien hasarder, que le mouflon tient une des
dernieres places parmis les mammiferes quant a
l'intelligence.—"
SAINT-HILIAR ET CUVIER, Histoire Naturelle des Mammiferes.
"You will find them very good fighters," said my uncle. "The most of them, as I understand from Dom Basilio, were soldiers at one time or another before they embraced their present calling."
"But the devil of it is," said I, "how you contrived to enlist 'em?"
My uncle stood still and rubbed the back of his head. "I don't know, Prosper, that I used any arguments. I just put the case to them; through Dom Basilio, you understand."
"In other words, you made them an eloquent speech."
"I did nothing of the sort," he corrected me hastily. "In the first place because I have never made a speech and couldn't manage one if I tried; and next, because it is against their rules. I just put the case to Dom Basilio. All the credit belongs to him."
Dom Basilio—for the coxswain of the boat proved to be he and no other—gave me a different account as we pulled toward the Gauntlet. Yet it agreed with my uncle's in the main.
"In faith," said he, "if there be any credit in what we have done or are about to do, set it down to your uncle. Against goodness so simple no man can strive, though he bind himself by vows. Gratitude may have helped a little; but you can say, and you will not be far out, that for very shame we are here."
Captain Pomery who hailed me over the ship's side, proudly invited me to row around and inspect the repairs in her—particularly her new stern-post—before climbing on board. For my part, while congratulating him upon them and upon his despatch, I admired more the faces of Mike Halliday and Roger Wearne, grinning welcome to me over the bulwarks. They, too, called my attention to the repairs; to the new rudder, fitted with chains in case of accident to the helm, to the grain of the new mizzen-mast (a beautiful spar, and without a knot), to the teak hatch-coverings which had replaced those shattered by the explosion. They desired me to marvel at everything; but that they themselves after past perils should be here again and ready, for no more than seamen's pay, to run their heads into perils yet unhandselled, was to these honest fellows no matter worth considering.
"But whither be we bound, Master Prosper?" demanded Captain Jo. "For 'tis ill biding for orders after cracking on to be punctual; and tho' I say naught against the anchorage as an anchorage, the wind, what with these hills and gullies, is like Mulligan's blanket, always coming and going; and by fits an' starts as the ague took the goose; and likewise backwards and forwards, like Boscastle fair: so that our cables be twisted worse than a pig's tail."
"As for that," said I, "your next rendezvous, I hear, is the island of Giraglia; but, for the whole plan of campaign, you must come and hear it from Billy Priske, who will tell you what my father has done and what he intends."
Accordingly, after breakfasting aboard, we were landed again and went up the mountain together—my uncle Gervase, Captain Pomery, Dom Basilio and I: and on the slope below the Princess's cave we sat and listened to Billy's story, the Trappist translating it to Marc'antonio, who sat with his gun across his knees and his eyes fastened on my uncle's gentle venerable face.
BILLY PRISKE'S STORY OF MY FATHER'S CAMPAIGN.
"As Master Prosper has told you, gentlemen all, we left him sitting alongside poor Mr. Fiennes, and took the path that leads down and across the valley yonder and out again on the north side. There were four of us—my master, myself, and the creatures Fett and Badcock— each man with his gun and good supply of ammunition. Besides this Sir John carried his camp-stool and spy-glass, and in his pocket a map along with his Bible and tobacco pouch; I the wine and his spare gun: Fett the bag of provisions; and Badcock his flute and a gridiron."
"Why a gridiron?" asked my uncle.
"The reason he gave, sir, was that it's just these little things that get left behind, on a picnic; which Sir John, when I reported it, pronounced to be a very good reason. 'And, as it happens,' said he, ''tis the very reason why Mr. Badcock himself goes with us: for my son, when he becomes king, will need a Fool, and I have brought a couple in case of accidents.'
"We started then, as Master Prosper will remember, a little before dark; and having lanterns to light the track, and now and then the north star between the tree-tops to give us our bearings, we crossed the valley and came out through a kind of pass upon a second slope, a little nor'-west of the spot where I happened yesterday on Master Prosper. By this, Sir John's watch marked ten o'clock and finding us dead-beat by the roughness of the track, he commanded us to lie down and sleep.
"The next morning, after studying his map, he started afresh, still holding northward in the main but bearing back a little to the left— that is, toward the sea, which before noon we brought in sight at a place he called La Piana, where, he said, was a fishing village; and so no doubt there was, for we spied a two-three boats moored a little way out from the shore—looking down upon them through a cleft in the rocks. The village itself we did not see, but skirted it upon high ground and came down to the foreshore a short two miles beyond it; where we found a beach and a spit of rock, and on the spit a tumble-down tower standing, as lonely as a combed louse. Above the beach ran a tolerable coast road, which divided itself into two, after crossing a bridge behind the tower; the one following the shore, the other striking inland up the devil of a gorge. This inland road we took, for two reasons; the first, that by the map it appeared to cut off a corner of our journey; the second, because the map showed a village, not three miles up the gorge, where we might get advice.
