Here the mountains, which had confined us to the
river valley, run northward with a sharp twist, and turning with them
we rode once more with our faces set toward our destination, keeping
the tall range on our left hand, and on our right the melancholy
sea-marshes where men cannot dwell for the malaria, and where for
hour after hour we rode in a silence unbroken save by the plash of
fish in the lagoon, or the cry of a heron solitary among the reeds.
This desolation lasted all the way to Biguglia, where we turned aside
again among the foothills to avoid the fortress of Bastia and the
traffic of the roads about it. Beyond Bastia we were safe in the
fastnesses of Cape Corso, across which, from this eastern shore to
the western, and to the camp at Olmeta, one only pass (so
Marc'antonio informed me) was practicable. I guessed we were nearing
it when he began to mutter to himself in the intervals of scanning
the crags high on our left; for this was to him, he confessed, an
almost unknown country. But the gap, when we came abreast of it,
could scarcely be mistaken. With a glance around, as though to take
our bearings, he abruptly headed off for it, and, having climbed the
first slope, reined up and sat for a moment, rigid in his saddle as a
statue, listening.
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