"You can only hope to do it on horseback," continued the man. "It is sixty kilometres, and for thirty of them you mount. No carriage ascends at the trot. The diligence is the quickest on the road. It proceeds at the trot where the hired carriages go at a snail's pace. You hire horses—they are your own. You beat them—hein!"
And he made a gesture descriptive of a successful and timely arrival.
"It is my custom," he went on, confidentially, "to make sure that my patients are comfortably in bed at night. I go this evening to the Chapeau Rouge—Monsieur knows the house—facing the river; wine excellent—drainage leaves to be desired. Well, I find our friend is absent—has taken his luggage. He has vanished—Pfui! I know he is safe at eight o'clock—at ten he is gone. There are no trains. This man wants to get to Italy, I know. There is no boat. One way remains. To take the diligence to St. Martin Lantosque, five miles from the frontier, at the head of the valley of the Vesubie—to walk over the pass; it is but a footpath, and now buried under the snow—to reach the wildest part of northern Italy, and, if the good God so will it, arrive at Entraque. Thence by way of Cuneo and Savona one takes the train to Genoa. I inquire at the diligence office. It is as I suspected. Miste is in the diligence. He is now"—the man paused to consult his watch—"between La Tourette and Levens. It is 11:30. The diligence was twenty minutes late in starting. Our friend has two hours and ten minutes start of these gentlemen."
By way of reply we made greater haste, and, in truth, were aided therein by our new ally, who, if he possessed a busy tongue, had fingers as active.
"The horses," he continued, "await us in the Rue Paradis, just behind here—a quiet street—good horses of two comrades of mine in the mounted gendarmerie who are away on furlough. If necessary, you can leave them at the Hôtel des Alpes, at St. Martin, and write me word. If the horses come to harm, I know these gentlemen will not let my comrades suffer."
Here Alphonse, who had borrowed the money from me earlier in the day, produced two notes of five hundred francs, and pressed them unavailingly on the agent.
As we walked rapidly towards the Rue Paradis, our masterful friend gave us particulars of the road.
"It is," he said, "the route de Levens. Monsieur knows it—well, no matter! They say it was built hundreds of years before the Romans came. One ascends this bank of the river until the road divides, then to the left through the village of St. André. After two kilometres one finds one's self in a gorge—the cliffs on either side of many hundred feet. There are places where the sunlight never enters. It is an ascent always—follows La Tourette, a fortified village high above the road on the right. Then the road becomes dangerous. There are places between Levens and St. Jean de la Rivière where to make a false step is to fall a thousand feet. One hears the Vesubie roaring far below, but the river is invisible—it is dark even at midday. The great cliffs are unbroken by a tree or a pathway. This is the Col du Dragon, a great height. In descending one passes through a long tunnel cut in the rock, and that is half-way. At St. Jean de la Rivière you will find yourselves in the valley of the Vesubie. Here, again, one mounts continually by the side of the river. The road is a dangerous one, for there are landslips and chutes of stone—at times the whole roadway is swept down into the river."
The man, with the quick gestures of his people, described all so graphically that I could see the road and its environments as he traversed it in imagination.
"Before long, however, one sees Venanson," he went on, "a church and village on a point of rock far above the river. At a turn of the road Venanson is left behind; and in front, three thousand feet above the sea, surrounded by snow mountains, lies St. Martin Lantosque. The air is cold, the people are different from the Niçois—it is another world. These gentlemen have a wonderful ride before them, and there is a moon. If I were a younger man—but there! I am married, and have two children. Also I am afraid of my wife. Mon Dieu! I make no concealment of it. My comrades know that I fear nothing that comes in the way of our business; but I tremble before my wife—a little woman as high as my elbow. What will you? A tongue!—Pstt!"