"After an hour's climbing then (for the road twisted uphill along the edge of the torrent) we came to the village, which was called Otta. Now, the first thing to happen to us in Otta was that we found it empty—not so much as a dog in the street—but all the inhabitants on the hill above, in a crowd before a mighty great stone: and Badcock would have it that they were gathered together in fear of us. But the true reason turned out to be something quite different. For this stone overhangs the village, which is built on a stiff slope; and though it has hung there for hundreds of years without moving, the villagers can never be easy that it will not tumble on top of them; and once a year regularly, and at odd times when the panic takes them, they march up and tie it with ropes. This very thing they were doing as we arrived, and all because some old woman had dreamed of an earthquake. We took notice that in the crowd and in the gang binding the stone there was no man the right side of fifty (barring a cripple or two); the reason being that all their young men had enlisted in the militia.
"These people made us welcome (and I will say, gentlemen, once for all and in spite of what has happened to Master Prosper here, that there is no such folk as the Corsicans for kindness to strangers), but they told us we were on the wrong road. By following the pass we should find ourselves in forest-tracks which indeed would lead us down to the great plain of the Niolo and across it to Corte, whence a good road ran north to Cape Corso; but our shorter way was the coast-road, which (they added) we must leave before reaching Calvi— for fear of the Genoese—and take a southerly one which wound through the mountains to Calenzana. They explained this many times to Sir John, and Sir John explained it to us; and learning that we were English, and therefore friends of liberty, they forced us to drink wine with them—lashins of wine—until just as my head was beginning to feel muzzy, some one called out that we were heroes and must drink the wine of heroes, the pride of Otta, the Invincible St. Cyprien.
"By this time we were all as sociable together as mice in malt, except that these Corsicans never laughed at all, but stared at us awsome-like even when the creature Fett put one foot on a chair and another on the table and made 'em a long tom-fool speech in English, calling 'em friends Romans and countrymen and asking them to lend him their ears, as though his own weren't long enough. Then they brought in the Invincible St. Cyprien, and Sir John poured out a glass, and sniffed and tasted it and threw up his head, gazing round on the company and looking every man full in the eyes. I can't tell you why, gentlemen, but his bearing seemed so noble to me at that moment I felt I could follow him to the death (though of course there wasn't the leastest need for it, just then). I reached out for the bottle, filled myself a glass, drank it off, and stared around just as defiant. It gave me a very pleasant feeling in the pit of the stomach, and the taste of it didn't seem calculated to hurt a fly. So I took two more glasses quickly, one after the other; and every one looked at me with their faces very bright all of a sudden—and the room itself grown brighter—and to my astonishment I heard them calling upon me in English for a speech. Whereby, being no public speaker, I excused myself and walked out into the village street, which was bright as day with the moon well over the cliffs on the other side of the gorge, and (to my surprise) crowded with people so that I couldn't have believed the whole City of London held half the number, let alone a god-forsaken hole like Otta. I stood for a while on the doorstep counting 'em, and the next thing I remember was crossing the street to a low wall overhanging the gorge and leaning upon it and watching the cliffs working up and down like mine-stamps. This struck me as curious, and after thinking it over I made up my mind to climb across and discover the reason."
"I fear, Billy," said my uncle, "that you must have been intoxicated."
"But the worst, sir, was the moon; which was not like any ordinary moon, but kept swelling and bursting in showers of the most beautiful fireworks, so that I said to myself, 'O for the wings of a dove,' I said, 'so that I fetch some one to put a stop to this!' And I'd hardly said the words before it was broad day, and me lying in the street with a small crowd about me, very solemn and curious, and my head in the lap of a middle-aged woman that smelt of garlic, but without any pretensions to looks. And she was lifting up her head and singing a song, and the sound of it as melancholy as a gib-cat in a garden of cucumbers. Whereby the whole crowd stood by and stared, without offering to help. Whereby I said to myself, 'This is a pretty business, and no mistake.' Whereby I saw Sir John come forth from the house where the drinking had been, and his face was white but his step steady; and says he, 'What have you been doing to this woman?' 'Nothing at all,' said I; 'or, leastways, nothing to warrant this behaviour on her part.' 'Well,' said he, 'you may be surprised to hear it, but she maintains that you are betrothed to her.' 'A man,' said I, 'may woo where he will, but must wed where his wife is. If this woman be my fate, I'll say no more except that 'tis hard; but as for courting her, I never did so.' 'You are in a worse case than you guess,' said he; 'for, to begin with, the lady is a widow; and, secondly, she is marrying you, not for your looks, but for revenge.' 'Why, what have I done?' said I. 'Nothing at all,' said he; 'but from what I can hear of it, five years ago a man of Evisa, up the valley, stole a goat belonging to this woman's husband; whereupon the husband took a gun and went to Evisa and shot the thief's cousin, mistaking him for the thief; whereupon the thief came down to Otta and shot the honest man one day while he was gathering olives in his orchard. He himself left neither chick nor child; but his kinsmen of the family of Paolantonuccio (I can pronounce the name, gentlemen, if you will kindly look the other way) took up the quarrel, and with so much liveliness that to-day but three of them survive, and these are serving just now with the militia. For the while, therefore, the Widow Paolantonuccio has no one to carry on the custom of the country; nor will have, until a husband offers.' 'For pity's sake, Sir John,' said I, `get me out of this! Tell them that if any man has been courting this woman 'tis not I, William Priske, but another in my image.' 'Why, to be sure!' cried Sir John. 'It must have been the Invincible St. Cyprien!'
