The Isle of Unrest | Page 8

road, as it is wise to do when one has enemies.
CHAPTER III.
A BY-PATH.
"L'intrigue c'est tromper son homme; L'habilet�� c'est faire qu'il se trompe lui-m��me."
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 the manner of one having small dealings with pens and paper, "Mattei Perucca--at Olmeta."
"Ah," said the colonel, lighting a cigarette. He had apparently not troubled to read the address on the envelope.
In such a thinly populated country as Corsica, faces are of higher import than in crowded cities, where types are mingled and individuality soon fades. The colonel had already recognized this man as of Olmeta--one of those, perhaps, who had stood smoking on the "Place" there when Pietro Andrei crawled towards the fountain and failed to reach it.
"I am going to Olmeta," said the man, "and you also, perhaps."
"No; I am exercising my horse, as you see. I shall turn to the left