ome other lady in the party.

"Courage, Messer Cornelio," said Nino. "Mount your donkey, and let us
be on our way."

"Is not the contessina tired?" I inquired. "You might surely rest a
little here."

"Caro mio," answered Nino, "we must be safe at the top of the pass
before we rest. We were so unfortunate as to wake his excellency the
Baron Benoni out of some sweet dream or other, and perhaps he is not
far behind us."

An encounter with the furious Jew was not precisely attractive to me,
and I was on my donkey before you could count a score. I suggested to
Nino that it would be wiser if the countryman led the way through the
woods, and I followed him. Then the contessina would be behind me,
and Nino would bring up the rear. It occurred to me that the mules
might outstrip my donkey if I went last, and so I might be left to
face the attack, if any came; whereas, if I were in front, the others
could not go any faster than I.

CHAPTER XXII

The gorge rises steep and precipitous between the lofty mountains on
both sides, and it is fortunate that we had some light from the moon,
which was still high at two o'clock, being at the full.

It is a ghastly place enough. In the days of the Papal States the
Serra di Sant' Antonio, as it is called, was the shortest passage to
the kingdom of Naples, and the frontier line ran across its summit. To
pass from one dominion to the other it would be necessary to go out of
the way some forty or fifty miles, perhaps, unless one took this
route; and the natural consequence was that outlaws, smugglers,
political fugitives, and all such manner of men, found it a great
convenience. Soldiers were stationed in Fillettino and on the other
side, to check illicit traffic and brigandage, and many were the
fights that were fought among these giant beeches.

The trees are of primeval dimensions, for no one has yet been
enterprising enough to attempt to fell the timber. The gorge is so
steep, and in many places so abruptly precipitous, that the logs could
never be removed; and so they have grown undisturbed for hundreds of
years, rotting and falling away as they stand. The beech is a lordly
tree, with its great smooth trunk and its spreading branches, and
though it never reaches the size of the chestnut, it is far more
beautiful and long-lived.

Here and there, at every hundred yards or so, it seemed to me, the
countryman would touch his hat and cross himself as he clambered up
the rock