"So stepping back and seating himself again upon the doorstep, he began to argue with the villagers, the woman standing sullen all the while and holding me by the arm. I could not understand a word, of course, but later on he told me the heads of his discourse.
"'I began,' he said, 'by expounding to 'em all the doctrine of cross-revenge, or vendetta trasversa, as they call it; and this I did for two reasons—the first because in an argument there's naught so persuasive as telling a man something he knows already—the second because it proved to them, and to me, that I wasn't drunk. For the doctrine has more twists in it than a conger.
"'Next I taught them that the doctrine was damnable; and that it robbed Corsica of men who should be fighting the Genoese, on which errand we were bound.
"'And lastly I proved to them out of the mouths of several wise men (some of Greece, and others of my own inventing) that a man with three glasses of their wine in his belly was a man possessed, and therefore that either nothing had happened, or, if anything had happened, the fellow to blame must be that devil of a warrior the Invincible St. Cyprien.
"'Yet (as so often happens) the argument that really persuaded them, as I believe, was one I never used at all; which was, that the woman had money and a parcel of land, and albeit no man could pick up courage to marry her, they did not relish a stranger stepping in and cutting them out.'
"Be that as it may, gentlemen, in twenty minutes the crowd had come round to Sir John's way of thinking; and they not only sold us mules at thirty livres apiece—which Sir John knew to be the fair current price—but helped us to truss up Mr. Fett and Mr. Badcock, each on his beast, and walked with us back to the cross-roads, singing hymns about Corsican liberty. Only we left the woman sadly cast down.
"From the cross-roads, where they left us and turned back, our road led through a great forest of pines. Among these pines hung thousands of what seemed to be balls of white cotton, but were the nests of a curious caterpillar; which I only mention because Mr. Fett, coming to, picked up one of these caterpillars and slipped it down the nape of Mr. Badcock's neck, whereby the poor man was made uncomfortable all that day and the next; for the hairs of the insect turned out to be full of poison. In the end we were forced to strip him and use the gridiron upon him for a currycomb; so it came in handy, after all.
"On the second day, having crossed a river and come to a village which, if I remember, was called Manso, we bore away southward among the most horrible mountains. Among these we wandered four days, relying always on Sir John's map: but I reckon the man who made it must have drawn the track out of his own head and trusted that no person would ever be fool enough to go there. Hows'ever, the weather keeping mild, we won through the passes with no more damage than the loss of Mr. Fett's mule (which tumbled over a precipice on the third day), and a sore on Mr. Fett's heel, brought about by his having to walk the rest of the way into Calenzana.
"Now at Calenzana, a neat town, we found ourselves nearly in sight of Calvi and plumb in sight of the Genoese outposts that were planted a bare gunshot from the house where we lodged, on the road leading northward to Calvi gate. To the south, as we heard—though we never saw them—lay a regiment of Paoli's militia; and, between the two forces Calenzana stood as a sort of no-man's-land, albeit the Genoese claimed what they called a 'supervision' over it. In fact they never entered it, mistrusting its defences, and also the temper of its inhabitants, who were likely enough to rise at their backs if the patriots gave an assault.
"They contented themselves, then, with advancing their outposts to a bend on the Calvi road not fifty yards from our lodging, which happened to be the last house in the suburbs; and from his window, during the two days we waited for Mr. Fett's sore to heal, Sir John would watch the guard being relieved, and sometimes pick up his gun and take long aim at the sentry, but lay it down with a sort of sigh: for though the sight of a Genoese was poison to him, he reckoned outpost-shooting as next door to shooting a fox.
"Our hosts, I should tell you, were an old soldier and his wife. The man, by his own account, followed the trade of a bird-stuffer; which was just an excuse for laziness, for no soul ever entered his shop but to hear him talk of his campaigning under Gaffori and under the great Pascal Paoli's father, Hyacinth Paoli. This he would do at great length, and, for the rest, lived on his wife, who was a well-educated woman and kept a school for small children when they chose to come, which again was seldom.
"This Antonio, as we called him, owned a young ram, which was his pet and the pride of Calenzana: for, to begin with, it was a wild ram; and in addition to this it was tame; and, to cap all, it wasn't a bit like a ram. And yet it was a wild ram—a wild Corsican ram.
"Being an active sort of man in his way, though well over fifty, and given to wandering on the mountains above Calenzana, he had come one day upon a wild sheep with a lamb running at her heels. He let fly a shot (for your Corsican, Master Prosper, always carries a gun) and ran forward. The mother made off, but the lamb sat and squatted like a hare; and so Antonio took him up and carried him home.
"By the time we came to Calenzana the brute had grown to full size, with horns almost two feet long. As we should reckon, they were twisted the wrong way for a ram's, and for fleece he had a coat like a Gossmoor pony's, brown and hairy. But a ram he was; and, the first night, when Mr. Badcock obliged us with a tune on the flute, he came forward and stared at him for a time and then butted him in the stomach.
"We had to carry the poor man to bed. We slept, all four of us, in a loft, which could only be reached by a ladder; and a ram, as you know, can't climb a ladder. It's out of nature. Yet the brute tried its best, having taken such a fancy to Badcock, and wouldn't be denied till his master beat him out of doors with a fire-shovel and penned him up for the night.
