led, in rough dark-blue coats and leathern gaiters. Each man
wore upon his breast a round plate of chiselled silver, bearing the arms
of the Astrardente; each had a long rifle slung behind him, and carried a
holster at the bow of his huge saddle. A couple of sturdy black-browed
peasants held a mule by the bridle, heavily caparisoned in the old
fashion, under a great red velvet Spanish saddle, with long tarnished
trappings that had once been embroidered with silver. A little knot of
peasants and ragged boys stood all around watching the preparations
with interest, and commenting audibly upon the beauty of the great lady.

Corona mounted from a stone by the wayside, and the young men led her
beast up the path. She smiled to herself, for she had never done such a
thing before, but she was not uneasy in the company of her rough-looking
escort. She knew well enough that she was as safe with them as in her own
house.

As the bridle-path wound up from the road, the country grew more rugged,
the vegetation more scanty, and the stones more plentiful. It was a
wilderness of rocky desolation; as far as one could see there was no sign
of humanity, not a soul upon the solitary road, not a living thing upon
the desolate hills that rose on either side in jagged points to the sky.
Corona talked a little with the head-keeper who rode beside her with a
slack rein, letting his small mountain horse pick its own way over the
rough path. He told her that few people ever passed that way. It was the
short road to Saracinesca. The princes sometimes sent their carriage
round by the longer way and rode over the hills; and in the vintage-time
there was some traffic, as many of the smaller peasants carried grapes
across the pass to the larger wine-presses, and sold them outright. It
was not a dangerous road, for the very reason that it was so
unfrequented. The Duchessa explained that she only wanted to see the
valley beyond from the summit of the pass, and would then return. It was
past mid-day when the party reached the highest point,--a depression
between the crags just wide enough to admit one loaded mule. The keeper
said she could see Saracinesca from the end of the narrow way, before the
descent began. She uttered an exclamation of surprise as she reached the
spot.

Scarcely a quarter of a mile to the right, at the extremity of a broad
hill-road, she saw the huge towers of Saracinesca, grey and storm-beaten,
rising out of a thick wood. The w