“I might have come on horseback if I had thought of it; but the distance was so short, and I was so eager to relieve you from the embarrassment of being stopped by the guard, that it never occurred to me to get into the saddle,” said the Free Sword, as he rode on beside his brother-in-arms.
Their way lay again through the forest, until they came to another little clearing, with another hut and another guard, at which the Free Sword gave the countersign, and passed with his party.
Then they rode slowly on through the bushes while the two guerrilla leaders conversed in a low tone about the plans of their next campaigns, until they came to a grass-grown old road, on the other side of which was a low stone wall and a rusty iron gate guarded by a small porter’s lodge.
Before the gate paced a sentinel, and from the porter’s lodge, which was turned into a guard house, gleamed a dim light.
Corsoni gave the countersign and passed his party into an area that seemed once to have been the ornamented grounds of some magnificent country seat.
A fine old avenue of elm trees led from the lodge to the distant mansion, from the upper and lower windows of which gleamed dim lights.
All over the lawn, among dilapidated arbors, and dried-up fish ponds, and dead flower beds, were scattered the rude, hastily constructed huts of the guerrillas.
Here and there groups of horses, already saddled and bridled, were tied, as if kept for use at an instant’s warning.
Passing all these, Corsoni led his party up to the mansion, a large, two-story, double-fronted, white stone house, with basement and attic, and with a porch running its whole width in front, supported by huge stone pillars. A flight of stone steps led up to this porch, and to the double hall doors.
A sentinel paced to and fro before the house.