"The next morning, being loosed, he came in to breakfast with the family, and butted a crock of milk all over the kitchen hearth, but otherwise bore himself like a repentant sinner; the only difference being that from breakfast onward he turned away from his master and took to following Mr. Fett, who didn't like the attention at all. Badcock kept to his bed; and Mr. Fett too, who could only manage to limp a little, climbed up to the loft soon after midday and lay down for a rest.
"Sir John and I, left alone downstairs, took what we called a siesta, each in his chair, and Sir John's chair by the shaded window. For my part, I was glad enough for forty winks, and could have enlisted among the Seven Sleepers after those cruel four days in the mountains. So, with Sir John's permission, I dozed off; and sat up, by-and-by—awake all of a sudden at the sound of my master's stirring—to see him at the window with his gun half-lifted to his shoulder, and away up the road a squad of Genoese soldiers marching down to relieve guard.
"With that there came a yell from the loft overhead. I sprang up, rubbing my eyes, and, between rubbing 'em, saw Sir John lower his gun and stand back a pace. The next instant—thud, thud!—over the eaves upon the roadway dropped Fett and Badcock and picked themselves up as if to burst in through the window. No good! A second later that ram was on top of them.
"How he had contrived to climb up the ladder and butt the pair over the roof, there's no telling. But there he was; and gathering up his legs from the fall as quick as lightning he headed them off from the house and up the road. There was no violence. So far as one could tell from the clouds of dust, he never hurt 'em once, but through the dust we could see the Genoese staring as he nursed the pair up the road straight into their arms. The queer part of it," wound up Billy, reflectively, "was that, after the first moment, Sir John had never the chance of a shot. You may doubt me, gentlemen, but Sir John is a shot in a thousand, and, what with the dust and the confusion, there was never a chance without risk to human life. The Genoese giving back, in less than half a minute the road was clear."
"But what happened?" asked my uncle.
"Well, sir, this here Corsica being an island, it follows that they must have stopped somewhere. But where there's no telling."
"You never saw them again."
"Never," said Billy, solemnly; and, having asked and received permission to light his pipe, resumed the tale.
"There being now no reason to loiter in Calenzana, we left the town next morning and rode along the hill tracks to Muro, when again we struck the high road running northward to the coast. Sir John had sold Mr. Badcock's mule to our hosts in Calenzana, and here in Muro he parted with our pair also, reck'nin' it safer to travel the next stage on foot; since by all accounts we were about to skirt the Genoese outposts to the east of Calvi. The Corsicans, to be sure, held and patrolled the high road (by reason that every week-day a train of waggons travelled along it with material for the new town a-building on the seashore, at Isola Rossa), yet not so as to guarantee it safe for a couple of chance riders. Also Sir John had no mind to be stopped a dozen times and questioned by the Corsican patrols. We kept, therefore, along the hills to the east of the road; and on our way, having halted and slept a night in an olive orchard about five miles from the coast, we woke up a little after daylight to the sound of heavy guns firing.
"The meaning of this was made plain to us as we fetched our way round to the eastward and came out upon the face of a steep hill that broke away in steep cliffs to the very foreshore. There, below us, lay a neat deep-water roadstead covered to westward by a small island with a tower on it and a battery. The shore ran out towards the island, and the two had been joined by a mole, or the makings of one, about thirty yards long; and well back in the bight of the shore, where it curved towards us, was a half-built town, all of new stone, with scaffoldings standing everywhere, yet not a soul at work on 'em. Out in the roadstead five small gunboats were tacking and blazing away, two at the mole and three at the town itself; and the town and the island blazing and banging back at the gunboats. We could not see the town battery, but the island one mounted three guns, and Sir John's spy-glass showed the people there running from one to another like emmets.
"Sir John studied the boats and the town through his glass for five minutes, and after them the inshore water and the beach on our side of the town, that was of white sand with black rocks here and there, and ran down pretty steep as it neared the foot of our hill. 'If those fellows had any sense—' he began to say, and with that, as if struck by a sudden thought, he looked close around him, and towards the edge of the cliff where it broke away below us. The next moment he was down on his stomach and crawling to the brink for a look below. I did the same, of course; and overtook him just as he drew back his head, and gave a sort of whistle, looking me in the face—as well he might; for right underneath us lay a sixth gunboat, and the crew of her ashore already with a six-pounder and hoisting it by a tackle to a slab of rock about fifty feet above the water's edge. A neater spot they couldn't have chosen, for it stood at an angle the town battery couldn't answer to (which was plain, from its sending no shot in this direction), and yet it raked the whole town front as easy as ninepins.
"To make things a bit fairer, this landing-party offered us as simple pretty a target as any man could wish for; nothing to do but fire down on 'em at forty yards, bob back and reload, with ne'er a chance of their climbing up to do us a mischief or even to count how many we were. I touched Sir John's elbow and tapped my gun-stock, and for the moment he seemed to think well of it. 'Cut the tackle first,' said he, lifting his gun. ''Twill be as good as hamstringing 'em': and for him the shot would have been child's play. But after a second or two he lowered his piece and drew back. 'Damme,' said he, 'I'm losing my wits. Let 'em do their work first, and we'll get cannon and all. If only'—and here he looked nervous-like over his shoulder up the hill—'if only those fellows from the town don't hurry up and spoil sport!'
