"Don't talk!" he warned.
But I insisted; for, as we were by now no more than knee-deep in the water, I knew we must be well up towards the headwaters and it came over me that we had not turned off anywhere as sharply as we should had we turned up either the Chaff or the Flour.
"Are we going up the Bran?" I queried.
"Precisely!" Agathemer breathed.
I almost spoke out loud.
"This," I said, "is the last place on earth I'd expect you to guide me to."
"Precisely," he repeated, "and it's the last place on earth anybody else would expect me to lead you to or you to be in, by any chance; therefore it's the last place in Italy where any one will look for you; therefore it is, just now, the safest place in Italy for you. Come on, I know every stone of this brook."
I followed him. His logic was good, but, on Ducconius Furfur's land I felt hopelessly lost and overwhelmed by despair.
We had not gone far from where I had forced Agathemer to reveal his ruse, when he turned round and whispered:
"This is the place. Here we leave the water. Follow me."