"
_The Squyres Delyt_.
So the _Gauntlet_ sailed for the island of Giraglia; and we two,
having watched her for a while as she stood out to make her
offing, trod out our camp-fire and turned our faces northward.
Marc'antonio's last action before starting was to unhobble the goats
and free the hogs from their wooden collars and headpieces. As he
finished operating he turned them loose one by one with a parting
smack on the buttocks, and they ran from us among the thickets, where
we heard their squeals change to grunts of delight.
Brutes though they were, I could understand their delight, having
lived with them, and in even such thraldom as theirs. From my neck
also it seemed that a heavy collar-weight fell loose and slipped
itself as, having passed Nat's grave in the hollow, we left the
pine-forest at our feet and wound our way up among the granite
pinnacles, upward, still upward, into the clear air. Aloft there,
beyond the pass, the kingdom of Corsica broke on our view, laid out
in wide prospect; the distant glittering peaks of Monte d'Oro and
Monte Rotondo, the forests hitched on their shoulders like green
mantles, the creased valleys leading down their rivers to the shore;
a magic kingdom ringed with a sea of iris blue; a kingdom bequeathed
to me.
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