"I couldn't see his face, but I could feel that he was chuckling as the fellows below us swung up the gun and fixed it in position and handed up the round shot. But when they followed up with two kegs of powder and dumped 'em on to the platform, my dear master's hand went up and he rubbed the back of his head in pure delight. After that— as I thought, for nothing but frolic—he even let 'em load and train the gun for us, and only lifted his musket when the gunner—a dark-faced fellow with a red cap on his head—was act'lly walking up with the match alight in his linstock.
"'I don't want to hurt that man afore 'tis necessary,' says Sir John; and with that he takes aim and lets fly, and shears the linstock clean in two, right in the fellow's hand. I saw the end of it—match and all—fly halfway across the platform, and popped back my head as the dozen Genoese there turned their faces up at us. The pity was, we hadn't time for a look at 'em!
"Sir John had warned me to hold my fire. But neither he nor I were prepared for what happened next. For first one of them let out a yell, and right on top of it half a dozen were screaming 'Imboscata! Imboscata!"—and with that we heard a rush of feet and, looking over, saw the last two or three scrambling for dear life off the edge of the platform and down the rocks to their boat.
"'Quick, Billy—quick! Damme, but we'll risk it!' cried Sir John, snatching up his spare gun. 'If we make a mess of it,' says he, 'plug a bullet into one of the powder kegs! Understand?' says he.
"'Sakes alive, master!' says I. 'You bain't a-going to clamber down that gizzy-dizzy place sure 'nuff!'
"'Why, o' course I be,' says he, and already he had his legs over and was lowering himself. 'Turn on your back, stick out your heels, and hold your gun wide of you, so,' says he; 'and you'll come to no harm.'
"Well, as it happened, I didn't. Not for a hundred pound would I go down that cliff again in cold blood, and my stomach turns wambly in bed o' nights when I dream of it. But down it I went on the flat of my back with my heels out, as Sir John recommended, and with my eyes shut, about which he'd said nothing. I felt my jacket go rip from tail to collar—you can see the rent in it for yourselves—and my shirt likewise; and what happened to the seat of my breeches 'twould be a scandal to mention. But in two shakes or less we were at the bottom of the cliff together, safe and sound, and not a moment too soon, neither: for as I picked myself up I saw Sir John lurch across and catch up the burning fuse that lay close alongside one of the powder kegs. Whereby, although the danger was no sooner seen than over, I pretty near turned sick on the spot.
"But Sir John gave me no time. 'Hooray!' he sings out. 'Help me to slew this blessed gun round, and we'll sink boat and all for 'em unless she slips her moorings quick!'
"Well, sir, that was the masterpiece. We heaved and strained, and inside of two minutes we had it trained upon the gunboat. The men that had quitted the platform were down by the shore before this; and a dozen had pushed their boat off and sat in her, some pulling, others backing, and all jabbering and disputing whether to return and take off the five or six that stood in a huddle by the water's edge and were crying out not to be left behind. And mean time on the gunboat some were shouting to 'em not to be a pack of cowards—for the crew on board could see us on the platform (which the others couldn't) and that we were only two—and others were running to cut her cable, seeing the gun trained on 'em and not staying to think that the wind was light and the current setting straight onshore. And in the midst of this Sir John finds a fresh fuse, and lights it from the old one, and bang! says we.
"It took her plump in the stern-works, knocking her wheel and taffrail to flinders and ripping out a fair six feet of her larboard bulwarks. This much I saw while the smoke cleared; but Sir John was already calling for the reload. The Genoese by good luck had left a rammer; and the pair of us had charged her and were pushing home shot number two as merry as crickets, when we heard a horn blown on the hill above us, and at the same instant spied a body of Corsicans on the beach below, marching towards us from the town.
"Well, Sir John decided that we might just as well have a second shot at the boat while our hand was in; and so we did, but trained it too high in our excitement and did no damage beyond knocking a hole in her mainsail. And our ears hadn't lost the noise of it before a man put his head over the cliff above and spoke to us very politely in Corsican.
"He seemed to be asking the way down; for Sir John pointed to the way we had come. Whereby he laughed and shook his head. And a dozen others that had gathered beside him looked down too and laughed and waved their hands to us. By-and-by they went off, still waving, to look for a better way down: but they took a good twenty minutes to reach us, and before this the gunboat had drifted close upon the rocks and no hope for it but to surrender to the party marching along the beach and now close at hand.
"Well, sirs, the upshot was that this party, which had marched out for a forlorn hope, took the gunboat and her crew as easily as a man gathers mushrooms. And the rest of the boats, dispirited belike, sheered off after another hour's banging and left the roadstead in peace. But, while this was happening, the party on the cliffs had worked their way down to our rock by a sheep-track on the western side, and the first man to salute us was the man who had first spoken to us from the top of the cliff: and this, let me tell you, was no less a person than the General himself."
"The General?" exclaimed my uncle.
