‘A bullet will overtake a man, let him ride ever so fast,’ said Gerald calmly; ‘and your Pastore has only to lie in ambush till he has covered me, to make me a very harmless foe; but I was thinking of a fair meeting—man to man——’
A gesture of scornful meaning by the miller here arrested Gerald’s words, and the young man grew crimson with shame and anger together.
‘It is easy enough to say these things, and hard to disprove them; but if I were certain to meet this fellow alone and without his followers, I ‘d take the road you speak of to-morrow without so much as asking where it leads to.’
An insolent laugh from the miller, as he arose from his seat, almost made the young man’s passion boil over.
‘You asked about the “Capri” pass—that’s a picture of it,’ said he, as he pointed to a rude representation of a deep mountain gorge, along which a foaming torrent was wildly dashing. Stunted pine-trees lined the crags, and fantastically-shaped rocks broke the leafy outline, on one of which the artist had drawn the figure of a brigand, as with gun in hand he peered down into the dark glen.
‘That is a spot,’ said the miller half laughingly, ‘the Carabinieri of the Holy Father have never fancied; they tried it once—I forget how many years ago—and left eleven of their comrades behind them, and since that it has been as sacred for them as St. John of Lateran.’
‘But I see no road; it seems to be a mere cleft between the mountains,’ said Gerald.
‘Ay, but there is a road—a sort of bridlepath; it rises from the valley and creeps along up yonder where you see a little railing of wood, and then gains that peak which, winding around it, reaches a wide table-land. I have not been there myself; but they tell me how from that you can see over the whole Maremma, and in fine weather the sea beyond it, and the port of St. Stephano and the islands.’
The miller was now launched upon a favourite theme, and went on to describe how the smugglers, who paid a sort of blackmail for the privilege, usually took this route from the coast into the interior. It saved miles and miles of road, and was besides perfectly safe against all molestation. As it led direct to the Tuscan frontier, it was also selected by all who made their escape from Roman prisons. ‘To be sure,’ added he, ‘it is less frequented now that the Pastore is likely to be met with; for as it is all chance what humour he may have on him, none like to risk their lives in such company.’
Though Gerald was aware that ‘brigandage’ was a Roman institution—a regularly covenanted service of the State, by which no inconsiderable revenue reached the hands of some very exalted individuals—he had never before heard that these outlaws were occasionally employed as actual agents of the Government to arrest and detain travellers against whom suspicion rested, to rifle foreign couriers of the despatches they carried to the Ministers; now and then it was even alleged that they had broken into strong places to destroy documents by which guilt could be proved or innocence established—all of these services being of a nature little likely to reward men for the peril, had they not acted under orders from above! There might possibly have been much exaggeration in the account the miller gave of these men’s lives and functions, but there was that blending of incident and fact with his theorisings that certainly amazed Gerald and interested him deeply. It was, to be sure, no small aid to the force of the narrative that the yellow moonlight was now streaming full upon one side of the very scene where these characters acted, and that from the little window where he sat he could look out upon their mountain-home.