"As Master Prosper has told you, gentlemen all, we left him sitting alongside poor Mr. Fiennes, and took the path that leads down and across the valley yonder and out again on the north side. There were four of us—my master, myself, and the creatures Fett and Badcock— each man with his gun and good supply of ammunition. Besides this Sir John carried his camp-stool and spy-glass, and in his pocket a map along with his Bible and tobacco pouch; I the wine and his spare gun: Fett the bag of provisions; and Badcock his flute and a gridiron."
"Why a gridiron?" asked my uncle.
"The reason he gave, sir, was that it's just these little things that get left behind, on a picnic; which Sir John, when I reported it, pronounced to be a very good reason. 'And, as it happens,' said he, ''tis the very reason why Mr. Badcock himself goes with us: for my son, when he becomes king, will need a Fool, and I have brought a couple in case of accidents.'
"We started then, as Master Prosper will remember, a little before dark; and having lanterns to light the track, and now and then the north star between the tree-tops to give us our bearings, we crossed the valley and came out through a kind of pass upon a second slope, a little nor'-west of the spot where I happened yesterday on Master Prosper. By this, Sir John's watch marked ten o'clock and finding us dead-beat by the roughness of the track, he commanded us to lie down and sleep.
"The next morning, after studying his map, he started afresh, still holding northward in the main but bearing back a little to the left— that is, toward the sea, which before noon we brought in sight at a place he called La Piana, where, he said, was a fishing village; and so no doubt there was, for we spied a two-three boats moored a little way out from the shore—looking down upon them through a cleft in the rocks. The village itself we did not see, but skirted it upon high ground and came down to the foreshore a short two miles beyond it; where we found a beach and a spit of rock, and on the spit a tumble-down tower standing, as lonely as a combed louse. Above the beach ran a tolerable coast road, which divided itself into two, after crossing a bridge behind the tower; the one following the shore, the other striking inland up the devil of a gorge. This inland road we took, for two reasons; the first, that by the map it appeared to cut off a corner of our journey; the second, because the map showed a village, not three miles up the gorge, where we might get advice.
"After an hour's climbing then (for the road twisted uphill along the edge of the torrent) we came to the village, which was called Otta. Now, the first thing to happen to us in Otta was that we found it empty—not so much as a dog in the street—but all the inhabitants on the hill above, in a crowd before a mighty great stone: and Badcock would have it that they were gathered together in fear of us. But the true reason turned out to be something quite different. For this stone overhangs the village, which is built on a stiff slope; and though it has hung there for hundreds of years without moving, the villagers can never be easy that it will not tumble on top of them; and once a year regularly, and at odd times when the panic takes them, they march up and tie it with ropes. This very thing they were doing as we arrived, and all because some old woman had dreamed of an earthquake. We took notice that in the crowd and in the gang binding the stone there was no man the right side of fifty (barring a cripple or two); the reason being that all their young men had enlisted in the militia.
"These people made us welcome (and I will say, gentlemen, once for all and in spite of what has happened to Master Prosper here, that there is no such folk as the Corsicans for kindness to strangers), but they told us we were on the wrong road. By following the pass we should find ourselves in forest-tracks which indeed would lead us down to the great plain of the Niolo and across it to Corte, whence a good road ran north to Cape Corso; but our shorter way was the coast-road, which (they added) we must leave before reaching Calvi— for fear of the Genoese—and take a southerly one which wound through the mountains to Calenzana. They explained this many times to Sir John, and Sir John explained it to us; and learning that we were English, and therefore friends of liberty, they forced us to drink wine with them—lashins of wine—until just as my head was beginning to feel muzzy, some one called out that we were heroes and must drink the wine of heroes, the pride of Otta, the Invincible St. Cyprien.
"By this time we were all as sociable together as mice in malt, except that these Corsicans never laughed at all, but stared at us awsome-like even when the creature Fett put one foot on a chair and another on the table and made 'em a long tom-fool speech in English, calling 'em friends Romans and countrymen and asking them to lend him their ears, as though his own weren't long enough. Then they brought in the Invincible St. Cyprien, and Sir John poured out a glass, and sniffed and tasted it and threw up his head, gazing round on the company and looking every man full in the eyes. I can't tell you why, gentlemen, but his bearing seemed so noble to me at that moment I felt I could follow him to the death (though of course there wasn't the leastest need for it, just then). I reached out for the bottle, filled myself a glass, drank it off, and stared around just as defiant. It gave me a very pleasant feeling in the pit of the stomach, and the taste of it didn't seem calculated to hurt a fly. So I took two more glasses quickly, one after the other; and every one looked at me with their faces very bright all of a sudden—and the room itself grown brighter—and to my astonishment I heard them calling upon me in English for a speech. Whereby, being no public speaker, I excused myself and walked out into the village street, which was bright as day with the moon well over the cliffs on the other side of the gorge, and (to my surprise) crowded with people so that I couldn't have believed the whole City of London held half the number, let alone a god-forsaken hole like Otta. I stood for a while on the doorstep counting 'em, and the next thing I remember was crossing the street to a low wall overhanging the gorge and leaning upon it and watching the cliffs working up and down like mine-stamps. This struck me as curious, and after thinking it over I made up my mind to climb across and discover the reason."
"I fear, Billy," said my uncle, "that you must have been intoxicated."
"But the worst, sir, was the moon; which was not like any ordinary moon, but kept swelling and bursting in showers of the most beautiful fireworks, so that I said to myself, 'O for the wings of a dove,' I said, 'so that I fetch some one to put a stop to this!' And I'd hardly said the words before it was broad day, and me lying in the street with a small crowd about me, very solemn and curious, and my head in the lap of a middle-aged woman that smelt of garlic, but without any pretensions to looks. And she was lifting up her head and singing a song, and the sound of it as melancholy as a gib-cat in a garden of cucumbers. Whereby the whole crowd stood by and stared, without offering to help. Whereby I said to myself, 'This is a pretty business, and no mistake.' Whereby I saw Sir John come forth from the house where the drinking had been, and his face was white but his step steady; and says he, 'What have you been doing to this woman?' 'Nothing at all,' said I; 'or, leastways, nothing to warrant this behaviour on her part.' 'Well,' said he, 'you may be surprised to hear it, but she maintains that you are betrothed to her.' 'A man,' said I, 'may woo where he will, but must wed where his wife is. If this woman be my fate, I'll say no more except that 'tis hard; but as for courting her, I never did so.' 'You are in a worse case than you guess,' said he; 'for, to begin with, the lady is a widow; and, secondly, she is marrying you, not for your looks, but for revenge.' 'Why, what have I done?' said I. 'Nothing at all,' said he; 'but from what I can hear of it, five years ago a man of Evisa, up the valley, stole a goat belonging to this woman's husband; whereupon the husband took a gun and went to Evisa and shot the thief's cousin, mistaking him for the thief; whereupon the thief came down to Otta and shot the honest man one day while he was gathering olives in his orchard. He himself left neither chick nor child; but his kinsmen of the family of Paolantonuccio (I can pronounce the name, gentlemen, if you will kindly look the other way) took up the quarrel, and with so much liveliness that to-day but three of them survive, and these are serving just now with the militia. For the while, therefore, the Widow Paolantonuccio has no one to carry on the custom of the country; nor will have, until a husband offers.' 'For pity's sake, Sir John,' said I, `get me out of this! Tell them that if any man has been courting this woman 'tis not I, William Priske, but another in my image.' 'Why, to be sure!' cried Sir John. 'It must have been the Invincible St. Cyprien!'