"The General Paoli, sir: a fresh-complexioned man and fairer-skinned than any Corsican we had met on our travels; tall, too, and upstanding; dressed in green-and-gold, with black spatter-dashes, and looking at one with an eye like a hawk's. Compliments fly when gentlefolks meet. Though as yet I didn't know him from Adam, 'twas easy to mark him for a person of quality by the way he lifted his hat and bowed. Sir John bowed back, though more stiffly; and the more compliments the General paid him, the stiffer he grew and the shorter his answers, till by-and-by he said in English, 'I think you know a little of my language, sir: enough, at any rate, to take my meaning?'
"The General bowed again at this, still keeping his smile. 'You do not wish my men to overhear? Yes, yes, I speak the English— a very little—and can understand it, if you will be so good as to speak slowly.'
"'Very well, then, sir,' said Sir John; 'if I and my man here have been of some small service to you to-day I reckon myself happy to have obliged so noble a patriot as Signor Pascal Paoli.' And here they both bowed again. 'But I must warn you, sir, that my service here is due only to the Queen Emilia, whom you also should serve, and whom I am sworn to seek and save. The Genoese have shut her, I believe, in Nonza, in Cape Corso.'
"The General frowned a bit at this, but in a moment smiled at him in an open way that was honest too, as any one could see. 'I have later news of the Queen Emilia,' said he; 'which is that the Genoese have removed her to the island of Giraglia, off Cape Corso. I fear, sir, you will not reach her this side of Doomsday.'
"'I will reach her or die,' said Sir John, stoutly.
"The General took a glance at the Genoese gunboats. 'At present it is hopeless,' said he; 'but I tell you, as man to man, that in two months I hope to clear the sea of those gentry yonder. Meantime, if you will press on to Cape Corso, and, without listening to reason, I'll beg you to accept a pass from me which will save trouble if you fall in, as you will, with my militia. It's small enough thanks,' said he, 'for the service you have done us this day.'
"Those were the General's words, sirs, as I heard them and got them by heart. And Sir John took the pass from him, scribbled there and then on the fly-leaf of the General's pocket Bible, and put it carefully between the leaves of his own: and so, having led us back along the track by which he and his men had come, the General pointed out our way to us and bade us farewell in the Lord's name. He saw that my master wanted no thanks, and a gentleman (as they say) would rather be unmannerly than troublesome.
"That, sirs, is all my story, except that by the help of the General's pass we made our way up the long length of Cape Corso: and at first Sir John, learning there were yet some Genoese left in a valley they call Luri, pitched his camp at the head of it, and day by day took out his camp-stool and stalked the mountains till little by little he cleared the valley, driving the enemy down to the marina in terror of his sharp-shooting. After that we lodged for a while in a tower on the top of a crag, where (the country people said) a famous old Roman had once lived out his exile. Last of all we moved to the shore opposite the island of Giraglia; but the Genoese had burnt the village which stood there. Among the ruins we camped, and day after day my master conned the island across the strait, waiting for the time when the Gauntlet should be due. A tower stands in the island, which is but a cliff of bare rock; and there must be deep water close inshore, for once a Genoese vessel drew alongside and landed stores: but, for the rest, day after day, my master could see through his glass no sign of life but a sentry or two on the platform above the landing-quay.
"At last there came a day when, from a goatherd who brought us meat and wine from the next paese, we learned that a body of armed men, Corsicans, had pushed up to Olmeta, near by Nonza, to press the Genoese garrison there. Sir John, sick of waiting idle, proposed that we should travel back and help them, if only to fill up the time. It would be on our way, at any rate, to send word to the ketch, which was near-about due. So we travelled back to Olmeta; and behold, we tumbled upon the Princess and her men who had first taken us prisoners; and the Princess's brother with her—and be dashed if I like his looks! So Sir John told his tale, and the Princess sent me along with Master Prosper's letter of release. And here's a funny thing now!" wound up Billy, glancing at me. "The Prince was willing enough your release should be sent, and even chose out that fellow Stephanu to come along with me. But something in his eye—I can't azackly describe it—warned me he had a sort of reason for thinking that 'twouldn't do you much good. There was a priest, too: I took a notion that he didn't much expect to see you again, sir. And this kept me in a sweat every mile of the journey, so that when you pointed your gun at me yesterday, as natural as life, you might have knocked me down with a feather."
"Then it is settled," decided my uncle, as Billy came to a full stop. "Sir John has gone north again, you say, and will be expecting us off the island? There's naught to prevent our starting this evening?"
"Nothing at all," agreed Captain Pomery, to whom by a glance he had appealed. "Leastways and supposing I can get my hawsers out of curl-papers."
"That suits you, Prosper?" asked my uncle. I looked across the fire at Marc'antonio, who sat with his eyes lowered upon the gun across his knees.
"Marc'antonio," said I, "my friends here are proposing to sail northward to Cape Corso to-night. They require me to sail with them. Am I free, think you?"
"Beyond doubt you are free, cavalier," answered Marc'antonio, still without lifting his eyes.
"Now, for my part," I said, "I am not so sure. Suppose—look at me please, my friend—suppose that you and I were to go first to the Princess together and ask her leave?"
My uncle gazed up at Marc'antonio, who had sprung to his feet; and— after a long look at his face—from Marc'antonio to me.
"Prosper," he said quietly, "we shall sail to-night. If we sail without you, will your father forgive us? That is all I ask."
