t turned homewards, and presently, hearing people coming up from
Albogasio Superiore talking of gendarmes and guards, he went to meet
them and inquired what had happened. Oh, nothing very important; only
the gendarmes and soldiers had been to Casa Ribera to arrest Don Franco
Maironi, and, it would appear, lawyer V. also, for they were sure he
must have been there, and they had been asking every one about him.
However, they had found neither one nor the other of the friends,
although the customs-guards had been watching the house since midnight.
Now the police were searching all the houses in Oria, in the belief that
the two men must have escaped by the roof. While the prefect was
listening to this news a boy came running towards them from the
direction of Albogasio Superiore. They stopped him. "The guards!" he
gasped; "the gendarmes!" He was as white as a sheet; why he was running
away he himself could not tell, and they found it impossible to gather
from him where the gendarmes were. A woman appeared on the scene who was
able to give them more information. Four customs-guards and four
gendarmes had just now crossed the square in Albogasio Superiore. It was
rumoured that Don Franco had been seen on the road to Castello, and two
gendarmes with two guards had started towards the Boglia. The priest
shuddered. "Of course," some one said, "they will cut him off on the
Boglia road." The prefect took some comfort in the thought that both
gendarmes and guards were now searching for Franco only. He was so tall,
so slender, that neither the false Puttini nor the false Marianna could
possibly be suspected of being him. Their fate was now beyond his
control, but for Franco he could still do much. He started for
Cressogno, confident that Franco would reach that place in safety, if
the gendarmes did not discover any fresh traces, for they would search
for him on all the paths leading from Castello to the frontier, but not
on the road to Cressogno.

Pedraglio and the lawyer accomplished the first part of the journey from
Albogasio to the stables of Pus, creeping up the precipitous slope like
cats, with long and cautious steps. The lawyer advanced in silence, but
the other was continually cursing his garments in an undertone. That
"beastly hat," that made his forehead slippery with grease, that
"infernal tail-coat," that smelt strong of the sweat of ages. They
reached Pus without having met a living being. At Pus an old woman came
out