Boglia, of walking seven or eight hours,
became intolerable to him. Besides, if he went by the Boglia he would
arrive in the daytime, and this, of course, would jeopardise his safety.
He turned his face resolutely towards Castagnola and Gandria. The sky
was now completely overcast with heavy clouds. Beneath the great
chestnut trees that line the road to Castagnola, he could not see where
to set his feet, but how much worse it would have been in the great
beech forest of the Boglia if Franco had chosen that route. It was just
as dark in Castagnola, and worse in the labyrinth of narrow lanes at
Gandria. After wandering backwards and forwards among these lanes for
some time, always mistaking his way, Franco at last found himself on the
path leading to the frontier, and stopped to rest. Before starting
forward again in the impenetrable darkness, before braving the dangers
of a difficult path, and of a meeting with the Austrian guards, and then
facing another terrifying step, that of entering his house, of putting
the first question, of listening to the first answer, he raised his
heart to God, and concentrated all the powers of his mind upon a
determination to be strong and calm.

Once more he started forward. Now he must give his whole attention to
the path, in order not to fall or lose his way. The little fields of
Gandria soon come to an end. Then wild tracts follow, that jut out over
the lake, and are covered with a thick growth of low bushes; then come
ravines with crumbling sides, that go tumbling straight downwards, and
are half hidden by the bushes. In such places as these Franco was
obliged to feel his way blindly, to cling first to one branch, then to
another, plunging his face in among the leaves, that, at least, smelt of
Valsolda, and dragging himself from bush to bush. He must explore the
ground with his foot, trembling lest it give way beneath him, and
seeking for traces of the path. The bundle he carried was small, but
nevertheless it embarrassed him. The rustling of the foliage as he
brushed past, irritated him; it seemed as if it must be heard a long way
off, on the hills and on the lake, in the solemn hush of the night. Then
he would stop and listen. He could hear only the distant thundering of
the falls at Rescia, the hooting of owls in the woods over yonder,
across the lake, and from time to time, far below, a sharp stroke on the
water, for which he could not account. It took him quite an hour to
reach t