"Dear uncle," said I, "for the life of me I cannot tell you; but that in my place he would do the like, I am sure."
CHAPTER XXII.
THE GREAT ADVENTURE.
"He that luvith a starre
To follow her, sinke or swym,
Hath never a feare how farre,
For the world it longith to hym:
For the road it longith to hym
And the fieldes that marcche beside—
Lift up thi herte, my maister then,
So inery to-morn we ride."
The Squyres Delyt.
So the Gauntlet sailed for the island of Giraglia; and we two, having watched her for a while as she stood out to make her offing, trod out our camp-fire and turned our faces northward. Marc'antonio's last action before starting was to unhobble the goats and free the hogs from their wooden collars and headpieces. As he finished operating he turned them loose one by one with a parting smack on the buttocks, and they ran from us among the thickets, where we heard their squeals change to grunts of delight.
Brutes though they were, I could understand their delight, having lived with them, and in even such thraldom as theirs. From my neck also it seemed that a heavy collar-weight fell loose and slipped itself as, having passed Nat's grave in the hollow, we left the pine-forest at our feet and wound our way up among the granite pinnacles, upward, still upward, into the clear air. Aloft there, beyond the pass, the kingdom of Corsica broke on our view, laid out in wide prospect; the distant glittering peaks of Monte d'Oro and Monte Rotondo, the forests hitched on their shoulders like green mantles, the creased valleys leading down their rivers to the shore; a magic kingdom ringed with a sea of iris blue; a kingdom bequeathed to me. A few months ago I had shouted with joy to possess it; to-day, with more admiring eyes, I worshipped it for the lists of my greater adventure; and surely Nat's spirit marched with me to the air of his favourite song—
"If doughty deeds my lady please,
Right soon I'll mount my steed;
And strong his arm and fast his seat
That bears frae me the meed . . ."
But, in fact, it was not until the third morning of our journey that Marc'antonio (who, like every Corsican, abhorred walking) was able to purchase us a steed apiece in the shape of two lean and shaggy hill ponies. They belonged to a decayed gentleman—of the best blood in the island, as he assured me—whom poverty had driven with his family to inhabit a shepherd's hut above the Restorica on the flank of Monte Rotondo where it looks towards Corte. We had slept the night under his roof, and I remember that I was awakened next morning on my bed of dry fern by the small chatter of the children, themselves awaking one by one as the daylight broke. After breakfast our host led us down to the pasture where the ponies were tethered; and when he and Marc'antonio had haggled for twenty minutes, and I was in the act of mounting, three of the children, aged from five downwards, came toddling with bunches of a blue flower unknown to me, but much like a gentian, which they had gathered on the edge of the tumbling Restorica, some way up-stream. I took my bunch and pinned it on my hat as I rode, hailing the omen—
"For you alone I ride the ring,
For you I wear the blue . . ."
And—how went the chorus?
"Then tell me how to woo thee, love;
O tell me how to woo thee;
For thy dear sake nae care I'll take—"
The only care taken by Marc'antonio was to follow the bridle-tracks winding among the foothills, and give a wide berth to the highroad running north and south through Corte, especially to the bridges crossing the Golo River, at each of which, he assured me, we should find a guard posted of Paoli's militia. Luckily, he knew all the fords, and in the hill-villages off the road the inhabitants showed no suspicion of us, but took it for granted that we were the good Paolists we passed for. Marc'antonio answered all their guileless questions by giving out that we were two roving commissioners travelling northward to delimit certain pievi in the Nebbio, at the foot of Cape Corso—an explanation which secured for us the best of victuals as well as the highest respect.
For awhile our course, bending roughly parallel with the Golo, led us almost due east, and at length brought us out upon the flat shore of the Tuscan Sea. Here the mountains, which had confined us to the river valley, run northward with a sharp twist, and turning with them we rode once more with our faces set toward our destination, keeping the tall range on our left hand, and on our right the melancholy sea-marshes where men cannot dwell for the malaria, and where for hour after hour we rode in a silence unbroken save by the plash of fish in the lagoon, or the cry of a heron solitary among the reeds. This desolation lasted all the way to Biguglia, where we turned aside again among the foothills to avoid the fortress of Bastia and the traffic of the roads about it. Beyond Bastia we were safe in the fastnesses of Cape Corso, across which, from this eastern shore to the western, and to the camp at Olmeta, one only pass (so Marc'antonio informed me) was practicable. I guessed we were nearing it when he began to mutter to himself in the intervals of scanning the crags high on our left; for this was to him, he confessed, an almost unknown country. But the gap, when we came abreast of it, could scarcely be mistaken. With a glance around, as though to take our bearings, he abruptly headed off for it, and, having climbed the first slope, reined up and sat for a moment, rigid in his saddle as a statue, listening.
The sun had sunk behind the range, and the herbage at our feet lay in a bronze shadow; but light still bathed the sea behind us, and over it a company of gulls kept flashing and wheeling and clamouring. While I listened, following Marc'antonio's example, it seemed to me that an echo from the summit directly above us took up the gull's cry and repeated it, prolonging the note. Marc'antonio lifted and waved a hand.
"That will be Stephanu," he announced; and sure enough, before we had pushed a couple of furlongs up the slope, we caught sight of Stephanu descending a steep scree to meet us.
