s of agave and prickly pear, and puffs
of almond blossom. And out under the archway that is built over the
Piccola Marina other boats were coming; and as we came round the cape and
within sight of the mainland, another little string of boats came into
view, driving before the wind towards the south-west. In a little while a
multitude had come out, the remoter just little specks of ultramarine in
the shadow of the eastward cliff.

"'It is love and reason,' I said, 'fleeing from all this madness of war.'

"And though we presently saw a squadron of aeroplanes flying across the
southern sky we did not heed it. There it was--a line of little dots in
the sky--and then more, dotting the south-eastern horizon, and then still
more, until all that quarter of the sky was stippled with blue specks. Now
they were all thin little strokes of blue, and now one and now a multitude
would heel and catch the sun and become short flashes of light. They came,
rising and falling and growing larger, like some huge flight of gulls or
rooks or such-like birds, moving with a marvellous uniformity, and ever as
they drew nearer they spread over a greater width of sky. The southward
wing flung itself in an arrow-headed cloud athwart the sun. And then
suddenly they swept round to the eastward and streamed eastward, growing
smaller and smaller and clearer and clearer again until they vanished from
the sky. And after that we noted to the northward, and very high,
Gresham's fighting machines hanging high over Naples like an evening swarm
of gnats.

"It seemed to have no more to do with us than a flight of birds.

"Even the mutter of guns far away in the south-east seemed to us to
signify nothing...

"Each day, each dream after that, we were still exalted, still seeking
that refuge where we might live and love. Fatigue had come upon us, pain
and many distresses. For though we were dusty and stained by our toilsome
tramping, and half starved, and with the horror of the dead men we had
seen and the flight of the peasants--for very soon a gust of fighting
swept up the peninsula--with these things haunting our minds it still
resulted only in a deepening resolution to escape. Oh, but she was brave
and patient! She who had never faced hardship and exposure had courage for
herself--and me. We went to and fro seeking an outlet, over a country all
commandeered and ransacked by the gathering hosts of war. Always we went
on foot. At first there were other fugit