The next day came. At nine o'clock A.M. on the next day there was a singular scene:
A vettura with the fore-wheel crushed into fragments; two horses madly plunging; five men thrown in different directions on a soft sand-bank; and a driver gazing upon the scene with a face of woe.
The Senator tried most energetically to brush the dust from his clothes with an enormous red silk handkerchief; the Doctor and Mr. Figgs looked aghast at huge rents in their nether garments; Buttons and Dick picked themselves up and hurried to the wreck.
The emotions of the former may be conceived. The wheel was an utter smash. No patching however thorough, no care however tender, could place it on its edge again a perfect wheel. A hill rose before them, behind which the Spaniards, hitherto their companions, had disappeared half an hour previously, and were now rolling on over the palin beyond that hill all ignorant of this disaster. Every moment separated them more widely from the despairing Buttons. Could he have metamorphosed himself into a wheel most gladly would he have done it. He had wild thoughts of setting off on foot and catching up to them before the next day. But, of course, further reflection showed him that walking was out of the question.
Dick looked on in silence. They were little more than a day's journey from Rome. Civita Castellana lay between; yet perhaps a wheel might not be got at Civita Castellana. In that case a return to Rome was inevitable. What a momentous thought! Back to Rome! Ever since he left he had felt a profound melancholy. The feeling of homesickness was on him. He had amused himself with keeping his eyes shut and fancying that he was moving to Rome instead of from it. He had repented leaving the city. Better, he thought, to have waited. He might then have seen Pepita. The others gradually came to survey the scene.
"Eh? Well, what's to be done now?" said Buttons, sharply, as the driver came along. "How long are you going to wait?"
"Signore makes no allowance for a poor man's confusion. Behold that wheel! What is there for me to do--unhappy? May the bitter curse of the ruined fall upon that miserable wheel!"
[Illustration: Travelling In Italy.]
"The coach has already fallen on it," said Dick. "Surely that is enough."