The Isle of Unrest | Page 8

long whip.
"Of course; but I recognized you almost at once," said the colonel, with
that friendliness which is so noticeable in the Republic to-day.
"You have seen me on the road often enough," said the man, "and I
have seen you, Monsieur le Colonel, riding over to the Casa Perucca."

"Of course."
"You know Perucca's agent, Pietro Andrei?"
"Yes."
"He was shot in the back on the Olmeta road this afternoon."
Colonel Gilbert gave a slight start.
"Is that so?" he said at length, quietly, after a pause.
"Yes," said the diligence-driver; and without further comment he
walked on, keeping well in the middle of the road, as it is wise to do
when one has enemies.
CHAPTER III.
A BY-PATH.
"L'intrigue c'est tromper son homme; L'habileté c'est faire qu'il se
trompe lui-même."
For an idle-minded man, Colonel Gilbert was early astir the next
morning, and rode out of the town soon after sunrise, following the
Vescovato road, and chatting pleasantly enough with the workers
already on foot and in saddle on their way to the great plain of Biguglia,
where men may labour all day, though, if they spend so much as one
night there, must surely die. For the eastern coast of Corsica consists of
a series of level plains where malarial fever is as rife as in any African
swamp, and the traveller may ride through a fertile land where
eucalyptus and palm grow amid the vineyards, and yet no human being
may live after sunset. The labourer goes forth to his work in the
morning accompanied by his dog, carrying the ubiquitous
double-barrelled gun at full cock, and returns in the evening to his
mountain village, where, at all events, he may breathe God's air without
fear.

The colonel turned to the right a few miles out, following the road
which leads straight to that mountain wall which divides all Corsica
into the "near" and the "far" side--into two peoples, speaking a different
dialect, following slightly different customs, and only finding
themselves united in the presence of a common foe. The road mounts
steadily, and this February morning had broken grey and cloudy, so
that the colonel found himself in the mists that hang over these
mountains during the spring months, long before he reached the narrow
entrance to the grim and soundless Lancone Defile. The heavy clouds
had nestled down the mountains, covering them like a huge thickness
of wet cotton-wool. The road, which is little more than a mule-path, is
cut in the face of the rock, and, far below, the river runs musically
down to Lake Biguglia. The colonel rode alone, though he could
perceive another traveller on the winding road in front of him--a
peasant in dark clothes, with a huge felt hat, astride on a little active
Corsican horse--sure of foot, quick and nervous, as fiery as the men of
this strange land.
The defile is narrow, and the sun rarely warms the river that runs
through the depths where the foot of man can never have trodden since
God fashioned this earth. Colonel Gilbert, it would appear, was
accustomed to solitude. Perhaps he had known it so well during his
sojourn in this island of silence and loneliness, that he had fallen a
victim to its dangerous charms, and being indolent by nature, had
discovered that it is less trouble to be alone than to cultivate the society
of man. The Lancone Defile has to this day an evil name. It is not wise
to pass through it alone, for some have entered one end never to emerge
at the other. Colonel Gilbert pressed his heavy charger, and gained
rapidly on the horseman in front of him. When he was within two
hundred yards of him, at the highest part of the pass and through the
narrow defile, he sought in the inner pocket of his tunic--for in those
days French officers possessed no other clothes than their uniform--and
produced a letter. He examined it, crumpled it between his fingers, and
rubbed it across his dusty knee so that it looked old and travel-stained
at once. Then, with the letter in his hand, he put spurs to his horse and
galloped after the horseman in front of him. The man turned almost at
once in his saddle, as if care rode behind him there.

"Hi! mon ami," cried the colonel, holding the letter high above his head.
"You have, I imagine, dropped this letter?" he added, as he approached
the other, who now awaited him.
"Where? No; but I have dropped no letter. Where was it? On the road?"
"Down there," answered the colonel, pointing back with his whip, and
handing over the letter with a final air as if it were no affair of his.
"Perucca," read the man, slowly, in