He and Marc'antonio nodded salutation brusquely, as though they had parted but a few hours ago. Marc'antonio, though relieved to see him, wore a judicial frown.
"What of the Princess, O Stephanu?" he demanded.
"The Princess is well enough, for aught I know," answered Stephanu, with a glance at me.
"You can speak before the cavalier. He knows not everything until we tell him; but he is one of us, and that I will engage."
Stephanu shrugged his shoulders. "The Princess is well enough, for aught I know," he repeated.
"But what fool's talk is this? The Prince packed you off, meaning mischief of some kind—what mischief you, being on the spot, should have been able to guess."
"It is God's truth, then, that I could not," Stephanu admitted sullenly; "and what is more, neither could you in my place have made a guess—no, not with all your wisdom."
"But you travelled back with all speed? You have seen her?"
"I travelled back with all speed." Stephanu repeated the words as a child repeats a lesson, but whether ironically or not his face did not tell. "Also I have seen her. And that is the devil of it."
"Will you explain?"
"She will have nothing to do with me; nor with you. I told her that you would be upon the road and following close after me. Naturally I said nothing of the cavalier here, for I knew nothing—"
"Did she ask?" I inquired.
Stephanu appeared to search his memory. "Now I come to think of it she did let fall a word. . . . But I for my part supposed you to be dead; and, by the way, signore, you will accept my compliments on your recovery."
Marc'antonio's frown had deepened. "You mean to tell me, Stephanu," he persisted, "that the Princess will have none of us?"
"She bade me go my ways, and not come near her; which was cold welcome for a man after a nine day's sweat. She added that if I or Marc'antonio came spying upon her, or in any way interfering until she sent for us, she would appeal to her brother against us."
"Was the Prince present when she said this?"
"He was not. He was away hunting, she said, in the direction of Nonza; but in fact he must have gone reconnoitring, for he had left the camp all but empty—no one at home but Andrea and Jacopo Galloni, whose turn it was with the cooking—these and the Princess. But the Prince has returned since then, for I heard his horn as I crossed the pass."
Stephanu, as we moved forward, kept alongside Marc'antonio's bridle, or as nearly alongside as the narrow track allowed. I, bringing up the rear, could not see the trouble in Marc'antonio's face, but I heard it in his voice as he put question after question. "The Princess was not a prisoner." "No; nor under any constraint that Stephanu could detect. She had her gun; was in fact cleaning and oiling its lock very leisurably when he had walked into camp. He had found her there, seated on a rock, with Andrea and Jacopo Galloni at a little distance below preparing the meal and taking no notice of her. In fact, they could not see her, because the rock overhung them."
"She must have been sitting there for sentry," said Stephanu, "At any rate, there was no other guard set on the camp. Well, if so, she took it easily enough; but catching sight of me she stood up, put her finger to her lip and pointed over the ledge. Thereupon I peered over, but drew back my head before Andrea and Jacopo could spy me. So I stood before her, expecting to be praised for the despatch I had made on the road; but she praised me not. She motioned me to follow her a little way out of earshot of the men below, to a patch of tall-growing junipers within which, when first we pitched camp, she had chosen to make her bower. Then she turned on me, and I saw that in some way I had vexed her, for her eyes were wrathful; and, said she, 'Why have you made this speed?' 'Because, O Princess, you have need of me,' I answered. 'I have no need of you,' she said; 'but where is Marc'antonio? And the young Englishman—is he yet alive?' 'O Princess,' I answered again, 'I did not go all the way to the old camp, but only so far that the man Priske could not mistake his road to it. Then, having put him in the way, I turned back and have travelled night and day. Of the young Englishman I can tell you nothing; but of Marc'antonio I can promise that he will be on the road and not far behind me.'"
"Grazie," muttered Marc'antonio; "but how could you be sure I had received the message?"
"Because the Princess had charged you to be at that post until released. Therefore I knew you would not have quitted it, if alive; and if you were dead—" Stephanu shrugged his shoulders. "I was in a hurry, you understand; and in a hurry a man must take a few risks."
"I am not saying you did ill," growled Marc'antonio, slightly mollified.
"The Princess said so, however. 'You are a fool, O Stephanu,' she told me; 'and as for needing you or Marc'antonio, on the contrary, I forbid you both to join the camp for a while. Go back. If you meet Marc'antonio upon the road, give him this message for me.' 'But where, O Princess,' I asked, 'are we to await your pleasure?' 'Fare north, if you will, to Cape Corso,' she said, 'where that old mad Englishman boasts that he will reach my mother in her prison at Giraglia. He has gone thither alone, refusing help; and you may perhaps be useful to him.'"
Marc'antonio's growl grew deeper. "Was that all?" he asked.
"That was all."
"Then there is mischief here. The Prince, O Stephanu, did not without purpose send you out of the way. Now, whatever he purposed he must have meant to do quickly, before we two should return to the camp—"
"He had mischief in his heart, I will swear," assented Stephanu, after a glance at me and another at Marc'antonio, who reassured him with a nod. "And that the Princess plainly guessed, by her manner at parting, when I set out with the man Priske. She was sorry enough then to say good-bye to me," he added, half boastfully.