"And you had no mishap?"
"No, mademoiselle," was the grave reply; "I have never had a mishap yet."
As we neared the lofty summit of the Col, shifting clouds ran across our path, and broke about us, dividing us alternately from heaven and earth; but, as at length we reached the top, we found ourselves enveloped in a dense fog of cloudland.
We stood for a moment on the pass to rest the horses, and, as we looked down into that abyss of white vapour, into which we were to plunge in another minute, its trackless desert appeared appalling, and it seemed as if we were going to throw ourselves into a bottomless pit of misty horror. It was almost impossible to believe that land and hill and valley lay beneath that horrible veil.
But Antonio knew every turn of the sharp descent as we flew down the mountain-side; and presently dim misty forms of hills, bleak and bare, with here and there fir woods, but no snow mountains, broke through the thinning clouds.
Ere long they cleared away, and, after passing through lines of magnificent chestnut trees, many scorched and blackened by ruthless forestiers, we looked down upon Ghisoni, situated in a valley closely shut in on all sides just above a foaming river.
It was an ugly village, even for Corsica, and its inn was not cheering in appearance, although more cleanly looking than Bocognano of unsavoury memory.
As it proved, however, this little inn was by no means uncomfortable, and one of the cleanest we had met with.
Whilst waiting for dinner, we took a walk, followed by some twenty or thirty children, and made our way up to the cemetery hill, looking down upon the noisy torrent.
The children were very friendly and not disagreeable, although rather pressing in their attentions, most of the boys taking off their caps, and all of them offering us nosegays of flowers.