The conductor looked at her with a grin of good-humoured contempt. "Oh," said he briefly, and as if it settled the point, "les femmes ont toujours peur!"
"I am not afraid," she responded (I fear not very truthfully), "but I possess only one neck, and I do not wish to break it!"
"Well, I have only one neck too!"
"Ah! but yours is evidently of less value to you than mine, or you would not risk it so lightly."
A shrug, and a mutter concerning the relative value of heads, male and female, was heard indistinctly; but the exordium was not without its effect, and, rather to our astonishment, the conductor allowed his whip to be influenced by the words of woman. For the next few miles, we were allowed to run down the mountain side at a less breakneck pace, and could enjoy the splendid grey snow-crowned rocks that rose up from the other side of the gorge beneath us, and the chestnut-covered walls towering above our heads, with less fear that every look would be our last, finally reaching the village of Bocognano in safety about four o'clock.
Our fears were not unjustifiable.
When, some weeks later, we returned up this Foce Pass to Corte in our own private carriage, I noticed one of the many black wooden crosses by the roadside about half-way up the pass; and, by chance, asked our driver if he knew its story.
"Oh yes," said he; "that is where the prefect was killed a year ago."
"How did that happen?" we asked.
"Coming down the pass, something broke in the harness, and of course the diligence went over the precipice. The coachman (who is a friend of mine, and told me about it) jumped off somehow and saved himself—he drives the same diligence now—but of course both horses and passengers were killed. There happened however, fortunately, to be only one passenger, the prefect of this part, and he was pitched on his head just here, and died on the spot."